We tracked down 29 of the best podcasts for learning Italian, including 19 you can use for free. Our top picks right now are Podcast Italiano, Salvatore racconta and Simple Italian Podcast. Every entry below is hand-checked, and the ones that teach you come first — with free options ahead of paid ones wherever they are as good.
Running since 2016 and the reference point for intermediate Italian listening — monologues and interviews entirely in Italian, with free transcripts and a separate 'Principiante' feed for A2 learners. Davide is a linguistics nerd, so episodes often dig into etymology, dialects and register rather than just tourist topics. Free on all podcast apps and YouTube; the Club (Patreon) and courses are paid. Genuinely hard below B1 — start with the Principiante feed.
Salvatore Greco takes an episode of Italian history or culture — a city, a scandal, a singer — and narrates it in clear, slowed-down Italian aimed squarely at learners who have outgrown beginner material. It is the rare learner podcast whose content is genuinely interesting on its own terms, which is what makes people keep listening. Free and weekly with 270-odd episodes. Transcripts and extras are paid, and the register stays simple by design, so it is a bridge to native audio rather than a substitute.
Simone Pols talks about culture, habits and everyday life at a reduced pace, with the vocabulary kept narrow enough that you can follow at B1 without stopping. There is no explanation in English at any point, which is the method: you are meant to understand roughly and let the rest settle. The podcast is free; transcripts and a study membership are paid. Weekly, and small — it will run out before you are fluent, so pair it with native audio.
Manu has taught Italian to English speakers for over twenty years and his free YouTube pronunciation and grammar series are still among the clearest starting points in the language. The '100% in Italiano' podcast comes with free PDF transcripts and comprehension questions, which makes it unusually usable for self-study. The flagship 'From Zero to Italian' course is a paid membership — the free material alone is enough to reach solid A2.
One of the longest-running Italian learning podcasts — still publishing in 2026 — built on the idea of listening to easy Italian repeatedly rather than studying rules. Alberto speaks slowly and repeats key phrases, which suits A2 learners who are not ready for Podcast Italiano yet. Episodes are free; the courses and transcript bundles are paid. Content leans self-help/motivation, so skip it if that style grates.
The audio sibling of the Easy Italian channel: natural, unscripted conversation at close to normal speed about daily life, food, work and Italian oddities. Because nothing is scripted it is a step above Podcast Italiano in difficulty — treat it as B1+ listening rather than a lesson. Episodes are free; interactive transcripts and vocabulary helpers require the membership.
The most reliable structured audio course for absolute beginners: Mark teaches, a learner asks the questions you'd ask, and Francesca supplies the native model. Season 1 starts from nothing and the separate Coffee Break Italian Advanced feed pushes into C1 territory with authentic-speed conversation. All audio episodes are free; the premium versions add video, transcripts and exercises. Pacing is deliberately slow — impatient learners may prefer a textbook.
Three separate difficulty streams plus grammar and idiom segments and original fiction series, all rebuilt weekly around real news. The slowed delivery is the point: it buys you processing time without dumbing down the vocabulary, which is why it works so well as a bridge to real Italian media. A limited free episode is published each week; full archives, transcripts and exercises need a subscription, and the price is on the high side.
The Italian entry in the Innovative Language 101 family: thousands of short lessons organised into level pathways, each with a dialogue, line-by-line breakdown and PDF. Its real value is breadth — you can always find a lesson on the exact situation you need. Quality varies between series, marketing emails are relentless, and most of the library sits behind a subscription; a rotating free sample is available with a free account.
No English, no lesson structure — just clear, unhurried Italian about daily life, books, learning and living in Italy, with subtitles on the video versions. It reads more like listening in on someone's thoughts than a course, which is exactly what makes it good early comprehensible input once you're past absolute beginner. Free on YouTube and podcast apps; she also sells courses and a shop of learner materials.
Katie learned Italian as an adult in Milan and teaches with Matteo, a native speaker, so the explanations target exactly what English speakers get wrong. Episodes are short and topic-driven — a phrase, a mistake, a cultural habit — which makes it one of the few genuinely usable podcasts at A1–A2. Audio is free; bonus lesson materials and the online school are paid.
Gianluca Gazzoli sits down with musicians, athletes, actors and entrepreneurs for an hour or two, twice a week, in a format that is closer to two friends talking than to a broadcast interview. That makes it the best available sample of how Italians in their twenties and thirties actually speak, filler words and all. Free with a huge archive and a video version. Fully colloquial, fast, and with no transcripts — advanced listening.
Every weekday at six in the morning, two stories from outside Italy chosen by the Internazionale newsroom and explained by the hosts, often with a correspondent on the line. Fifteen minutes and two topics is about the most a learner can absorb in one sitting, and the international subject matter means you often already know the story in your own language — which does half the comprehension work for you. Free and daily, no transcripts.
Sala reports from the places she is talking about and then narrates a tight fifteen-to-twenty-minute episode about them. The writing is deliberately plain and the narration is scripted, so it is considerably easier than an Italian studio discussion while still being entirely native material — and the daily rhythm makes it a good habit item. Free and one of Italy's most listened podcasts. No transcripts, and the field audio is sometimes rough.
Formerly Corriere Daily, this is Italy's biggest newspaper talking through the day's story and then a shorter focus piece, in roughly twenty minutes each weekday morning. The two-part structure is useful: the first half gives you context, the second reuses the same vocabulary on a narrower question. Free, unlike much of corriere.it. Full-speed newsroom Italian with no transcripts, and the assumed background is Italian domestic politics.
Giampaolo Musumeci talks to reporters and analysts about one foreign story a day — a war, an election, a border. Single-topic and interview-led, so the vocabulary is narrow and repeats, and the international framing means you will often recognise the story before you recognise the words. Free with a long archive. Conversational pace, occasional phone-line audio, no transcripts.
Swiss public radio's long-running debunking slot, running since 2006. Attivissimo writes his pieces before recording them and delivers them at a genuinely measured pace, which makes this one of the easiest native Italian podcasts to follow; every episode also has a matching written article on his blog, so you can read what you just heard. Free and weekly. RSI is Swiss Italian — standard language, with the occasional Helvetism.
Working scientists have been making this weekly show since 2007, with short segments on physics, biology, computing and whatever is in the news, plus interviews. Scientific Italian shares most of its roots with English, so the technical vocabulary is far more transparent than the everyday kind, and the presenters habitually define their terms. Free, non-profit and with a very large archive. Amateur production values and lots of crosstalk between hosts.
The natural graduation step after News in Slow Italian: real Italian journalism, spoken at real speed, on politics, science, media and culture. Il Post's writing is unusually clear by Italian press standards, which makes the site itself good reading practice. Since 2023 Il Post's podcasts have moved off public RSS and into its own subscriber player, so there is no feed to add to a listening queue — you listen on the site or in its app, and most of the slate now needs a subscription. Firmly C-level listening — no transcripts or glossaries.
Cubo, Paolo and guests have been recording since 2019, and the appeal is that it sounds like eavesdropping on a bar conversation: overlapping speech, slang, jokes and regional colour. Episodes run 20–60 minutes on whatever the hosts feel like. Completely free, but there is little hand-holding — no graded vocabulary and transcripts are limited, so it suits B1+ learners moving toward native content.
Marco Cappelli tells Italian history from Constantine forward in long, carefully scripted episodes. For learners the appeal is that scripted narration is far easier to follow than conversation while still being 100% native material, and the subject matter recycles the same historical and political vocabulary until it sticks. Free on all podcast apps; Patreon adds bonus episodes. Assumes you can already follow extended Italian.
Made by Internazionale to reconstruct the days of the Genoa G8 through archive tape and the voices of people who were there. Because it is written and narrated rather than improvised, the Italian is clear and paced, and a single long story means the political vocabulary keeps recycling. Free, and a finished series rather than an ongoing feed, so you can work through it end to end. Distressing subject matter and no transcripts.
A compact narrative series on where particular conspiracy theories came from and why they stuck. Scripted narration plus a small number of interviewees makes it much easier listening than a studio panel, and the episodes are short enough to replay. Free, with only a handful of episodes so far, so treat it as a mini-series rather than a habit. No transcripts.
Long-form investigative storytelling from Internazionale's audio desk: one subject, reported over several episodes, with scripted narration carrying the interview tape. The narrated sections are among the clearest Italian you will hear outside a learner podcast, while the interviews bring real, unsimplified speech. Free and complete. Short archive, no transcripts, and you need to start at episode one.
Alessandra Tedesco interviews Italian and foreign novelists about their new books in an informal, unhurried style. For a learner it is a rare thing: authentic Italian about literature, where the guests are professional explainers of their own work and the host keeps steering back to the plot. Free and weekly with a deep archive. Interviews with foreign authors are dubbed or interpreted, which breaks the flow, and there are no transcripts.
A documentary strand on history, science, philosophy and the arts, built from written narration plus interviews. Public-service radio diction plus a script is the friendliest combination authentic audio offers, and Rete Due's presenters articulate more carefully than most Italian broadcasters. Free, daily, with a large archive. High cultural register and no transcripts; Swiss rather than Italian frame of reference.
Running since 2000, Modem takes a subject in the news and puts three or four guests around it for the best part of an hour. It is the step up from single-narrator audio: real debate, interruption and disagreement, but moderated firmly enough that speakers actually finish their sentences. Free and daily. No transcripts, and much of the agenda is Swiss, which is either a bonus or a drawback depending on why you are learning.
Mihalis Eleftheriou records real lessons with a real student and walks you through constructing the language yourself using cognates and logic — Spanish, French, Italian, German, Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Swahili are covered. Completely free, no ads, no sign-up, funded by donations. The Spanish course in particular is one of the most recommended free resources anywhere; the trade-off is small vocabulary and no reading or writing practice.
Mark Pentleton teaches a genuine student while you listen in, across French, Spanish, German, Italian, Chinese, Swedish, Portuguese, Japanese and Gaelic. The podcast seasons are free on any podcast app and are structured as a real curriculum rather than scattered episodes; the Academy sells premium lesson notes, video and bonus audio. Ideal commuting material for beginners through B1, and the Spanish and French series are the strongest.