In today’s day and age, YouTube can be used for a wide variety of purposes. You can watch movies, listen to music, or laugh at silly cat videos. Educators use YouTube to show educational videos in class. Fans use YouTube to live stream events, including concerts or other performances. Gamers might use YouTube to help them learn how to beat a difficult level of their favorite video game.
For language learners, however, YouTube has another great usage. Many great language teachers share their knowledge, and helpful tips and tricks, through educational YouTube channels. These can be great for hearing the language used, and having the rules of grammar and pronunciation presented to you in an aural way, as opposed to a silent book. These channels also offer fun videos, apart from their typical instructional videos, that give exciting and interesting insight into Italian culture, or highlight some of the unique differences between Italian and English. There are even specific videos for grammar rules that you may find especially frustrating and difficult to comprehend.
Here we present to you, in no particular order, a list of our favourite YouTube channels for learning Italian!
1. Italy Made Easy
Manu Venditti hosts this YouTube channel, along with running his website of the same name. His channel offers direct instructional videos, as well as fun videos about culture (very similar in style to the videos YouTubers make and target towards teenagers), as well as short videos that explain common challenging topics. The best thing about Italy Made Easy, especially for beginners that have never studied a foreign language before, is that Manu speaks English fluently and gives instructional lectures in English about Italian grammar and pronunciation.
2. Passione Italiana
Silvia, Marta, and Alex host Passione Italiana on YouTube. Marta hosts the vast majority of the videos, which are long and grammatically-driven and can rival the helpfulness of a textbook. In her videos, Marta speaks in full sentences, at a normal speed, in Italian; then, she repeats herself completely in English. She offers videos geared towards total beginners, A2 level learners, B1 and B2 level learners, all the way to C1 level learners.
For a fun change, Passione Italiana also has two other hosts who offer different videos that target B and C level students. Alex creates short videos that offer quick “pills” to help improve your Italian. His videos, fully in Italian, go in-depth into some of the finer details of the language, offering more advanced usages of verbs or other concepts.
Even more unique are Silvia’s fun videos, fully in Italian, that walk the viewer through an alternative recipe. Her alternative recipes are healthier, or they may use a substituted ingredient. She speaks slowly, offering students that struggle with listening a greater chance to process and comprehend. Because her videos are a walkthrough, she visually demonstrates the spoken instructions for complete comprehension.
3. Weilà Tom
Learn Italian alongside a bilingual speaker! Weilà Tom is an American citizen of Italian ancestry. He credits English as his first language, and grew up practising Italian. Tom’s videos are not super formal.
More often than not, he is recording while he is out and about on the town, not set up in a fancy recording studio or home office. In his most recent videos (he’s been around for more than 10 years!), he doesn’t offer direct instruction like the previous two channels. Instead, he offers quick tips to learn new phrases, ways to use particular words, or tips on teaching yourself a language.
Because Tom is a mother tongue English-speaker, he explains everything about the grammar and usage of Italian in understandable English. My favourite thing about this channel? Tom pauses frequently, much like an in-person teacher, to allow the viewer to stop and think about the grammar and guess what the answer is. He gives viewers a moment to check in with themselves and use the skills they’ve learned to use Italian independently. So when he says “pause and tell me what you think in the comments section below”, he really means it!
4. Learn Italian with Lucrezia
Lucrezia is an Italian-native who teaches Italian, and one of the most well-known Italian teachers on the web. In her YouTube channel, she offers many different types of videos that target B-level learners. Lucrezia speaks and instructs solely in Italian, so her educational videos are always fully immersive. Some of the unique video series she offers on her channel include “what to say in Italian in this situation?”, “Daily uses of….” (this series gives context to common words), “expand your Italian vocabulary”, and “Italian in context” (this series uses film clips to contextualise Italian phrases). Definitely one of our favourites!
5. Italian per Tutti
Italian Per Tutti is a YouTube channel dedicated to learning and improving Italian skills. The host creates his videos through a slideshow presentation with a video camera overlay, much like when someone “shares their screen” during a Zoom call. He offers an impressive assortment of videos on a wide variety of topics, including grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, travel, culture, artworks, and cuisine. He even has listening exercises in which he conducts an interview with a guest speaker about an interesting topic.
Italian Per Tutti may not be the best option for beginners, as the host speaks in fast-paced Italian only and does not utilise gestures or visualisations to help give context to difficult vocabulary or verbal phrases. His long-length videos are ideal for dedicated high B-level students looking for a challenge.
6. Fun and Easy Italian
Marco hosts this YouTube channel. His videos are made of slideshow presentations, each slide filled with text and colourful clip art images. They would even be entertaining to a young learner! Marco speaks at an appropriate slow pace, perfect for learners. His spoken words are always accompanied by a text displayed on the screen for simultaneous reading. In the majority of his videos, Marco is an unseen voice. In his more modern YouTube “shorts”, his kindly face teaches vocabulary and other fun, quick tidbits.
Fun and Easy Italian is the perfect channel for Italian language teachers looking for videos to enhance their lessons. While I would not recommend this channel as your main resource while studying Italian, it does make for a fun supplement to your studies – especially for beginners.
7. Easy Italian
Katie and Matteo bring fun, whimsy, and humour into their Easy Italian videos. These videos are produced like a skit rather than boring, direct instructional videos; they remind me of segments in humorous talk shows. They use visuals, gestures, and repetition to ensure that grammar and pronunciation content is clearly expressed. All videos are subbed in both Italian and English for simultaneous reading. In my personal opinion, this might be one of the best channels on this list for new learners. They don’t even offer content specifically targeted for higher-level learners.
For fun, Easy Italian also produces “on-the-street”-style videos. The hosts (and their friends) take to the streets of Milan to interview random passersby on various topics. These videos are great listening exercises for new learners!
8. Vaporetto Italiano
Francesco is the host of Vaporetto Italiano. He creates videos for learning Italian that feel very much like being in an actual classroom with an actual teacher. In his videos, he explains the rules of grammar, gives quick comprehension checks and assessments, and offers a variety of ways to learn and study Italian. Truly, his is a channel that is perfect for dedicated learners who want to learn Italian quickly, and learn well. Francesco speaks Italian 99% of the time in his videos, using a singular English word every once in a while. For comprehension-sake, he includes occasional English translations as a text on the screen. Vaporetto Italiano has videos about grammar, listening and reading exercises, and interviews with special guests.
The thing I love most about this channel are the visuals provided in grammar videos. As a visual learner who learns best when there is a graph or chart to contextualise and compartmentalise the content, Francesco’s use of grammar tables in his videos makes me extremely happy!
9. Pillole d’Italiano
Ludovica’s YouTube channel Pillole d’Italiano is dedicated to little tidbits about the Italian language and culture. Her goal is to satisfy your curiosity and pique your interest in the Italian culture. She speaks fast-paced, both in Italian and in English. At times, she will repeat full sentences, first in Italian, then in English. At other times, she will smoothly slide from one language into the other and back all within one singular sentence. Ludovica gives many explanations in English, but will typically switch back to Italian phrases when using grammatical terminology. The videos of Pillole d’Italiano may not always be the most visually exciting with images or fun logos, but they are short, sweet, and to the point. Ludovica’s videos are not long, and her words and mode of speaking are interesting enough to keep your attention.
10. LearnAmo
Graziano and Rocco host the extremely popular YouTube channel LearnAmo, which is dedicated to learning the Italian language. They have videos targeted for A-level students, B-level learners, and C-level scholars. Beyond those videos, they also have entertaining skits to help learn useful expressions for every situation, and videos that take you on a tour around il Bel Paese.
The videos meant for beginners (A-levels) are, if I may be so honest, not well created for this level. The host speaks extremely quickly, with lots of written text, long sentences, and advanced vocabulary. It can be overwhelming. If you are a new learner, perhaps consider starting your journey of studying Italian with a different YouTube channel.
That being said, LearnAmo is a great resource for veteran learners, particularly the B- and C-level students. The host speaks at an appropriate speed and gives helpful examples for the content in question.
11. My Italian Circle
Anna and Diana host My Italian Circle. Their videos are specially targeted for English speakers hoping to learn and improve their Italian. This channel offers a wide variety of video lessons, so many that it feels very reminiscent of being in a language school. The diversified options for learning in different ways are sure to keep you interested while you study with My Italian Circle. There are videos for learning useful vocabulary in context, listening comprehension, and, of course, simple grammar videos. For added fun and interest, My Italian Circle includes quiz-game videos; videos about art, operas, and movies; and videos that analyse the news.
Anna’s videos are visually pleasing, filled with pictures, videos, and hand gestures. She speaks at an appropriate pace for the targeted audience, using English as necessary to explain a concept, while making use of text boxes to allow viewers to listen and read simultaneously. Most importantly, My Italian Circle videos use lots of examples to give plenty of context to the topics discussed.
12. Podcast Italiano
Podcast Italiano probably isn’t the channel to go to if you are looking to learn the Italian language from scratch. But, if you have already begun learning and are not sure what more there is to know, this is the YouTube channel for you! Podcast Italiano doesn’t create specific videos for teaching grammar; instead, his videos give cultural context to things that happen in the Italian language. His videos are perfect for supplementing your studies after you grow comfortable with speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Amongst his videos are topics on regional accents, geographical differences between the North and the South, and the modern uses of the formal “you”.
13. Italiano Automatico
For Italian learners that understand the grammar and have a fair vocabulary, but are terrified to speak and are apprehensive to listen, this YouTube channel is here to help! Italiano Automatico aims to help improve your language skills using a method known as the “natural method”. Instead of teaching directly, giving specific instruction, this channel teaches in the same way a baby learns its first language, by listening and experiencing the language. That is why, in these videos, you will meet the host’s family members who want only to encourage you to speak and improve. Videos from this channel may feel like watching a personal blog, but they are specially designed to help you practice listening and engaging with the Italian language.
14. Teacher Stefano
The teacher host of this channel is Stefano, as the channel’s name suggests. He offers a variety of video types. Even amongst just his grammar-based videos, viewers have two choices: a video fully in Italian (with English subtitles), or a video with explanations of the grammar rules in English. He also has videos for adding to your vocabulary by giving useful expressions in context. Teacher Stefano also has an entertaining personal vlog series that he uses as listening and comprehension checks.
The best thing about Teacher Stefano’s channel is his explanation of grammar rules and usages in a way that doesn’t sound or feel like a boring textbook. He uses a casual, laidback style of speaking even while discussing the most complicated rules of grammar.
15. Dolce Vita with Luca & Marina
Luca and his partner, Marina, built the Dolce Vita channel on YouTube. Luca is an Italian citizen from Rome while Marina is a foreigner. Together, they have created a video series called Learn Italian in 30 Days. In these videos, Luca teaches Italian grammar while speaking in English and Marina gives examples of the content. Dolce Vita also offers supplemental grammar videos which are shorter than their usual videos and cover more advanced topics. You can also watch a personal vlog that will help you practice listening and comprehending Italian in conversational contexts.
Some of their videos might appear to have a lower quality of visual, but the mode of teaching is perfect for beginners hoping to learn and improve their Italian quickly, perhaps for an upcoming vacation abroad.
My absolute favorite part of the Dolce Vita channel, something I have not seen done so well by any other channel on this list, is a series to help viewers learn slang and become accustomed to modern and colloquial Italian. Speak Italian Like A Real Italian teaches slang phrases and gives them meaning and context, all while explaining the cultural usage – such as warnings about a phrase being potentially rude, or even crude.
16. Professor Dave Explains
Professor Dave explains a lot of things. His channel is technically targeted towards teaching science to high school-aged students in the United States, but he does have other video series as well! Amongst his many video series, he has a series for learning Italian. At the time of writing this article, his playlist has 135 videos about the Italian language. Professor Dave’s videos start off with a humorously whimsical theme song, then goes on to a short vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, or culture lesson. Everything is taught in perfect English. For learners that love a good table or chart, you will love Professor Dave.
There are hundreds of language learning channels available on YouTube; these are just 16 of our favourites. YouTube can be a great resource for language learners. It allows you opportunities to read, hear, and experience the Italian language. And, best of all, these resources are all free. Some channels may offer additional resources – some paid – through their own blog or website, but the videos on YouTube are free. Depending on your current skill level, interests, and desired areas of improvement, we are certain you will find a YouTube channel that offers the lessons and content you need to continue to build your Italian skills.
Heather Broster is a graduate with honours in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario. She is an aspiring polyglot, proficient in English and Italian, as well as Japanese, Welsh, and French to varying degrees of fluency. Originally from Toronto, Heather has resided in various countries, notably Italy for a period of six years. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction.
