Have you always loved the sound and musicality of the Italian language?   Perhaps you’ve visited an Italian city and wished you could chat with local people. Or maybe you would like to be able to read a menu, talk about yourself, your job and find out about other people’s.

Whether you have no previous experience of Italian  or you have already picked up some words and phrases from travelling across Italy, this introduction gives you a chance to start an exciting new learning experience, with a range of activities.

This introduction offers the perfect opportunity to develop the skills needed to communicate effectively in Italian in everyday contexts!

This OpenLearn course is an extract from the beginning of the Open Centre for Languages and Cultures short course, LXI001 Beginners Italian 1: primi passi. After completing this free course, you may wish to register for the full course to continue your learning!

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• Order food and drink using key phrases and recognise the words for drinks and snacks in an Italian bar
• Understand the different ways of serving coffee in Italy
• Say please and thank you
• Recognise different nouns and their gender
• Appreciate some of the most famous Italian bars and the specialities available when visiting them.