I tried Preply to learn Italian – and it’s far better than language apps (aff)

Learning a new language is a really smart way to keep your mind engaged. It helps build the brain's cognitive reserve - its ability to stay resilient over time - and helps with general mental sharpness.

I fell in love with speaking French decades ago and vividly recall practising on an unsuspecting stranger in a rainy Calais street, days after passing my CSEs. In the most French-sounding accent I could muster, I asked him where I could find the tourist information office. With mild panic in his eyes, he blurted out that he was English and didn't understand me. Result! He thought I was French! It remains the high point of my foreign language career.

Keen to try a new language 40 years later, and in the hope that I'd sound vaguely like Sophia Loren on an upcoming trip to Rome, I decided to learn Italian and for the last two months have been using Preply, one of the most popular and effective online language learning platforms out there.

Instead of relying on repetitive exercises and gamified streaks on an app, its USP is something far more valuable: real conversations with real tutors.

Signing up is an exciting experience. You can choose from an incredible 100,000 tutors and more than 90 languages, so if you've ever fancied nailing Norwegian or being fluent in Hebrew, Preply's huge tutor pool will have it covered.

Onboarding is simple - you pick a goal, a timeframe, your motivation and starting level. You're also asked about your budget and what style of teaching suits you.

Best of all is the programme's flexibility. Booking and re-booking lessons is easy and cancelling isn't a problem if something crops up last-minute. You get access to your tutor's calendar and book 50-minute time slots to suit you. As long as you give some notice, you can cancel and rearrange at any point.

And if you are not gelling with your chosen tutor, you can swap for free.

I chose a mid-priced Italian tutor who charged £29 for each lesson. Sessions take place in Preply’s own built-in video space called the Preply Classroom. It includes video chat, screen sharing, messaging and a whiteboard designed specifically for language learning.

The initial 10 minutes of the first lesson are spent sharing goals with your tutor and explaining what you're hoping to get out of the experience. As someone who has recently taken early retirement, I said I wanted to keep my mind active for as long as possible. Plus, I said I wanted to be able to hold simple conversations in bars and restaurants on my imminent trip to Rome, without accidentally ordering a horse's head instead of a house red!

Getting to grips with a new language is undoubtedly taxing, with all those conjugations, grammar rules and irregular verbs. Italian verbs change constantly depending on tense and subject, and there are a lot of them to get comfortable with. Even fairly basic conversations require switching between present, past, imperfect and future forms quite quickly.

It's not enough to know a few nouns and common phrases if you really want to get under the skin of a language. You have to put in the time to learn verb endings but it's not overly daunting as you set the pace and if you do your "homework" - usually sharing your attempts at some written dialogue or listening to audio files - then progress can be swift.

My biggest obstacle has been pronunciation. After speaking French since primary school, I found it hard to get the rhythm and intonation right which makes a big difference to how you sound.

But because the lessons are different each time - one minute you're reading text out loud - the next you're matching words with pictures, it always feels like fun.

My tutor actively encouraged me to ask questions or share any work I'd done outside of lessons and would always reply in her own time.

After half a dozen lessons taken over five or six weeks, I feel I've made good progress with Preply in my pursuit of mastering Italian. I'm fairly confident that when I next travel to Italy I'll be able to make myself understood, hold simple conversations and not mortally offend the waiter when asking for the bill.

Overall, Preply is an excellent option for anyone serious about improving speaking confidence and conversational ability in a new language.

Since starting the sessions I can almost feel my cognitive reserve being topped up. Learning a language asks the brain to do several things at once: listen carefully, recognise patterns, retrieve vocabulary and switch quickly between meanings. It draws on memory, concentration and mental agility in a way that feels both stimulating and purposeful.

Time well spent, I'd say. Bravo Preply!