A Free Course from MIT Teaches You How to Speak Italian & Cook Italian Food All at Once

At MIT, Dr. Pao­la Rebus­co usu­al­ly teach­es physics to fresh­men. But, on behalf of the MIT Exper­i­men­tal Study Group, Rebus­co has devised an appeal­ing course — Speak Ital­ian with Your Mouth Full — where she com­bines teach­ing two things many peo­ple love: learn­ing to speak Ital­ian and cook­ing Ital­ian food. The course sum­ma­ry reads:

The par­tic­i­pants in this sem­i­nar will dive into learn­ing basic con­ver­sa­tion­al Ital­ian, Ital­ian cul­ture, and the Mediter­ranean diet. Each class is based on the prepa­ra­tion of a deli­cious dish and on the bite-sized acqui­si­tion of parts of the Ital­ian lan­guage and cul­ture. A good diet is not based on recipes only, it is also root­ed in healthy habits and in cul­ture. At the end of the sem­i­nar the par­tic­i­pants will be able to cook some healthy and tasty recipes and to under­stand and speak basic Ital­ian.

As Rebus­co explains in a short video, this course has the advan­tage of mak­ing the lan­guage lessons a lit­tle less abstract. It gives stu­dents a chance to apply what they’ve learned (new vocab­u­lary words, pro­nun­ci­a­tions, etc.) in a fun, prac­ti­cal con­text.

Above, we start you off with the first lan­guage les­son in the sem­i­nar. It begins where all basic cours­es start — with how to say your name. Below, you can watch the class learn to cook fresh pas­ta. Along the way, the course also teach­es stu­dents how to make espres­so, risot­to, home­made piz­za, bruschet­ta, and bis­cot­ti. Lec­tures for the course can be found on the MIT web site, YouTube and iTunes. Speak Ital­ian with Your Mouth Full also appears in our col­lec­tion of Free For­eign Lan­guage Lessons and 1200 Free Cours­es Online. Buon Appeti­to!

Ingre­di­ents & Cook­ing Instruc­tion:

Food Prepa­ra­tion

Note: An ear­li­er ver­sion of this post appeared on our site way back in 2012.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book and BlueSky.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Bak­ing, Cook­ing & Oth­er Dai­ly Activ­i­ties Help Pro­mote Hap­pi­ness and Alle­vi­ate Depres­sion and Anx­i­ety

53 New York Times Videos Teach Essen­tial Cook­ing Tech­niques: From Poach­ing Eggs to Shuck­ing Oys­ters

Sci­ence & Cook­ing: Har­vard Profs Meet World-Class Chefs in Unique Online Course

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

The Futur­ist Cook­book (1930) Tried to Turn Ital­ian Cui­sine into Mod­ern Art

How to Bake Ancient Roman Bread Dat­ing Back to 79 AD: A Video Primer