How to start?

Take a free test, then self-study or private classes.

  1. Mark your learning goals

    Your course adapts to your goals and work schedule.

  2. Access your course program

  3. Book optional private classes

    Contact a teacher for a first trial class.

Course details

Italian for Nurses: Language Preparation for Nursing Practice in Italy

Who is this course for?

  • Nurses trained outside Italy who want to practise their profession in Italian healthcare institutions.
  • EU and non-EU healthcare professionals required to prove Italian language competence for employment.
  • Nurses with an A2+ level of Italian who need to reach B1 or B2 for professional and institutional use (students starting from A1 have access to our Italian A1 course).
  • Foreign nurses who have subscribed to the local OPI and would like to practice their Italian to prepare for the language test.

What you will learn

  • Communicate in Italian during patient interviews, handovers, and clinical teamwork.
  • Prepare for Italian language evaluations linked to OPI registration, diploma recognition, and employer selection procedures.
  • Use nursing-specific terminology and the formal register expected in Italian healthcare institutions.
  • Understand and produce written Italian used in care reports, patient records, protocols, and instructions.

This course in short

  • You are prepared to meet Italian language requirements for nursing recognition and employment.
  • You train practical and institutional skills aligned with the OPI tests: patient communication, documentation, and professional interaction.
  • Learning combines a structured online learning programme with targeted one-to-one conversation classes.
  • Course materials are based on authentic Italian healthcare communication, adapted to your CEFR level.
  • A flexible, profession-oriented Italian course designed for safe nursing practice and professional integration.

Pricing

How do you want to learn?

Course schedule

No fixed group times: study when you want, and book a teacher around your work.

  • Learn from the comfort of your home
  • Learn whenever you want, with the book and portal
  • Schedule conversation classes when you want

How you learn

  • Online study

    Audio, video, AI corrections

  • PDF downloads

    For offline study

  • Optional printed book

Curriculum

Profession-specific modules to combine with any level course (A1–B2).

Learning objectives

  • Talk about your educational background
  • Describe your workplace and its departments
  • Explaining hospital equipment and navigating hospitals
  • Vocabulary: Hospital departments, wards and rooms, equipment, workwear and footwear

Learning objectives

  • Describing your daily tasks, responsibilities and working hours
  • Describe shift work and teamwork
  • Describe hospital organisation and planning
  • Vocabulary: shift planning and rota scheduling

Learning objectives

  • Noticing changes in conditions and behaviour
  • Accurately measure and record vital signs
  • Report any unusual observations to your supervisor.
  • Vocabulary: Observation terminology (colour, texture, temperature, quantity), vital signs, documentation terms, breathing, pulse, level of consciousness

Learning objectives

  • Read and write short care reports
  • Ask about the patient’s condition
  • Use clear, factual reporting language
  • Vocabulary: reporting templates, administrative terms, clinical report language, patient status terminology

Learning objectives

  • Participate in multidisciplinary meetings
  • Share your views
  • Understanding other professionals’ roles
  • Healthcare job titles and hierarchy, and roles within multidisciplinary teams

Learning objectives

  • Follow hygiene and safety procedures.
  • Describe measures to prevent infections
  • Describe your duties during an epidemic or pandemic
  • Hygiene, infection prevention, protective clothing, hand hygiene, cleaning procedures, waste segregation and recycling in healthcare

Learning objectives

  • Describe skin condition, wounds and hygiene
  • Identify the signs of pressure ulcers (bedsores) and report them.
  • Vocabulary: skin condition, wounds, pressure ulcers, risk factors, pressure points, skin assessment terminology

Learning objectives

  • Recognising conditions such as diabetes, COPD, dementia and Parkinson’s disease
  • Adjust care based on symptoms and treatment plans
  • Recognise the symptoms of left- and right-sided heart failure (decompensation) and rheumatic diseases
  • Chronic conditions, flare-ups vs stable phases, heart failure (left- or right-sided), rheumatic diseases

Learning objectives

  • Asking about daily routines (sleep, diet, mobility)
  • Encourage patients to do light exercise
  • Support mobility
  • Vocabulary: Personal care, daily routines, body functions, fall prevention

Learning objectives

  • Recognising the symptoms of a stroke or injury
  • Describe a rehabilitation plan.
  • Taking part in appraisal meetings
  • Support safe repositioning, transfers and use of mobility aids
  • Vocabulary: rehabilitation, physiotherapy, mobility, assistive devices, stroke symptoms, recovery goals, assessment terminology, repositioning, bed mobility, transfer techniques

Learning objectives

  • Recognising incidents and aggressive behaviour
  • Report and document them correctly
  • Use de-escalation strategies
  • Respond confidently to basic emergencies such as hypoglycaemia, seizures, allergic reactions and shock
  • Vocabulary: aggression, incident reporting, de-escalation strategies, conflict management, safety terminology, hypoglycaemia/hyperglycaemia, seizures, allergic reactions, shock, AED awareness

Learning objectives

  • Discuss the patient’s wishes about end-of-life care
  • Offering condolences and emotional support
  • Respect cultural and religious differences
  • Palliative care, hospices, death and religion, emotions, empathy, condolence phrases

Learning objectives

  • Explaining prescription and over-the-counter medicines
  • Give clear dosage instructions
  • Reading and interpreting medicine information leaflets
  • Dosage, basic pharmacology, packaging symbols, waste disposal, administration instructions

Learning objectives

  • Identifying eating and swallowing problems
  • Complete the list of fluids or foods
  • Monitor hydration levels and understand basic fluid balance (intake/output)
  • Healthy diet, aspiration precautions, feeding aids, restrictions, dysphagia terminology, fluid balance, intake/output (I/O), signs of dehydration, hydration monitoring

Learning objectives

  • Describe meals and dietary requirements
  • Discuss preferences and adapt menus for special dietary requirements
  • Vocabulary: meals and drinks in healthcare settings, diabetes-related diet vocabulary, nutrition for chronic conditions, menu adaptations

Learning objectives

  • Supporting urination and bowel movements (using a bedpan or urinal)
  • Practise good hygiene when caring for someone with incontinence
  • Record the colour, consistency and volume of urine/faeces
  • Excretions, passing urine/bowels, managing incontinence, bedpans and urine bottles, personal hygiene, describing colour/consistency/amount

Learning objectives

  • Organise activities with local residents
  • Holidays and social events
  • Joining in family chats and get-togethers
  • Vocabulary for social events, parties, informal chats, family get-togethers and celebrations

Learning objectives

  • Describing informal care and family roles
  • How to support volunteers
  • Fill in the home care paperwork
  • Vocabulary: family roles, relationships, informal care, volunteering, and home care paperwork

Learning objectives

  • Recognising the symptoms of schizophrenia, psychotic disorders and severe mental illness
  • Communicating effectively with clients experiencing hallucinations, delusions or confusion
  • Supporting customers with intellectual disabilities and neurodevelopmental disorders (e.g. Rett syndrome)
  • Schizophrenia, psychosis, hallucinations, delusions, intellectual disability, Rett syndrome, seizure warning signs

Learning objectives

  • Apply the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) and other pain assessment tools, including non-verbal indicators of pain
  • Describe the WHO classification system and Gordon’s functional health patterns
  • Explain Machteld Huber’s “Positive Health” model and the Content–Process–Interaction–Sustenance levels.
  • Use the SBARR method to structure your communication
  • Vocabulary: NRS, pain assessment tools, the WHO analgesic ladder, Gordon’s Functional Health Patterns, Positive Health, SBARR, assessment terminology, non-verbal indicators of pain

Learning objectives

  • Identify common classes of medicines, such as beta-blockers, and explain their effects and risks.
  • Choosing the safest intramuscular (IM) injection site based on age and muscle mass
  • Recognising the signs of malnutrition and supporting clients who are struggling to stick to their diet
  • Vocabulary: beta-blockers, intramuscular injection sites (deltoid, ventrogluteal, vastus lateralis), signs of malnutrition, dietary adherence

Learning objectives

  • Preparing patients for surgery, including fasting, hygiene and transport guidelines
  • Providing emotional and physical support to patients before, during and after surgery
  • Explain the difference between sedation, anaesthesia and palliative sedation.
  • Vocabulary: pre-operative checklist, anaesthesia, palliative sedation, sterile field, post-operative care terminology

Learning objectives

  • Getting to know support services and key contacts
  • Distinguish between inpatient and outpatient care
  • Explaining home care and community-based support services
  • Healthcare services (GPs, care homes), referrals, inpatient and outpatient care, home care, community care, insurance

Learning objectives

  • Learning to use new hygiene materials and technologies
  • Safely apply ergonomic techniques
  • Describe preventative nursing interventions (falls, thrombosis)
  • Care equipment, ergonomic techniques, personal care tools, preventive care, mobility belts, non-slip materials

Learning objectives

  • Communicating with clients from different cultures
  • Supporting residents with hearing loss or memory problems
  • Cultural differences, communication styles, hearing or memory issues, and supportive communication strategies

Learning objectives

  • Handling ethical dilemmas in day-to-day nursing practice
  • Apply the principles of privacy, autonomy and respect when interacting with patients.
  • Follow professional standards, values and legal requirements
  • Privacy, autonomy, respect, professional values and standards, legal standards, quality of care

All levels

Includes access to all levels

Italian A1
Italian A1
Italian A2
Italian A2
Italian B1
Italian B1

Course certificate — Progress report of mastered topics. Teacher verification in classes. Aligned with Celi.

How certificates work

Why +10k learners have chosen already coLanguage?

Feature coLanguage Informal tutoring Learning apps
Personalized tasks and hand-ins

Your teacher sets personalized tasks—and the app adapts exercises to your level and the areas you find hardest.

Learning portal

Study online or offline with PDF downloads, interactive exercises, audio, video, and AI-powered writing feedback.

Structured learning paths

Follow clear paths from A1 to C1, plus professional courses tailored to your goals.

Conversation classes

Every teacher is personally screened and trained to teach with our learning portal—so your classes match your course and progress.

Offline worksheets (PDF, translated)

Download the full e-book as PDF, or print any lesson as a translated worksheet.

Quality guarantee

We partner with universities and align every course with official learning programs—for reliable, recognized learning.

Learn with real content (news, podcasts…)

Practice with real news articles and podcasts—immersive content that prepares you for everyday language.

Full-skill training: listening, reading, writing, speaking

Train all four skills: listening and pronunciation with audio, reading with authentic texts, writing with AI feedback, and speaking in your classes.

Course materials trusted by official libraries and bookshops

Our books are sold in bookshops across Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, and beyond—and approved by public libraries.

Academic collaboration with universities

Course plans are co-developed from our Valencian office with multiple European universities.

Student reviews of our Italian lessons

  • 4.7/5
4.7 out of 5 based on 12 ratings

Preparing for an exam while working full time. Audio with translation makes revision realistic on short breaks.

Rachel E.
Helsinki, Finland
Self-study
  • 4.4/5

Clear structure from A1 upward. AI corrections in the portal save time; I still work through the printed units.

Claire D.
Lyon, France
Blended learning
  • 4.2/5

Social life improved once I could follow meetings in Italian. The portal exercises are short; the book gives depth.

David R.
Berlin, Germany
Blended learning
  • 4.8/5

Our partners

We thank our partners for the support we receive for developing our online school.

We proudly work with Lanzadera, a Spanish accelerator program in Valencia.

The university of Siegen helps us to develop and design our education systems and programs.

Our IT systems are powered and supported by the Google Cloud team

We collaborate with universities all across the European Union to develop our course materials, thanks to the Erasmus+ Program.

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