Many Italian learners stall in the same place. Italian is spelled almost exactly the way it sounds, so they can read a menu aloud early on, and they learn verb tables with six forms for every tense. They still cannot follow two friends chatting over coffee. Tables and word lists don't turn into understanding on their own. Comprehensible input is the fix: you spend the same study time on Italian where you already know almost every word, so the few new ones explain themselves.
What Comprehensible Input Looks Like
Each row below is a sentence. The gray bars are words you already know, and the purple bar is the one that is new.
About one new word per sentence.
At this difficulty you keep reading, because everything around the new word tells you what it means. You work it out yourself, and a word learned that way stays with you far longer than one memorized from a list.
Your Roadmap by Level
Bubblegum sorts every lesson into six levels, and each level is described by a sentence about the learner. Find the sentence that sounds like you, and the row tells you what to read and what to do.
- Level 1
I'm just starting out or know only a few words.
Read short dialogues that come with audio and a translation. For your first videos, Easy Italian has a Super Easy Italian series.
Level 1 lessons about cafes and markets - Level 2
I can handle simple exchanges.
Read dialogues about food and shopping with the translation hidden, and look up only the words that stop you. For listening, Simple Italian Podcast and Italiano Bello use slow, simple Italian.
Level 2 lessons about cafes and markets - Level 3
I follow conversations on familiar topics.
Add the short news stories on EasyItalianNews.com, which come with audio, and listen to each lesson once more without reading along.
Level 3 lessons about cafes and markets - Level 4
I understand most content but miss some nuance.
Watch Easy Italian's street interviews with the Italian subtitles on. Listen to Slow Italian, Fast Learning from the Australian broadcaster SBS, which reads the news slowly each week.
Level 4 lessons about cafes and markets - Level 5
I read complex topics but rare words slow me down.
Listen to Podcast Italiano's advanced episodes with the transcript open, and look up only the words that block the meaning.
- Level 6
I read at near-native level.
Listen to radio shows on RaiPlay Sound, from Italy's public broadcaster Rai, and read novels and the news for their own sake.
Move up a level when the current one starts to feel easy. Move back down if you lose the thread by the third line.
Try It on a Real Lesson
The lesson below comes from Bubblegum, where Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Italian lessons at your level. You can read it here just as you would in the app. Read it at three levels and notice which one you can follow while still looking up a few words.
One Situation, Three Levels
From Bubblegum’s guide Ordering Food and Drinks at Italian Cafes and Markets. It works here the way it works inside Bubblegum.
I can handle simple exchanges.
At the coffee shop in the morning
Marco enters the bar and greets the barista.
Hi Giulia, I arrived early this morning!
Hi Marco! Did you order the usual coffee?
Yes, I had a fresh croissant.
Perfect, I got everything ready right away!
Frequently Asked Questions About Comprehensible Input
Do I need to learn the verb tables first?
No. Open a grammar note when a verb form confuses you. You learn common forms such as vorrei (I would like) by meeting them again and again in sentences you understand.
Do I need to learn an Italian dialect too?
No. Start with standard Italian, which is what these lessons use. In a 2015 survey by Istat, Italy's national statistics office, about 46% of people spoke mostly Italian with their family, and another 32% used both Italian and a local dialect.
Is Bubblegum free?
Yes. The lesson library is free for everyone, because we believe everyone should be able to learn. It holds lessons that other learners asked Poppy for. A new custom lesson costs us real money to make, so your first one is free, and Bubblegum Pro gives you unlimited custom lessons.
The Italian lessons on this site are also free and need no account.
