When traveling, a little linguistic knowledge can take you a long way.

The **Open University**, through MOOC platform **Futurelearn** offers a **free** basic course in Italian.

Italian for Beginners 1: Meeting, Greeting and Eating

As described on the course site, this 4 weeks online course will let you

• order snacks and drinks in a café;
• greet people and introduce yourself and others;
• talk about where you live and where you come from;
• talk about the languages you speak;
• talk about what you do.

Not bad, right?
The course starts on September the 5th, it is completely free, and it’s highly recommended.

For the uninitiated, MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course – you will be learning Italian together with thousands of other students: you’ll be able to compare notes, make new friends and who knows, get some ideas for future trips.