Learning Italian from zero usually takes about 180–200 hours to reach A2, 350–400 to B1, 500–600 to B2 and 700–800 to C1. At one hour a day that is roughly half a year to A2, a year to B1, a year and a half to B2 and two years to C1. For English speakers Italian is one of the quicker languages: the US Foreign Service Institute puts it in its easiest group, at about 24 weeks of full-time study. Below are the numbers for 15 minutes to 2 hours a day, what makes Italian easy or tricky for you and a weekly plan you can keep.
Hours and months for each level
Italian exam boards do not publish official hours per level, so we use the best known benchmark instead: Cambridge English’s guided learning hours, the time with a teacher a typical learner needs to reach each level from zero. They were measured for English; here they serve as a rough guide for Italian.
| Level | Hours from zero | 15 min a day | 30 min a day | 1 hour a day | 2 hours a day |
|---|
| A2 | 180–200 | 25 months | 12.5 months | 6.5 months | 3 months |
|---|
| B1 | 350–400 | 49.5 months | 24.5 months | 12.5 months | 6 months |
|---|
| B2 | 500–600 | 72.5 months | 36 months | 18 months | 9 months |
|---|
| C1 | 700–800 | 98.5 months | 49.5 months | 24.5 months | 12.5 months |
|---|
How the months are calculated: the middle of the hour range divided by your daily study time and by 30.4 days in a month, rounded to half a month. It assumes you study every day without long breaks and that your time is as focused as a lesson. Real progress is rarely that even: the first months usually feel fast, and the step from B1 to B2 feels slow.
What makes Italian faster or slower for English speakers
- Words you half know already. Thanks to Latin and French, English shares thousands of words with Italian: informazione, nazione, possibile, importante. Many words ending in -tion become -zione, and -ty often becomes -tà: università, possibilità.
- Spelling that matches sound. Once you know a few rules (c and g before e and i, gli, gn, sc), you can read almost any word aloud. The real work is double consonants: pala (shovel) and palla (ball) are different words.
- Gender and agreement. Every noun is masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives follow it: il libro nuovo, la casa nuova, i libri nuovi. English has nothing like this, so it takes practice more than rules.
- Verbs. Each tense has six different endings, the past needs the right helper verb (ho mangiato but sono andato), and the subjunctive shows up from about B1. This is where most English speakers spend their grammar time.
- Small words. Prepositions merge with articles (di + il = del, in + la = nella), and the pronouns ci and ne have no direct English match.
- False friends. Camera is a room, parenti are relatives, libreria is a bookshop and morbido means soft.
In short, reading comes quickly, and speaking with the right endings takes longer. If you already know Spanish or French, expect to move noticeably faster than the table.
What official sources say
FSI. The US Foreign Service Institute puts Italian in Category I, the languages closest to English, with about 24 weeks or roughly 600 class hours to reach professional working proficiency (around C1). That is full-time training, about 25 hours of class a week in small groups, plus self-study every day, so the real total is higher than 600 hours and close to the C1 row above.
Italian certificates. The main Italian exams, CILS (University for Foreigners of Siena), CELI (University for Foreigners of Perugia) and PLIDA (Società Dante Alighieri), follow the CEFR levels A1–C2. On their official sites we found no recommended number of study hours per level, and course hours at schools vary a lot, so any figure per level is an estimate rather than a rule.
A common goal. Italian citizenship by residence or marriage requires at least B1, see the Italian language test for citizenship. For the same question across other languages, read how long it takes to reach B1 and B2.
How many words each level needs
Vocabulary is the part of those hours you can measure. Studies of English learners (Milton and Alexiou, 2009) give these rough ranges, and the order of magnitude is similar for Italian: A2 1,500–2,500 words, B1 2,750–3,250, B2 3,250–3,750 and C1 3,750–4,500 words you recognise.
The good news for Italian: according to the linguist Tullio De Mauro, about 2,000 basic words make up around 86% of everything Italians write and say. Learn those first and every text gets easier. The full breakdown is in how many words you need in Italian, and the Italian vocabulary test shows where you are now.
At 10 new words a day with regular reviews you add about 300 words a month, so an A2 vocabulary takes roughly 5–8 months and B1 about 9–11. Words are not the whole level, but they set the pace.
A realistic weekly plan
This plan takes about 45 minutes a day, a little over 5 hours a week. Done steadily, it gets you to A2 in about 8 months and to B1 in about 16.
- Every day, 15 minutes: words. 10 new words and the reviews due today. Say each word aloud with its article: il treno, la stazione.
- Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 30 minutes: grammar. One topic a week, for example articles, then the present tense, then the passato prossimo, with exercises right after the explanation.
- Tuesday and Thursday, 30 minutes: reading and listening. A short story or dialogue at your level. Read it, listen to it, then repeat a few lines out loud.
- Saturday, 30 minutes: writing. 5–10 sentences about your week with the new words, then fix the mistakes.
- Sunday, 30 minutes: speaking. A conversation with a tutor, a friend or a chat partner, or a review of the week’s mistakes.
With only 15 minutes, keep the words every day and rotate the rest. If you miss a day, do not double up; just carry on: short regular sessions beat long irregular ones (Cepeda and colleagues, 2006). Why reviews work is explained in spaced repetition and SM-2.
How NewLexi helps
- Word sets from the chat. Ask for a topic, a level or an exam, for example “Italian for a trip to Rome” or “B1 words for CILS”, and get a set already split into categories.
- Words in context. Every word comes with example sentences and audio, and spaced repetition brings it back before you forget it.
- A daily plan of new words and reviews, so you know what to do with your 15 or 45 minutes.
- Stories and dialogues written for your level with your own words.
- Grammar lessons and exercises from A1 to C2, plus sentence building to practise word order and endings.
- Writing practice with instant AI feedback and an AI chat for conversation.
- Import words from a photo, Anki or Quizlet, and keep them in sight with Lock Screen widgets.
NewLexi is for iPhone only. It is free on the App Store, with an optional Pro subscription.
FAQ
How long does it take to learn Italian to B1?
Usually about 350–400 hours from zero: roughly a year at one hour a day or about two years at 30 minutes a day. If you already speak Spanish or French, it is often less.
Can I learn Italian in a year?
Yes, to B1: that is realistic at about an hour a day. Reaching C1 in a year needs about 2 hours a day, every day, which is close to an intensive course.
How many hours a day should I study Italian?
30–60 minutes a day suits most adults: enough for steady progress and short enough to keep up for months. Even 15 minutes keeps your vocabulary growing, but at that pace B1 takes about four years.
Is Italian hard for English speakers?
No, it is one of the easier languages for English speakers, and the FSI puts it in its easiest category. Reading and pronunciation come quickly; verb endings, gender agreement and the subjunctive take the most work.
Is Italian easier than Spanish or French?
Only slightly, if at all. All three are in FSI Category I: the FSI lists about 24 weeks for Italian and about 30 for Spanish and French, so the difference is small. Italian spelling is far more regular than French, which makes reading aloud easier from the start.
Sources
- Cambridge English. Guided learning hours. support.cambridgeenglish.org/hc/en-gb/articles/202838506-Guided-learning-hours
- U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. Foreign Language Training (language difficulty categories). www.state.gov/foreign-language-training
- Università per Stranieri di Siena. Centro CILS: Certificazione di Italiano come Lingua Straniera. cils.unistrasi.it
- Università per Stranieri di Perugia. CVCL: certificazioni CELI. cvcl.unistrapg.it
- Società Dante Alighieri. PLIDA: Progetto Lingua Italiana Dante Alighieri. plida.it
- De Mauro, T. (2016). Il Nuovo vocabolario di base della lingua italiana. Internazionale, 23 dicembre 2016. www.internazionale.it/opinione/tullio-de-mauro/2016/12/23/il-nuovo-vocabolario-di-base-della-lingua-italiana
- Milton, J., & Alexiou, T. (2009). Vocabulary size and the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. In B. Richards et al. (Eds.), Vocabulary Studies in First and Second Language Acquisition (pp. 194–211). Palgrave Macmillan. doi.org/10.1057/9780230242258_12
- Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380. doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
- Council of Europe. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). www.coe.int/en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages
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