The Fastest Way to Learn Occitan in 2026

The fastest way to learn Occitan is to spend most of your study time on Occitan you can mostly understand. That kind of Occitan is called comprehensible input. Below, each of six levels names something to read or hear, and a bar shows one way to split an hour. Bubblegum teaches everyday Languedocien, written in the classical spelling.

Find the level that sounds like you. Its bar shows how to spend an hour of study.

1. Level 1

   I'm just starting out or know only a few words.

   • Read and listen 35 min
   • Review 15 min
   • Speak 10 min

   Choose one of two ways to start. The easiest way is Bubblegum, where Poppy, your AI tutor, writes short Occitan lessons at your level about your interests and goals and explains the grammar as you go. The other way is to study on your own with Easy Occitan, a free guide in English to Languedocien pronunciation and basic grammar. It has no audio, so play the phrases on Loecsen, a free course with audio for each phrase, whose pages do not name its variety. The textbook L'Occitan by Nicolas Quint is taught in French and its recordings are sold separately, so it suits you only if you read French. Plan on a few weeks of hard study to learn the basic grammar before you start using apps.

   • Easy Occitan
   • Loecsen
   • Textbook in French: L'Occitan
2. Level 2

   I can read simple sentences.

   • Read and listen 40 min
   • Review 10 min
   • Speak 10 min

   If you use Bubblegum, read its Level 2 lessons with the translation hidden, and look up only the words that stop you. If you study on your own, read the Languedocien stories on Duostories, where short questions check what you understood, and play each one again without reading along.

   • Duostories
3. Level 3

   I can read short stories and messages.

   • Read and listen 40 min
   • Review 5 min
   • Speak 15 min

   At this level you need more words, so read and listen a lot. Bubblegum reuses the words you saved in new Level 3 lessons. Also watch Afars Occitans on ÒCtele with the Occitan subtitles on, and spend 15 minutes talking about what you watched. Look up any verb form you are unsure of in the Lo Vèrbòc conjugator.

   • ÒCtele
   • Dicodòc and Lo Vèrbòc
4. Level 4

   I can read longer texts about everyday life.

   • Read and watch 45 min
   • Review 5 min
   • Speak 10 min

   Read Bubblegum lessons at Level 4 to learn more words. Then read Vicipèdia articles about things you like, and read the headline and first lines of a Jornalet story on a topic you already know.

   • Vicipèdia
   • Jornalet
5. Level 5

   I can follow complex topics, but miss some details.

   • Read and watch 50 min
   • Speak 10 min

   Read Bubblegum lessons at Level 5 about topics you follow. Read whole news stories on Jornalet, and watch ÒCtele programs without subtitles. Look up only the words that stop you in Dicodòc.

   • Jornalet
   • ÒCtele
6. Level 6

   I can read almost anything.

   • Read and watch 50 min
   • Speak 10 min

   Read Letras de mon molin, Daudet's tales in Languedocien, and talk about what you read. Poppy can write your Level 6 lessons about anything you're into.

   • Letras de mon molin

Move up a level when your lessons start to feel easy, and move back down if you can't tell what's happening by the third line.

The U.S. Foreign Service Institute does not list Occitan, so it has no hour count for it. One published workload is Nicolas Quint's course L'Occitan, which has 100 lessons that the Cambridge University Language Centre says are each designed for about 30 minutes of study. That is about 50 hours of lessons, and here is how long 50 hours takes at different amounts of study a week:

These are lesson hours for one course in French. They leave out the reading and listening you do around the lessons, and they do not promise a level. The DCL Occitan exam has three levels, A, B and C, which cover CEFR A1 to C2.

• 🔀Mixing VarietiesA word can change by region: ostal is Languedocien for “house”, and other varieties say ostau or estau. Keep to one variety while you build your first words.
• 🔠Guessing the Sound From EnglishSome letters sound different from English. In Languedocien v is pronounced like b, and ò sounds like the o in “John”. Hear each new word before you say it.
• 🇫🇷Writing French ArticlesLanguedocien says lo and la for “the”, and los and las in the plural. Check each article you wrote from habit.