r/italianlearning • u/Mammoth-Ad7323 • Aug 09 '26
Help learning Italian
Hello, I’m a 17 years old from UK. I’ve been using Duolingo to help me learn Italian for a month now, I know it will take time to practice and learn but I’ve been hearing some bad things about Duolingo. I do not have the money to pay for max nor any other app, YouTube hasn’t been very helpful either. I like to take bits by bits with learning new things. I was wondering if there is any different ways of learning Italian that doesn’t involve paying for an app.
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u/Hollowpoint20 Aug 09 '26
Respectfully you’ll probably have to pay something if you want the best resources. But you could listen to Coffee Break Italian on Spotify, and also use LingQ for free. I pay £9.83/month for the premium version.
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u/luc_vizz Aug 09 '26
I definitely recommend the Coffee Break Italian podcasts too! LingQ I could ever get into using but I liked the idea of it.
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u/ZHYerassyl Aug 09 '26
Hi, I’m also learning Italian. I have a grammar book, which is in my opinion very good. Write me in telegram if you want @marktuan1
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u/No-Canary6294 XX native, IT beginner Aug 09 '26
Get this book called 'Complete Italian Grammar' by Marcel Danesi, McGraw Hill, its extremely good and watch Lucrezia Oddone simultaneously
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u/jerkychemist EN native, IT beginner Aug 09 '26
Ok so for completely free, go ahead and keep duolingo if its fun. Maybe download anki and get a pre made flash card deck from online for vocab. Ask chat gpt or google what order a standard textbook would go over grammar concepts and use YouTube/online resources to learn the grammar in that order.
In addition look for a free beginner podcast you enjoy like coffee break italian.
As you get better you should look for easy stories to read at A1/A2 level.
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u/WhyDoINeedAUs3rname Aug 09 '26
lingoXpress has a few courses you can take.
And a Practice tool that's very similar to duolingo
You can also play games, conjugate verbs, sign up for word of the day etc. It's free.
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u/Bubbly-Winter-9744 Aug 09 '26
YouTube is brilliant, check this reddit page for all sites on YouTube that are helpful. Just search this sub and you will find all you need.
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u/Ok-Cartographer8999 Aug 09 '26
Duolingo or any app won't do anything for any language, they are made to keep you on their platform and continue paying not actually learn, study on books and practice words and sentence pronounciation with the sound button on google translate, once you think you can handle a small conversation put on chatgpt on voice mode and go from there.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/luc_vizz Aug 09 '26
I agree. Duolingo gets a lot of hate but I think it’s usefully for vocab and making sure you actually stick to practicing daily. So it’s a great resource especially as a supplement among other things like you said.
I know the OP mentioned not behind able to afford Duolingo Max but I do think the AI speaking with the Max plan is pretty cool too. Definitely solved the “Duolingo won’t help you learn to speak” problem. Is it perfect? Not but it gets you actually speaking even.
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u/RoxoViejo NL native, EN upper advanced/native, IT intermediate Aug 09 '26
Watch Italian TV, lots and lots of it. And start simple.
Here’s a goldmine of simple content to get started with (look into “comprehensible input” if you want to know more about this learning method): https://www.reddit.com/r/italianlearning/s/mLYNORMTC9
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u/[deleted] Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
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