'Ciao. Come stai?' – and suddenly you are having a conversation. Philip Sapienza is half English, half Italian, and lives in Turin. That means he teaches Italian the way very few people can: as a native speaker of the language you are learning, and as a native speaker of the language you already have. Nothing gets lost in translation, because he never has to translate. This course starts from nothing. Greetings you can use with friends and with your boss. Your name, your age, how much something costs. Numbers to a hundred, and the twenty-four-hour clock Italians actually use. The two verbs everything depends on – essere and avere – taken apart slowly, with every form spoken and repeated. From there it opens out. Months, dates and weekdays. The articles that make Italian feel difficult at first, explained until they click. A full self-introduction: what you do, where you work, what your favourite hobby is. Describing yourself and other people, from height and hair to skin tone, said the way Italians say it rather than the way a dictionary would. And finally clothes, colours and everything you wear. With just over four hours of audio and a pause after every phrase, you can say each one out loud and practise as you go. By the end you will not just recognise Italian. You will be able to answer.