Wales has a proud Italian story – the Bardi families whose cafés warmed every valley town. From Cardiff to Swansea, live online Italian lessons with a native Sicilian teacher keep that connection alive.
Looking for an Italian tutor in Cardiff? Lessons are one-to-one over Microsoft Teams, tailored to you — complete beginner, GCSE revision, holiday Italian or reconnecting with the family language. As a private Italian tutor I charge £30 an hour, with no travel time and no course-book padding: we spend the whole lesson actually speaking.
Learn Italian from anywhere in the UK with live online lessons taught by Laura — a native Italian speaker from Sicily with over 20 years’ teaching experience, fully qualified with QTS, a PGCE and the Cambridge CELTA.
How online lessons work
- Live video lessons — real conversation with a real teacher, not an app
- One-to-one tuition — £30/hour, scheduled around you, Monday to Friday
- Small group courses — £15 per 1.5-hour session, 10-week terms from £150
- Interactive materials — custom resources, BookWidgets and Kahoot activities, all provided
Who they’re for
- Complete beginners building the foundations
- Improvers and returners who want structured conversation practice
- Students preparing for IB Diploma, GCSE or A-level Italian examinations
- Anyone with Italian family, travel plans, or a love of the language
Every lesson is tailored to your goals and level. As a specialist SEN-trained teacher, Laura is particularly experienced at supporting learners who find languages daunting — and at making every session genuinely enjoyable.
Ready to start? Get in touch for a free chat about your level and goals, or meet Laura in her welcome video — wherever you are in the UK.
Ready to start? Join the 10-week online beginners’ course — starts 16 September (£150)
Not ready yet? Grab the free 50 Essential Italian Phrases PDF
“Laura is a great teacher — warm, friendly, knowledgeable and encouraging. I really like the style of the lessons with a combination of conversation and worked exercises.”
— Jess Read all my Google reviews →
Cardiff’s Italian connection
Cardiff’s Italian story begins with the ‘Bracchi’ — the cafes that made Italian coffee and ice cream part of everyday Welsh life. Giacomo Bracchi opened the first Italian cafe and ice cream shop in Wales in the 1890s, and his surname became the Welsh word for an Italian cafe; before the Second World War there were more than 300 across Wales, most run by families from around Bardi in the northern Apennines.
There is sorrow in the story too: each July, South Wales Italians remember those lost in the Arandora Star tragedy of 1940. When Cardiff learners join me on Teams, I love that Italian already belongs to their city’s memory — from the Welsh National Opera staging Verdi and Puccini to Welsh sporting heroes of Italian descent like Joe Calzaghe.
Common questions
Do you teach in person in Cardiff or online?
Online, over Microsoft Teams. I teach from Gloucestershire, just across the water from south Wales, and my Cardiff students join me on screen. Lessons are live, personal and relaxed — the same conversation and correction you’d get sitting together, without either of us crossing the Severn.
How much are Italian lessons?
One-to-one lessons are £30 an hour. My online beginners course is £150 for the full ten weeks — it starts on Wednesday 16 September, runs 5.00 to 6.30pm, and is deliberately small to keep it personal.
My family were part of the Italian community in Wales — can you help me reconnect?
I’d be honoured. So many Welsh-Italian families came from around Bardi to open the cafés south Wales still remembers fondly. If Italian was the sound of your grandparents’ kitchen, we can bring it back — starting with the words you know and building a living language around them.
Does Cardiff really have an Italian history?
It does — a rich one. Before the Second World War more than 300 Italian cafes, known as ‘Bracchi’, operated across Wales, thriving as alcohol-free venues in step with the Welsh temperance movement. A memorial placed in 2010 remembers the South Wales Italians who died in the Arandora Star sinking of 1940, in which 53 Welsh Italians lost their lives.