Italian Intensive Course in Berlin

For anyone starting Italian from scratch, with no prior knowledge.

At level A1 you lay the sound foundations of Italian: you learn the seven vowels with their open and closed qualities and practise the characteristic clusters gli, gn and sce correctly from the very start. You grasp the difference between il, lo and la and form your first regular verbs in -are, -ere and -ire in the present tense. Using essere and avere, you introduce yourself, share everyday information and handle simple greetings such as "buongiorno" and "ciao". From the first lesson you attune your ear to the melodic intonation and the double consonants (doppie) that give Italian its rhythm.

For learners with basic foundations who want to cope in everyday situations.

At level A2 you widen your range and talk about the past for the first time: you form the passato prossimo with avere and essere, paying attention to the agreement of the past participle. Alongside it you meet the imperfetto for describing habits and settings. You merge articles and prepositions into forms such as nel, della and alla, and use reflexive verbs like alzarsi and divertirsi with confidence. This lets you manage typical everyday scenes — shopping, restaurants, travel — with natural pronunciation and stress.

For learners who want to speak freely about familiar topics and express connections.

At level B1 you master the central challenge of Italian storytelling: switching between passato prossimo and imperfetto to separate action from background. You replace nouns with direct and indirect pronouns and learn to handle the distinctly Italian particles ne and ci. With "stare + gerundio" you express the progressive, as in "sto parlando", and you meet the congiuntivo presente in its first uses. You voice opinions, wishes and plans, gaining steady confidence in the language's melodic sentence intonation.

For advanced learners who want to express themselves in a nuanced, differentiated way.

At level B2 you gain full command of the congiuntivo across all its tenses and combine it with the condizionale to build complex conditional sentences (periodo ipotetico). You report statements in indirect speech and handle the tense shifts this requires. In literary texts you recognise the passato remoto and understand its role in written Italian. With a rich stock of connectors and idiomatic expressions you argue fluently while refining subtle pronunciation nuances such as vowel opening.

For learners who use Italian confidently in demanding professional and academic settings.

At level C1 you refine your Italian down to its stylistic registers: you use the passato remoto actively, employ the congiuntivo trapassato naturally and command complex, multiply embedded sentence structures. A broad repertoire of idioms and collocations lets you shift between formal and colloquial tones. You perceive regional colourings and fine shades of meaning that hinge on vowel opening or the doubling of consonants. This allows you to follow demanding lectures, debates and literary texts with ease.

For learners who want to command Italian at native-speaker level in any context.

At level C2 you move through every stylistic layer of Italian with near-native assurance — from the poetry of Dante to specialised terminology. You draw on the finest grammatical nuances, play with word order and rhythm and command the prosodic melody of the sentence to perfection. You effortlessly grasp and deploy idioms, proverbs, irony and regional or dialectal allusions. Your pronunciation reliably distinguishes open from closed vowels, lending every utterance natural authenticity.