Learn English from Italian for Free at PBC Languages
English for Italian speakers at PBC Languages: small classes with native teachers and free 30/30 exchanges with English natives, no fees.
Create your free accountNo card needed. Exchanges between members are always free.
If you speak Italian, you already own a chunk of English vocabulary without knowing it. Latin gave both languages the same endings: -zione becomes -tion (nazione/nation, azione/action), -tà becomes -ty (università/university, città/city), -bile becomes -ble (possibile/possible, terribile/terrible). That means reading news, emails or formal texts in English feels less foreign than it should, and your passive vocabulary grows fast.
The sounds are where things slow down. The TH in 'think' or 'this' doesn't exist in Italian, so it comes out as T, D, F or V ('tink', 'dis'). The schwa sound in 'about' or 'sofa' gets replaced by a full, clear Italian vowel, which is the single biggest thing that makes an accent sound heavy. Initial H tends to disappear ('otel' instead of 'hotel', ''ave' instead of 'have') because Italian h is always silent. And English stress jumps around unpredictably — record (noun) vs record (verb) — while Italian stress patterns are more stable, so you have to learn stress word by word.
The other trap is direct translation. Italian structures get calqued into English word for word: 'I have 30 years' instead of 'I am 30 years old', 'make a photo' instead of 'take a photo', 'depend by' instead of 'depend on'. None of this is fixed by studying grammar rules alone — it gets fixed by talking to native speakers often enough that the right version becomes automatic, which is exactly what the one-to-one exchanges are for.
Words you will actually hear
| Here | Elsewhere | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| actually | attualmente | False friend: actually means 'in realtà', not 'attualmente' (currently). |
| library | libreria | False friend: library is 'biblioteca'; libreria is a bookshop, not a library. |
| camera | camera | Same spelling, different meaning: in English it's the device for photos; in Italian it means room. |
| parents | parenti | False friend: parents means 'genitori'; parenti means relatives in general. |
| fabric | fabbrica | False friend: fabric means 'tessuto'; fabbrica means factory. |
| college | collegio | False friend: college often refers to university; collegio in Italian is a boarding school. |
| sensible | sensibile | False friend: sensible means 'ragionevole'; sensibile means sensitive. |
| nation | nazione | Helpful cognate: the -tion/-zione pattern repeats in hundreds of words, like station/stazione and action/azione. |
| university | università | Helpful cognate: the -ty/-tà pattern also works for security/sicurezza and city/città. |
| possible | possibile | Helpful cognate: the -ble/-bile pattern also covers visible/visibile and terrible/terribile. |
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Exchanges looking for a partner
How it works here
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Sign up and say your level
Two minutes. If you do not know your level, we place you in the first class.
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Pick a class or an exchange
Classes are led by a native teacher. An exchange is with another member: half the time in their language, half in yours.
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Join by video, nothing to install
From your phone or your computer. If you cannot make it, cancel and get your place back.
Questions about this
How long does it take an Italian speaker to get comfortable in English?
You'll notice the vocabulary head start almost immediately thanks to the shared Latin roots, so reading and understanding come faster than for speakers of unrelated languages. Speaking confidently takes longer because it depends on fixing sounds like TH and the schwa, plus untangling calqued sentences. Regular exchanges and group classes are what actually move this along — there's no fixed timeline we can promise.
Is the one-to-one exchange really free?
Yes. You spend thirty minutes speaking English with your partner and thirty minutes speaking Italian with them, so both of you are teaching and learning in the same session. No one pays, because you're each giving your native language in exchange for practice in the other.
What level of English do I need to join?
For the one-to-one exchanges you need enough English to hold a basic conversation for thirty minutes, since there's no teacher guiding the session. If you're starting from zero, the small group classes with a native teacher are the better entry point before jumping into exchanges.
How exactly is the time split in the exchange?
It's a strict 30/30: half the session in English, half in Italian, with the two of you deciding when to switch. There's no lesson plan — your partner corrects your English the same way you help them with their Italian.
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