Introducing

Coffee Break Italian

Free podcasts

Listen to our free podcasts and learn or improve your Italian on the go, where and when it suits you.

Online courses

Take the next step and sign up for a course on the Coffee Break Academy, accessing video materials, lesson notes and bonus audio content.

Join in

Improve your vocabulary, build your language skills and keep up with the Coffee Break Italian team on social media.

Join the Masterclass!

The Coffee Break Italian Masterclass of February 2024 is now available for registration. If you’re an intermediate learner wanting to move on to an advanced level, this 6-month course is perfect for you!

Latest lessons

We publish regular lessons both in the Coffee Break Italian podcast feed and on our YouTube channel. Here’s a selection of our most recent lessons.

How to pronounce ‘gli’ in Italian

Have you ever found yourself tongue-tied when trying to pronounce the Italian sound gli? You’re not alone! Gli is considered one of the trickiest sounds to master in Italian, mainly because...

Read More

How do you say “the” in Italian?

How do we translate “the” into Italian? There are, in fact, seven options, and it depends on the grammatical gender (masculine or feminine) and the number (singular or plural) of...

Read More

‘Avere’ expressions practice

There are many expressions in Italian that are used very often, but which you may have to think twice about before translating directly from English. If you want to say...

Read More

Useful expressions with ‘avere’

The verb avere was probably one of the first verbs you came across in Italian. Of course, its basic meaning is “to have”, but there are many useful everyday expressions that use avere in...

Read More

Choose your level ...

Coffee Break Italian is currently available in three levels, represented by each “season”. Each season features 40 lessons.

Absolute beginners

Your first steps

Your first steps

Learn to use Italian confidently when travelling, ordering food and drinks, making friends and shopping in an Italian-speaking country.
More info

Lower Intermediate

Taking it further

Taking it further

Build your knowledge from Season 1, learn to use Italian grammar to "say what you want to say" and become more confident.
More info

Upper Intermediate

Moving on

Moving on

Look at more advanced grammar and build your range of expression with lively conversations and explanations.
More info

Each series is slightly different in the way in which it is presented and in the materials provided. Scroll down for more information and to find out about our Coffee Break Italian Magazine course.

Your Coffee Break ... your way

Free podcasts

Each Season of Coffee Break Italian offers a huge amount of free content available as audio podcasts. You can access these on our website, on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and Spotify and each lesson lasts around 15-20 minutes - the perfect Coffee Break length!

Online course

If you'd like to take your learning further and make faster progress, we offer a full online course for each Season. Resources include bonus audio materials, video episodes and lesson notes. See below for further details for each Season.

Free podcasts

Audio content for all seasons
Free
  • Audio podcasts

Online course (£GBP)

per season of 40 lessons
£ 120
00
One-off purchase
  • 40 Audio lessons
  • 40 Bonus audio lessons
  • 40 Video lessons
  • 40 Lesson notes

Online course ($USD)

per season of 40 lessons
$ 145
00
One-off purchase
  • 40 Audio lessons
  • 40 Bonus audio lessons
  • 40 Video lessons
  • 40 Lesson notes

Please note that all prices include tax or VAT where applicable.

Join the conversation

Join the conversation with the Coffee Italian team on social media! We post regular language and cultural information on Facebook, and you can keep up with Coffee Break Languages on Instagram.

Facebook

Follow Coffee Break Italian on Facebook and practise your language skills with our cultural and language posts three times a week.

Twitter

Keep up to date with our latest news and lessons. You can find us on Twitter where we're @learnitalian.

YouTube

Over on the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel, you'll find useful videos to help you improve your Italian. Read on for more information.

Instagram

Come behind the scenes with the Coffee Break team, and build your vocabulary and understanding with our regular Instagram stories. Follow @coffeebreaklanguages .

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

The Coffee Break Italian Magazine

Our latest lessons

We publish regular lessons both in the Coffee Break Italian podcast feed and on our YouTube channel. Here’s a selection of our most recent lessons.

Coffee Break Italian
Ava (Coffee Break Team)

How to apologise and ask for permission in Italian

“I’m sorry!” – a very common phrase in any conversation, but what is the best way to say sorry in Italian? There are many ways to say sorry, excuse yourself and ask for permission in Italian, and the one to

Read More »
Coffee Break Italian
Ava (Coffee Break Team)

How to pronounce ‘gli’ in Italian

Have you ever found yourself tongue-tied when trying to pronounce the Italian sound gli? You’re not alone! Gli is considered one of the trickiest sounds to master in Italian, mainly because it’s not commonly found in many other languages. But there’s

Read More »
Coffee Break Italian
Ava (Coffee Break Team)

How do you say “the” in Italian?

How do we translate “the” into Italian? There are, in fact, seven options, and it depends on the grammatical gender (masculine or feminine) and the number (singular or plural) of the noun. The Coffee Break Italian Show is a podcast

Read More »
Coffee Break Italian
Ava (Coffee Break Team)

‘Avere’ expressions practice

There are many expressions in Italian that are used very often, but which you may have to think twice about before translating directly from English. If you want to say that you’re hungry, for example, it may take a while

Read More »
Coffee Break Italian
Ava (Coffee Break Team)

Useful expressions with ‘avere’

The verb avere was probably one of the first verbs you came across in Italian. Of course, its basic meaning is “to have”, but there are many useful everyday expressions that use avere in which the verb doesn’t translate as “to have”. The Coffee

Read More »

Frequently Asked Questions

Coffee Break Italian is a production of the Radio Lingua Network and we produce all Coffee Break Languages courses, along with One Minute Languages and High Five Languages for younger learners. The Radio Lingua team is made up of experienced teachers and native speakers and we’re based in Glasgow, Scotland. To find out more about the team, visit our Meet The Team section of the website.

We offer free content in the form of audio podcasts for each of the seasons of Coffee Break Italian. In the audio podcasts you’ll be able to build your understanding of Italian and hear how words are pronounced. However, there’s no guidance on how the words are written. This is where the online course comes in. The course offers additional materials:

  • full versions of each audio lesson;
  • a video version of the lesson which allows you to see the “words on the screen” as you listen;
  • bonus audio content allowing you to consolidate your learning futher;
  • lesson notes with vocabulary and additional explanations.

If you’re serious about learning Italian we would suggest that you consider the online course to help you make faster progress with the lessons and build a deeper understanding of the language.

Our audio podcasts are free and you can access them here on the website, on your favourite podcast app, or on Spotify. We offer a paid online course which provides additional materials. The cost for one season is £120.00 GBP or $145.00 USD. Please see above for further information on pricing.

We do not currently have an app version of Coffee Break Italian. In the past we have had problems with a group of developers who have stolen our content and published it within paid-for apps. These apps are not published by Coffee Break Languages. We’ve written extensively about this situation on our website. Please do not purchase our content through these apps. The only way to access Coffee Break Italian lesson notes, bonus audio and video versions is through the Coffee Break Academy.

We do not currently offer one-on-one Skype lessons. If this is something which interests you, we would suggest that you sign up with our partner italki where you can access individual teachers and native speakers to practise your Italian. Visit italki.com to get a voucher for $10 USD in italki Credits when you purchase your first lesson.

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to keep up to date with Coffee Break Languages. In each edition we’ll share the latest news and our roundup of cultural and language links from around the web, and we’ll deliver this straight to your inbox every Friday.