An alternative to Duolingo
I’ve been looking at different ways to learn Italian, and one thing I’ve noticed is that Duolingo is great at keeping you practicing consistently, but it didn’t really solve the problem of understanding why Italian works the way it does.
If you’re someone who keeps thinking:
“I know these words, but I still don’t understand why this sentence is constructed like that.”
you might want to give Italicore a try.
It takes a more grammar-first approach. Instead of mainly learning through repetition, it tries to explain the patterns behind Italian sentence structure, so you can eventually build new sentences yourself rather than memorizing individual ones.
I particularly like the fact that it was created by a native Italian teacher rather than being built entirely around an AI chatbot. There’s also an AI tutor called Lira, but it’s more of a tool alongside the actual curriculum.
I wouldn’t say it replaces Duolingo for everyone. If you mainly want something gamified that gets you practicing every day, Duolingo is still pretty good at that.
But if your frustration is “I’m learning Italian words, but the grammar still feels like a mystery”, Italicore is worth checking out.
It’s free to start, so you can see if the approach clicks with you.