Ticket machines are multilingual, just push the UK flag to switch to English.
If you speak english slowly and clearly any employee should be able to sell you a train ticket. They are quite used to tourists.
If you don't know how to pronounce italian city names, for us it's easier if you use the English versions or write them down.
Regional trains tickets are date specific, but not time specific. This means that when you purchase a regional train ticket, you select a route (from A to B) and a day of departure. On that day, just before getting on the train you must time-stamp that ticket. From that moment the ticket can be used on any regional train going from A to B within the following 4 hours. There are no reserved seats and no discounted tickets on regional trains. If you purchase in advance you pay the same and have the same possibilities to find a seat of those who have purchased just before boarding.
On non regional trains (long distance and high speed ones) there are ONLY reserved seats and tickets can be used only on the booked train. If you purchase a full price ticket you can make changes only at the counter and only within one hour of the departure of the booked train.
Both trenitalia and its competitor italotreno sell discounted tickets for advance purchases. Discounted tickets sell out quickly and come with restrictions: no changes and/or no refunds.
May 1 is a National holiday.
Italians arrive at the station 15/20 minutes before the departure, tourists spend hours waiting for their trains track to be posted on departure boards and monitors. For this reason all main train stations are full of shops, bars and restaurants. At Termini, the biggest italian station, you can walk from the first to the last track in around 30 minutes.
