Agathe StevensonMy arrival in Turin was a beautiful time of discovery!
A few months ago, I began a new chapter of my (short) life with one objective: to learn Italian in Turin! I come from Normandy in the North of France so I was a bit afraid of missing too much our strong & tasty cheeses. At the same time, I was very excited to discover a new way of life: la Dolce Vita!
My first days in Turin were as wonderful as I expected. The spring was coming, I walked around in the Quadrilatero and there were some VERY appetizing restaurants at each corners of the street! But there was a small problem: I was not able to share anything with some future-friends-to-be as I did not speak even one word in Italian. Ok, to be precise, I was able to say: ciao, spaghetti and tiramisù. Obviously, it was urgent for me to start to learn Italian!
Here you will find the best opportunities I found to learn Italian in Turin & meet new people:
-
The Municipality of Turin
First of all, the Municipality of Turin offers free Italian courses to all foreigners at CPIA (Centers for Adults Trainings). I advise you to register in advance as the waiting list can be very long. The Centro Interculturale della città di Torino also offers free courses of all different levels.
-
The Fondazione Università Popolare
Every year the Fondazione Università Popolare organizes Italian courses for basic & intermediary levels open to everyone. Here you can meet people of any different age.
-
Cultural associations
Among Associations which are promoting social and cultural integration offering Italian courses, you can find ASAI. It is active since 1995 in different areas of the city. Both Amici di Lazzaro e Almaterra propose free Italian courses. The last one specifically addresses migrant women. If you are Russian, Russkij Mir promotes sessions for a Russian audience.
-
SPEAK Social
I also discovered a wonderful project which is called SPEAK. It was funded in Portugal and arrived in Turin more than a year ago. The objective consists in creating a real community where Buddies and participants can learn while sharing common interests, overtake stereotypes, promoting cooperation and human relationships. I took an Italian course for 2 months there. We spent beautiful moments of sharing with the buddies and the other members of our group from Iraq, Turkey, Mali…I also joined SPEAK events where I had a lot of fun while doing some very original activities: self-massage session, quiz on Turin specificities and so on!
-
AEGEE Torino & Coollanguages
If you are a party lover, I hardly recommend you to participate to the linguistic aperitif “Use your tongue” organized by AEGEE Torino to meet new people and practice Italian. Following them on Facebook, you will see that they also organize other kind of events (like wine karaoke…). Coollanguages organizes also a linguistic aperitif each week at San Salvario!
-
Tandem
With Tandem finding an Italian “partner” to practice the language is super easy! You just have to create a profile and indicate which language you want to learn and in which city you are living. Then you will find a list of all potential Italian tandem you can get 🙂
I hope that you will enjoy to learn Italian in Turin as much as I did!
