Italian (italiano, or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken as a native language by about 62 million people in Italy, San Marino and parts of Switzerland, Croatia, Slovenia and France. It is spoken as a first language by many Italian citizens and immigrants abroad, for a total of approximately 70 million native speakers. In addition, it is spoken by an additional 120 to 150 million people as a non-native language. Most native speakers are native bilinguals of both standardised Italian and regional varieties.

Italian derives diachronically from Latin and is the closest national language to Latin. Unlike most other Romance languages, Italian retains Latin's contrast between short and long consonants. As in most Romance languages, stress is distinctive. In particular, among the Romance languages, Italian is the closest to Latin in terms of vocabulary. Lexical similarity is 89% with French, 87% with Catalan, 85% with Sardinian, 82% with Spanish, 78% with Rhaeto-Romance and 77% with Romanian.  Our website is the place for cheap Rosetta Stone Italian.