Intermediate Italian for expressing opinions, discussing experiences, work, and health vocabulary.
Roughly 1–2 years of study. CELI B1.
B1 Italian introduces the congiuntivo presente (voglio che tu venga, spero che abbia ragione), the imperfetto for descriptions and habits in the past (quando ero piccolo...), and the contrast between imperfetto and passato prossimo that shapes Italian narration. Vocabulary climbs to around 2,000 words for opinions, work, health, and abstract topics.
If you can hold a 15-minute conversation, follow a slow news segment, and write a short complaint email, you're around B1. Most learners reach B1 after 1–2 years. CELI 2 / B1 is sometimes accepted for university preparation programs.
B1 is where the congiuntivo arrives, and it's used much more in Italian than in many learner languages. Don't memorize tables; memorize trigger phrases (penso che, credo che, è importante che, bisogna che) and let pattern-matching do the work. Use spaced repetition for imperfetto/passato prossimo contrastive sentence pairs, and listen to RAI Easy Italian podcasts daily.