Italian is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family. Italian descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire and, together with Sardinian, is by most measures the Romance language closest to it. Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland (where it is the main language of Ticino and the Graubünden valleys of Calanca, Mesolcina, Bregaglia and val Poschiavo), San Marino and Vatican City. It has about 67 million native speakers.
Here are some free resources you can use to make Italian your new language!

Vocabulary
  • Garzanti Linguistica – Online Italian – English – French dictionary with example sentences, a section of synonyms and antonyms, tables of verb conjugations, grammar exercises, and two sections of ‘language problems’
  • Linguee – Online English <-> Italian dictionary and translator and example sentences from the web
  • Wordreference – An online dictionary that includes a forum where users can ask vocabulary and grammar related questions about the language
  • Reverso – Online English <-> Italian dictionary with example sentences
Grammar
  • Cooljugator Italian – Online Italian verb conjugator with translations in English
  • Fluent Simple Grammar– 160 free online grammar lessons and exercises in Italian
  • Online Italian Club– a collection of useful grammar lessons and exercises, verbs, dialogues, vocabulary and adjectives in Italian with explanations in English
  • Impariamo Italiano– Online grammar exercises and tests for all levels, in Italian only
  • Speak Italian – Improve Italian grammar with online exercises by level
Online Courses
  • One World Italiano – Free 37-unit online course for beginners
  • Memrise Italian – A collection of free Italian courses for all levels
  • Duolingo Italian – Free online Italian course from absolute beginner to intermediate
  • Language Transfer Italian – Online Italian audio courses – Michel Thomas style
  • Italiano by RAI – Online Italian video courses (levels A1-B2 – hover over “Imparamo l’Italiano to see the available courses) with exercises and quizzes
YouTube Courses
  • Italian Made Easy – Fun Italian lessons about all different language skills and levels
  • LearnAmo – Video courses for all levels with accompanying texts and explanations – everything is in Italian
  • Your Italian Teacher – Mini-tutorial videos about grammar, vocabulary and phrases that learners often get wrong
  • Italiano Automatico – Slow and Fast Italian lessons to improve mostly speaking and vocabulary
  • Learn Italian with Lucrezia – Italian lessons for learners of all levels, videos in Italian only, with subtitles in Italian and sometimes French
  • Sgrammaticando – Video courses for advanced learners – master Italian grammar
Podcasts and Audio Lessons
Reading
  • The Italian Experiment – Learn Italian with short stories  for children, with audio, transcripts and translation
  • Fluent Simple – A collection of bilingual Italian / English short stories with audio
  • Raicultura – Texts in Italian for all things Culture: Arts, History, Music etc
  • Easy Italian News – News in easy Italian with explanations for difficult words and audio
  • Euronews IT – News and current affairs in Italian
TV and Movies
  • Witty TV –  A collection of Series and TV Shows in Italian
  • Guarda TV – Live streaming of different Italian TV channels