Register now for our 2025 winter term!
- Multiple levels
- Small class size – max. 12 students
- Native-speaking & experienced instructors
- Affordable tuition – $380 per level
- 4 terms per year – each 10 weeks long
- Convenient downtown location or online
Learn Italian! Study at the International Language Institute in Washington, DC or online
The Italian Language Program at ILI consists of four 10-week terms throughout the year. We offer 6 different levels from beginner to intermediate. Our Italian classes take place once a week in the evenings. Our teachers are all native-speaking and experienced. The Italian Language Program integrates speaking, listening, reading and writing. We maintain small class sizes to enable adequate time for conversation in every class. To find your level, please refer to the level description or use our self-evaluation guide. If you have further questions, please call Jane Edwards, ILI’s Foreign Language Coordinator, at 202-686-5610 extension 105. Enroll now!
Live, Instructor-led In-Person or Online Italian Classes
Learn Italian in person or online from a live instructor using Zoom. All online classes are instructor-led, in real-time, allowing for the same live interaction as our in-person classes. Some of our classes are a combination of in-person and online students. We have 360-degree cameras in the rooms enabling online participants to feel part of the class. This hybrid class environment allows students to engage with each other and the instructor and to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking the Italian Language.
Schedule Register Now!
Register now for our 2025 winter term!
2025 Term: | Session Dates: | Registration Deadline: |
---|---|---|
Winter | Jan. 13-Mar. 22, 2025 | Monday, Dec. 29, 2024 |
Spring | Apr. 7-Jun. 14, 2025 | Monday, Mar. 24, 2025 |
Summer | Jun. 30-Sep. 6, 2025 | Monday, Jun. 16, 2025 |
Fall | Sep. 22-Dec. 6, 2025 | Monday, Sep. 8, 2025 |
Italian Level Description
Offered on: Thursdays: 6:15 - 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: To introduce Italian to students who never took Italian at school or had the Italian language in their lives at all. The students in this level will experience Italian for the first time and will enjoy learning word by word in a dynamic way.
Learning Outcome: The students will be able to identify words and expressions in Italian. They will be able to say or express basic ideas, sentences and desires in simple present tense. They will learn enough vocabulary to continue with Italian Basic 2.
Topics: Regular and irregular verbs in the present tense; articles; basic questions; uses of essere and avere; prepositions; origins, and structures; phonology and alphabet; pronunciation guide; the accent mark; noun gender; greetings; days of the week; numbers from 1 to 100; colors ; telling time; the house; a school; the city; the bar; foods.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One, $48 including tax. Part I (ch. 1-5); Part II (ch. 1-3).
Offered on: Mondays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: To continue to introduce the Italian language to students who took an introductory course or students who took some basic Italian previously. The students in this level will learn to express their ideas orally in the simple present tense of the most common regular and irregular verbs.
Learning Outcome: Students will be able to say or express their ideas, sentences and desires easily at a basic beginner’s level. They will engage in conversations about home, describing things, and around town. They will learn enough vocabulary to continue with Italian Basic 3. Students will learn how to conjugate the most common action verbs.
Topics: Common vocabulary for around the house and around town; direct pronouns; colors; adjectives; demonstrative pronouns; personal pronouns; possessives; negative expressions; indirect pronouns; plurals; simple and articulated prepositions; structure of the interrogative sentence.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One & Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One + Reading & Comprehension, $85 including tax. Part I (ch. 6-8); Part II (ch. 4-7).
Offered on: Wednesdays: 6:15 pm - 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: Students will continue with the Italian basic program with more difficult and much deeper structure for building sentences. To make students use Italian taught in the previous level by continuing to build and use more difficult and much deeper sentence structures. The students in this level will express their ideas by using a solid vocabulary foundation that includes the use of many adjectives and adverbs.
Learning Outcome: The students will be able to have a basic conversation based on daily routine activities. They will be able to say or express their ideas with a full command of adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases. They will be able to understand and be understood while expressing likes and dislikes. The average student will have acquired an active vocabulary of approximately 1,200 words together with many more words in speech and writing. The student is ready for intermediate level courses.
Topics: The plural of verb tenses; relative pronouns; Italian cuisine; political system; at work and socializing; adverbs; adjectives; prepositions; impersonal constructions; jobs; home; transportation; Italian nightlife; comparative and superlative clauses and uses.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One & Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One + Reading & Comprehension, $85 including tax. Part II (ch. 8-10), Part III (ch.1), Part IV (ch. 9-10).
Offered on: Thursdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: To introduce students to a variety of strategies for learning Italian at home or office and practice at the institute. They will use common expressions and will learn much more, altogether idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs.
Learning Outcome: Students will be able to have a normal conversation based on daily events and express their ideas in written and oral ways. This level will refresh the previous knowledge of regular and irregular verbs in the present tense and introduce the past tense while expanding the grammatical structures learned.
Topics: New verb conjugations of irregular verbs in the present tense, the progressive forms, the use of adjectives, repeated events in the past, object pronouns, reflexive constructions, numbers, gender and plural nouns, idiomatic expressions of everyday life and talking about yourself and at home, and several readings about everyday topics.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One & Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One + Reading & Comprehension, $85 including tax. Part III (ch. 2-6), Part IV (ch. 10), Part V (ch. 1, 3).
Offered on: Tuesdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: To become much more comfortable understanding and using the proper verb tenses as they relate to moods in Italian. To provide you with an interesting insight into Italian cuisine from all regions of the country, and to talk about other people and what they do.
Learning Outcome: Students will be able to comfortably explain past events during routine conversations while expressing likes and dislikes. Students will acquire a wider use of idiomatic expressions using phrasal verbs and will become comfortable expressing themselves in Italian.
Topics: Various uses of the personal infinitive, present perfect and past participles, and infinitives as verbal objects, imperatives, giving and understanding directions, demonstrative adjectives, time and time expressions, restaurants and menus, possessive adjectives and pronouns, readings about everyday topics such as food and others.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One & Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One + Reading & Comprehension, $85 including tax. Part III (ch. 7-15), Part IV (ch. 10)
Offered on: Wednesdays: 6:15 – 8:45 pm. Enroll now!
Objective: This level will end covering all the grammatical structures needed to send the student into real-life situations speaking Italian and to get them ready for the more advanced courses. To have full command of the language most important verb tenses.
Learning Outcome: Students will be able have a conversation with native speakers about different subjects using the right conjugation and the right words when talking or expressing specific points of view. They will become familiar and comfortable using the more compound verb tenses. We will expand their knowledge of idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs together with the use of the passive voice.
Topics: Introduction to compound verb tenses such as, the past, the imperfect, the future, reflexive verbs, the gerund, dependent clause vs. personal infinitive, popular proverbs, comparatives, pastimes, adjective and adverb clauses, impersonal expressions, -ear & -iare verbs, points of view, shopping, likes and dislikes, the preposition da, adjective/adverbs molto, poco and troppo, and several readings about everyday life topics.
Textbook: Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One & Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian All-in-One + Reading & Comprehension, $85 including tax. Part IV (ch. 1-6)
Program Details
We do not offer placement tests.
ILI is closed for the following holidays: Martin Luther King Day, Presidents' Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, New Year's Day. Group classes will not meet on these holidays and the missed class(es) will be made up at the end of the term.