Italian Vocabulary

Italian spoken today formed around the 14th century, and to a large extend is based on the Florentine dialect.

Italian is a Romance language. Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also members of this group. Even basic knowledge of Italian can give you a strong head start in learning these popular languages in the future. Conversely, if you already know another Romance language, it can be helpful in mastering Italian.

If you are studying music or European art history, you may find some knowledge of Italian to be very helpful.

Another great thing about Italian is that it is a phonetic language. In other words, once you learn the alphabet, which is similar to English, you will be able to read practically any Italian text. Of course, in order to actually understand it, you will have to learn some vocabulary and grammar. The good news is that a lot of Italian words are very similar to their English counterparts because of common Latin roots, which makes learning new Italian words relatively easy.