💡 Why Study Italian?
Italian is spoken by around sixty-five million people and is the language of a disproportionate share of Western art, music, opera and cooking. Spelling is close to phonetic, so pronunciation comes quickly compared with French or English. It is also the most useful language in the world for reading a menu properly, which is why the restaurant vocabulary is worth its own deck.
📝 Study Tips for Italian
Trust the spelling
Italian is written almost exactly as it sounds. Once you learn the handful of digraphs — gli, gn, sc — you can pronounce any word you read, so read every card aloud.
Mind the double consonants
Doubled consonants change meaning: nonna is grandmother, nona is ninth. The distinction is audible and matters, so notice it while the vocabulary is still new.
Learn phrases whole for travel
Restaurant and café language is formulaic. Memorising complete phrases rather than assembling them word by word is faster and sounds far more natural.
Italian Basics
100 cards · ~50 min · Advanced
Preview cards →Italian For Restaurants And Cafes
120 cards · ~60 min · Advanced
Preview cards →❓ Frequently Asked Questions
What do the Italian decks cover?
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A beginner set of core vocabulary and phrases, plus a focused deck on restaurant and café language — ordering, the courses of a meal, paying, and common menu terms.
Is the restaurant deck useful before the basics?
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It is self-contained enough to use on its own before a trip, though the beginner set gives you the grammar scaffolding to vary the phrases.
Does it teach formal and informal address?
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The tu and Lei distinction appears in example sentences, which matters in restaurants where the formal form is expected with staff.
Does it cover regional differences?
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The decks teach standard Italian, which is understood everywhere. Regional dialects vary enormously and are outside the scope.
Can I export these to Anki?
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Yes — both decks download as standard .apkg files from their topic pages, free and without an account.