Best way to learn Italian

Check out “Coffee break italian”.
They have free (ad-supported) podcasts or you can buy their Level 1, 2, or 3 course for no ads, lifetime access, and bonus material.

For me, though, the live in-person or Zoom classes through Dartmouth College’s Rassias Center give me the most bang for my time and my buck. They use a trademarked immersion method for language learning that gets you thinking in, and speaking, the language. I’ve been taking their classes since 2022. Their fall 6-week virtual semi-intensive just started this week; if interested, you might be able to join late. Or their next six week session starts in January.

I am currently doing a combination of the Dartmouth virtual semi intensive and Coffee Break Italian.

Whatever you find I hope it’s helpful for you. Italian is such a beautiful language!

For tourist survival Italian, try some of the language lessons on YouTube - sample a few until you find an approach and instructor that works for you.

I found Mango, which is an online resource that may be available from your public library for free, to be more effective than Babbel.

I also found that an antiquated hardcopy workbook from the library was helpful for memorizing numbers, etc. And the Italian cheat-sheets in the RS guidebooks are also helpful - also his Italian phrasebook as a reference and quick refresher.

Some may say that you can get along with just English in major tourist areas, but I found it easier to navigate public transport, read menus, etc. with a basic knowledge of the language, and college French helped as well - similar grammar and roots.

Aren't you going to Arezzo? Then you need to know some Aretino expressions.

ALO' = forza! Dai! (Come on!)
CITTO = ragazzo (boy, guy)
CITTA = ragazza (girl, gal), without accent in the end, otherwise it becomes 'città' which means city.
FITTUMAIO=folla (crowd)
RUZZARE= scherzare, giocare (to kid, to play)

My wife and I have used Pimsleur. We get CDs from the Seattle Public Library. About 1/2 hour a day. For 6 weeks.

Years ago, my wife managed to reserve a room over the phone with a woman who spoke no English. And earlier this year I was able to make a little small talk with a fellow ferry traveler whose English was even more minimal than my very limited Italian.

And it’s always nice to be able to say bruschetta properly.

It takes very little language to get by. 30 Plus years ago on our first trip to Italy I got a little two cassette program -- when cars had cassette players -- called 'Getting by in Italian' -- the philosophy was minimalist communication. So instead of long sentences it showed you how to use a word or two and inflection to communicate what you wanted and of course the politeness phrases that are essential. At that time phrase books would have long 'could you tell me where the bus stop for the 39 is?' and this system would just have 'Good day. Please. bus stop 39?' With only this program we spent three weeks in Italy and did just fine.

The good news is that Italian is easy to hear and to pronounce. Every letter is basically pronounced one way and all letters are pronounced. In France the elision of sounds makes it hard to hear or pronounce, but especially to hear. Much easier in Italy. And people appreciate the effort. Many more people speak a bit of English today than 30+ years ago when we often stayed in villages where no one spoke English, but even so, making the effort pays off in better service and experiences.

Pimsleur is great, and if you can combine that with a community college course, you'll make better progress. Then, don't be afraid to use your new words! So many people ate timid about perfection and you do not need to be perfect to be effective.

All depends on what you mean by "learn Italian". What proficiency do you want to achieve? You can read a paper by Cambridge Press on learning a 2nd language with hours estimates for various levels of proficiency at https://www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/How-long-does-it-take-to-learn-a-foreign-language.pdf Learning to any conversational level is likely to take hundreds of hours.

But maybe you'd be satisfied with basic sentences a tourist is likely to want to use. In that case I'd recommend two programs. Pimsleur Italian (do it up thru level 2) is great for easily producing sentences that it teaches. Each lesson , 30 per level, is 30 minutes, I found it better to do each twice, So 60 hours but you can do it while commuting or walking. Michel Thomas uses a bit different angle, explaining the language instead of just relying on hear-and-repeat like Pimsleur. I think they make good complements. In addition I suggest learning the numbers up to 100 which is useful in places like farmers markets where you're just going to be told a price. I practiced by spending a few minutes on daily commutes trying to say the numbers on license plates.

I used three primary thing to brush up on my 20year old Italian

I used babbel as my primary source. I really thought it was a great base
I used duolingo to pump vocabulary. It wasn’t particularly useful for learning to speak a language, but it is great at pushing vocabulary words. Plus it’s free and the “game vibe” is a fun distraction
Coffee Break is a fantastic and free. I loved it during dog walks. It was colorful, interesting, and focused on situations you will run across while traveling. (e.g. asking directions or checking into a hotel). Plus it added a lot of cultural color that I would never have gotten elsewhere.
And I supplemented with various website to drill down on a confusing concept like reflexive verbs or just to work on prepositions.

I tried many different programs to learn French - and aced through some of the gamified apps with ease but could still not carry on a conversation. I had some of the audio programs. What really made a difference was Pimsleur. You can get a subscription and do two lessons a day to get through 2 months in a single month. That will actually get you speaking. Then the others will flesh it out.

I’ve been studying Italian on my own off and on for several years. I’m still definitely a beginner. I think using a variety of methods is best. Duolingo is a good start, phrase books, and maybe an ongoing self-study like Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone is helpful. It’s also important to speak and pronounce Italian out loud to get your brain and mouth muscles used to it. Learning the basics of pronunciation is key. It’s also important to listen to Italian even when you don’t understand many of the words. I also like Coffee Break Italian on podcasts or YouTube.
Earlier this year, I started Italian classes through a program with the Tampa Italian Club. This has greatly enhanced my understanding of simple sentence structure, nouns, verbs, etc. The classes also help me with understanding the nuances of pronunciation. If you have time to take some classes either virtually or in person, that would be great.
Buona fortuna, it’s a beautiful language!