The Best Podcasts to Learn Italian, from Beginner to Advanced

If you’re learning Italian, podcasts are one of the easiest ways to train your ear and get used to the language as it is actually spoken. The difficult part is finding the right show for your level: something clear enough to follow, but challenging enough to help you improve.

Whether you’re just starting at A1 or already approaching C2, there is a huge amount of free audio content to choose from, covering almost every style and level of difficulty. I’ve finally had time to update this popular list with some of the best podcasts for people learning Italian, from complete beginners to students who are almost ready to leave learning materials behind and listen to native content.

I’ve divided the podcasts into three broad groups: beginner, intermediate and upper-intermediate/advanced. The levels are only a guideline. Some shows gradually become more difficult, while others include episodes suitable for learners at different stages.

How to use podcasts to learn Italian

Simply playing a podcast in the background is obviously not enough to learn a language. If you’re still a beginner, following the spoken audio with a transcript can be especially useful: listen once and try to understand the general meaning, listen again while reading, then play the episode one more time without looking at the text.

Many podcast apps now include transcripts for supported shows and episodes, so you may already have one available in the app you use. Some of the podcasts in this guide also provide transcripts or additional learning material through their own websites.

You don’t need to stop and look up every single word you don’t know. Try to work out the meaning from context first, and make a note mainly of words and expressions that keep appearing. As your Italian improves, gradually move away from purely educational material and towards more natural conversations.

Italian podcasts for beginners: A1-A2

Let’s start with podcasts for people who still know relatively little Italian or struggle to follow a normal conversation between native speakers. At this stage, a fairly slow pace, accessible vocabulary, shorter episodes and useful supporting material can make a big difference.

Quattro Stagioni

Quattro Stagioni is Alessandra Pasqui’s Italian-learning podcast, aimed mainly at people who are starting from scratch or are somewhere between A1, A2 and B1. The episodes are short and cover current affairs, culture, travel, recipes and everyday life, using simple and clear Italian without reducing everything to basic grammar exercises.

On Podcastquattrostagioni.ch you can also find additional material connected to the episodes, as well as transcripts for subscribers.

🎧 Listen to Quattro Stagioni

Coffee Break Italian

Coffee Break Languages’ Italian podcast is divided into several seasons with a gradually increasing level of difficulty. If you’re a beginner, the first season is the obvious place to start. Episodes are around 15 minutes long and feature teacher Mark, learner Katie and native speaker Francesca, beginning from almost zero.

On the Coffee Break Languages website you can also find courses and other language-learning resources. And if your Italian is already quite strong, there is a separate Coffee Break Italian Advanced podcast.

🎧 Listen to Coffee Break Italian

Learn Italian – ItalianPod101

ItalianPod101 is much more than a conventional podcast. It is a complete Italian-learning platform built around audio and video lessons divided by level, from Absolute Beginner all the way up to Advanced.

The material covers grammar, vocabulary, culture and everyday situations, with progressive learning paths and generally short lessons. Some content is available for free, while full access to the library and certain additional features requires a paid plan. If you’re starting almost from scratch and want something more structured than a normal podcast, it is one of the most comprehensive options in this list.

🎧 Listen to Learn Italian – ItalianPod101

Italiano Bello

Irene Regini launched Italiano Bello in 2020 for learners who want to hear simple but natural Italian. Each episode focuses on a different subject, including everyday life, Italian culture and literature, language-learning advice and personal reflections.

What I like about this kind of podcast is that you’re still listening to accessible Italian without feeling as though every episode is a classroom exercise.

Irene also offers a free course for beginners. Her YouTube channel is worth checking out too, as you can find video versions of the episodes there.

🎧 Listen to Italiano Bello

Italiano ON-Air

Italiano ON-Air is produced by Scuola Leonardo da Vinci, an organisation that has been teaching Italian to international students in several Italian cities for many years. Episodes are fairly short and focus mainly on spoken Italian, with common expressions, idioms and everyday vocabulary.

They often start from a cultural topic or current event and use it to introduce words and expressions that Italians actually use. Another useful feature is the availability of full episode transcripts on the official website.

I’d consider it a particularly good option if you’ve moved beyond the very basics and are somewhere around A2 or B1.

🎧 Listen to Italiano ON-Air

Italian podcasts for intermediate learners: B1-B2

Once you reach B1 or B2, you can gradually move away from traditional lessons and spend more time simply listening. The podcasts below still use Italian that is relatively easy to follow, but they get much closer to the language you’ll hear in real conversations, with episodes about culture, current affairs, personal experiences and plenty of other subjects.

Podcast Italiano

Davide Gemello’s Podcast Italiano works particularly well once you’re around intermediate level and want to move beyond textbook Italian. Topics range from current affairs and history to culture, language-learning strategies and interviews with guests.

The project has grown considerably over the years and its content is now divided by difficulty. On the official website you can also find transcripts and choose between intermediate and advanced episodes.

There is even a separate show, Podcast Italiano Principiante, for people who already know some Italian but aren’t quite ready for the main podcast.

🎧 Listen to Podcast Italiano

News in Slow Italian

If you enjoy following current affairs, News in Slow Italian gives you a useful way to combine Italian listening practice with the news. Alongside major stories, the project also covers grammar, idioms, vocabulary and culture.

One of its biggest strengths is the clear division by level. On the News in Slow Italian website you can choose between Beginner (A1-A2), Intermediate (B1-B2) and Advanced (C1+) material and move up gradually as your listening improves.

🎧 Listen to News in Slow Italian

Italiano Automatico

Alberto Arrighini, better known as Albi, is the founder of Italiano Automatico, a project that has been around for years and is built around a more “natural” approach to learning the language.

The emphasis is mainly on listening and exposure to Italian rather than turning every episode into a grammar lesson. You’ll hear plenty about culture, history, life in Italy and other subjects, which means you’re using the language to discover something rather than simply studying its rules.

Italiano Automatico also has an official website with courses and additional resources.

🎧 Listen to Italiano Automatico

Simple Italian Podcast

Simple Italian Podcast by Simone Pols has a very clear idea behind it: make Italian easy enough for learners to understand without making it sound artificial.

Simone is Italian, speaks several languages and is passionate about language learning himself. Episodes cover everything from personal experiences and philosophy to history and Italian culture, and there is now a substantial archive to explore.

If you want something understandable that still feels like actual spoken Italian rather than a lesson, this is a very good place to look.

You can find more about Simone’s work on Simonepols.com.

🎧 Listen to Simple Italian Podcast

Easy Italian

Easy Italian is part of the wider Easy Languages project and is mainly hosted by Matteo and Raffaele. It doesn’t really sound like a lesson: it’s closer to an informal conversation about everyday life, culture, travel, interesting facts and whatever else happens to come up.

That is exactly what makes it useful once you’ve moved beyond beginner material. You get to hear more spontaneous Italian that sounds closer to a normal conversation between native speakers, without immediately jumping into a podcast designed entirely for an Italian audience.

Episodes are generally under half an hour, and members of the project can also access interactive transcripts and vocabulary tools.

🎧 Listen to Easy Italian

Italiano con Amore

Eleonora Silanus is an Italian teacher and the creator of Italiano con Amore, a project based around learning the language through culture rather than grammar alone.

Books, cinema, food, places, traditions, people and everyday life all become opportunities to listen to clear Italian without simplifying it too much.

This approach makes particular sense once you already know the basics and no longer want all your listening material to be explicitly about learning grammar. On Italianoconamore.com you can also find courses and other material connected to the project.

🎧 Listen to Italiano con Amore

Italian podcasts for upper-intermediate and advanced learners: B2-C2

Once you have a good command of Italian, the line between a “podcast for learning Italian” and a normal Italian podcast becomes increasingly thin.

These shows still have learners in mind, but they use more complex vocabulary, sentence structures and subject matter. At this stage, the goal is often less about understanding every word and more about becoming comfortable with Italian that sounds increasingly close to native-level content.

Lingua Italiana Insieme

Simona di Punzio is a teacher and language facilitator specialising in teaching Italian online. Her podcast, Lingua Italiana Insieme, is aimed particularly at learners who want to develop more advanced Italian and covers grammar, writing, speaking, Italian culture and study methods.

It is a little different from podcasts focused almost entirely on listening comprehension. Here there is also more attention to how you use the language and how to express yourself in a more precise and natural way.

You can find out more about Simona’s work through LerniLango and her other online content.

🎧 Listen to Lingua Italiana Insieme

Italiano per Stranieri con Marco

If your Italian is already strong, Italiano per Stranieri con Marco gives you plenty of opportunities to stretch it further, particularly in listening comprehension and spoken language.

The podcast covers subjects such as current affairs, politics, economics, science and history. That’s particularly useful at an advanced level, because you start encountering the wider vocabulary and more complex structures that simpler learning material often avoids.

There is also an official website, Italianoperstraniericonmarco.it, with additional resources for students.

🎧 Listen to Italiano per Stranieri con Marco

Il Podcast di Italiano Avanzato

Pietro Gambino hosts Italiano Avanzato, which, as the name suggests, is aimed mainly at learners from B2 upwards, including C1 and C2.

Episodes use current affairs, culture and other fairly complex topics as listening material, giving you a chance to encounter vocabulary and sentence structures that go beyond everyday beginner and intermediate Italian.

For that reason, I find it particularly useful as a bridge between podcasts made specifically for language learners and shows created directly for native speakers.

🎧 Listen to Il Podcast di Italiano Avanzato

Buongiorno Italia, podcast di cultura e lingua italiana

Raffaele Montesano is an Italian teacher and the creator of Buongiorno Italia, podcast di cultura e lingua italiana. As the title suggests, language learning is mixed with Italian culture, interesting facts, guests and a variety of different topics.

The Italian is natural and the tone fairly relaxed, which makes it especially suitable for intermediate-to-advanced learners who want to practise without sitting through another traditional lesson.

Transcripts and other resources are available through the channels connected to the project.

🎧 Listen to Buongiorno Italia

Two more Italian podcasts worth checking out

I haven’t included these two among the 15 main recommendations because they are currently updated less regularly, but both have extensive archives and are still well worth knowing about.

Learn Italian with Lucrezia

Learn Italian with Lucrezia by Lucrezia Oddone remains a useful podcast for improving listening comprehension while learning more about Italian language, culture and everyday life.

There are plenty of episodes in the archive, covering grammar, pronunciation and some of the most common difficulties faced by learners.

The podcast isn’t updated regularly, but Lucrezia remains very active online and her YouTube channel is still a valuable resource.

🎧 Listen to Learn Italian with Lucrezia

Speak Italiano – Pensieri e Parole

Linda Riolo hosts a podcast for intermediate and advanced learners that combines listening practice with Italian culture. Episodes cover literature, history, biographies and Italian curiosities, giving it a different feel from a conventional language course.

New episodes appear less frequently than with some of the other podcasts in this guide, but the archive is extensive. On Piccolo Mondo Italiano you can also find transcripts and other material for learners.

🎧 Listen to Speak Italiano – Pensieri e Parole

These are, in my opinion, some of the best podcasts for learning Italian. Some work particularly well if you’re starting from zero, while others assume that you already have enough grammar and vocabulary to concentrate mostly on listening.

Once you can follow the more advanced podcasts in this list without too much difficulty, however, you probably don’t need another “Italian learning podcast”: you can start listening to Italian podcasts about subjects you actually enjoy: history, news, true crime, books, sport, culture or anything else that keeps you interested.

At that point, you can find a lot of advices in the ILP pages 🙂