Learn Italian

Italian is a roman language spoken by around 60 million people in Italy and another 70 million people around the world. Out of the roman languages, it is considered to be the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary.

Italy has always had a distinctive dialect for each city as those cities used to be independent city-states. One of those dialects – the Tuscan dialect (spoken in Florence, Pisa and Vienna) – imposed itself as the current modern Italian, not for political, economic o military reasons as often, but thanks to the cultural prestige it had acquired as the language of The Divine Comedy, considered as the first masterpiece written in the "lingua moderna".

Italian is a mother language in Italy, Switzerland, San Marino and Vatican. It is also one of the official languages within the European Union. Italian is also spoken in more than 26 other countries where the Italian migrant community is important. For example: United States, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela, Canada and Germany.

Italian around the world

Countries where Italian is a native and official language Italian is identified as the secondary or non-official language Italian is identified as a minor language

Why learn Italian?

Because:

• You can add some new skills to your CV - Speaking Italian could be a great advantage at every job interview in international business.
• Learning Italian would help you in learning other languages - especially other Latin languages (French, Spanish and Portuguese)
• Italian is one of the major languages in the European Community
• Italy has one of the largest cultural and artistic heritages of the world. Italian is the language of cuisine, theatre, architecture and arts
• “All roads lead to Rome!”

How can I learn Italian on busuu.com?

With busuu.com you can learn Italian online, directly from native speakers around the world. In addition to learning directly from other users, you can use our highly interactive language learning material in the form of learning units. A learning unit contains the most important vocabulary and phrases of a certain topic.

What can I do within my learning units?

Within each unit, you can practice your language skills in the following areas:

	Vocabulary: Firstly you will find the important phrases and vocabulary that you need to know. All the vocabularies are represented by a picture and supported by the voice of a professional voice artist. If you are a Premium Member , you can also listen to the key phrases.
	Dialogue: Then you can do a reading comprehension in the form of a dialogue and answer questions to check your understanding. If you are a Premium Member , you can also listen to the audio of the dialogue.
	Writing exercise: You then write a short text and let other users correct you.
	busuu-talk: You can practice your language skills by connecting with native speakers of our community. We offer an integrated video-chat-application which allows you to chat or even speak with other users. If you access the busuu-talk from a learning unit you will find a question related to the unit which you can discuss with your busuu-talk partner.
	Review: Finally, do a short quiz to check what you have learned.
	PDF: You can print out a PDF-transcript of all the grammar and learning units to study even while you are not online.This function is only available if you are a Premium Member
	Podcast: You can listen to podcasts (audio-files) of all the vocabulary, example sentences and dialogues of all the grammar and learning units. This function is only available if you are a Premium Member