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Italiano Italian
Standard Italian, formal Lei with strangers.
No card. $19.95 a month afterwards, for Italian alone.
Hear it
Three lines from the Italian set
Not samples written for this page — these are blocks from the shipped content, exactly as you would drill them.
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Faccio lo sviluppatore di software.I'm a software developer.fare il/lo + job is the everyday way to say what you do.
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Scusi, ce l’ha di un’altra taglia?Excuse me, do you have it in another size?ce l’ha — the ci is idiomatic with avere here and cannot be dropped.
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Potrebbe ripetere, per favore? La linea è disturbata.Could you repeat that, please? The line is bad.disturbata — disturbed — is what Italians say of a bad line. Potrebbe is the formal conditional, softer than può.
Audio uses your browser's built-in voices. If nothing plays, no Italian voice is installed on this device — the app says so plainly rather than failing quietly.
What is inside
14 islands
Each is a topic you can hold up on your own for thirty seconds. Build few, drill them past the point of thinking.
- My work Il mio lavoro The second question anyone asks. Have all of it ready cold.
- Why I study Italian Perché studio l'italiano Fires the moment anyone compliments your Italian. It always comes.
- My family La mia famiglia Rewrite this one first. Wrong details here are worse than none.
- Ordering a meal Al ristorante Transactional, frequent, unforgiving of hesitation. Drill to reflex.
- Where I live Dove abito Pairs with the work island — somebody always asks where you came from.
- What I do outside work Il mio tempo libero The island that keeps a conversation going once the basics are done.
- Getting around Spostarsi in città You need this while tired and carrying luggage. Overlearn it.
- Shopping Fare la spesa Short, frequent exchanges where hesitating costs you the queue.
- Weather and small talk Due chiacchiere The filler that keeps a silence from becoming awkward.
- Making plans Prendere accordi The moment a conversation could become a second meeting.
- When something goes wrong Quando qualcosa va storto The island you will need under stress, which is when improvising fails.
- Opinions and preferences La mia opinione What turns an interview into a conversation.
- On the phone Al telefono The conversation with no gestures to lean on. Get the opening automatic and the rest follows.
- Officialdom In comune Italian bureaucracy has its own vocabulary and no patience for improvisation. Drill it cold.
Under pressure
6 staged conversations
Drills tell you which island is coming. These do not — somebody speaks first, and you work out which of your islands answers them.
- Meeting someone at a party A friend's flat in Milan. The man by the kitchen turns and starts talking. Three of your islands answer everything he is about to ask — the only question is whether you reach the right one in time. 4 beats
- Dinner for two A full trattoria at nine on a Saturday. The waiter is moving fast and will not slow down. Every beat is a sentence you already have — this is a speed test, not a comprehension one. 5 beats
- Small talk on the train An hour to Bologna and the woman opposite has decided to talk. She uses Lei throughout, as a stranger would — your answers are first person either way, so the island still fits. 5 beats
- Making the connection Eleven minutes before your train and the boards are no help. The man at the window is helpful but quick, and every fumbled question costs a minute you do not have. 4 beats
- Buying something that fits A department store on a Saturday. The assistant reaches you within seconds, so the "just looking" line has to be ready before you have decided anything. 4 beats
- Something went wrong Customer service on a Monday with a queue behind you. Complaining in a second language is where politeness and clarity pull against each other — these blocks do both. 4 beats
How Italian is graded
Graded word by word, with a near-miss tier for accents.
Accents and apostrophes are near misses rather than failures. Doubled consonants are not — in Italian they change the word, so the grader treats them as a real error.
Every drill grades what you actually produced, word by word or character by character, and shows you the exact unit you dropped. The number is there so the scheduler knows what to bring back; the marking is there so you can see what to fix.
Seven days of Italian, free
No card, nothing to cancel. If the drilling works, it is $19.95 a month for Italian — and your islands stay yours either way.
Open Italian