Parlaviva FAQ: common questions about the speaking-first Italian coach
Parlaviva is a speaking-first Italian coach, available on iOS and the web — an iPhone app and a browser at parlaviva.com. You hold a live spoken conversation with an AI coach — Giulia, Lorenzo, Marta or Salvatore, each from a different Italian city — and get your corrections afterwards. You keep the ones worth keeping and they go into Review. It is built for people preparing to live in a specific place in Italy. There is no Android app.
What is Parlaviva?
Parlaviva is an AI Italian conversation coach built around speaking rather than tapping through exercises. You choose one of four coaches — Giulia from Roma, Lorenzo from Firenze, Marta from Milano, Salvatore from Napoli — and hold a real spoken conversation with them. Each has a distinct voice and temperament: Lorenzo explains the reason behind a correction, Marta pushes you to answer fast without overthinking. Afterwards you get corrections drawn from what you actually said. It is made for people preparing to live in Italy, so the coach knows the town or region you are heading to and grounds the conversation there. It runs on iOS and the web: an iPhone app, and parlaviva.com in a browser.
How does a Parlaviva session actually work?
You open the app and start talking. From your second session on, the coach opens by picking up where you left off, because it keeps a memory of what you have worked on together. During the call it corrects in the flow: it says your phrase and the better version back to back, gives one short reason, then moves the conversation forward instead of piling on — it takes the most useful issue rather than every issue. Those recasts surface as small cards while you speak. When the call ends, the transcript is analysed and your mistakes are written out with what you said, the natural version, and — where it differs — how a local would actually say it. You keep the ones worth keeping; they go into Review. Every conversation has a length ceiling: ten minutes on the free plan, fifteen on Parlaviva, twenty on Fluente.
Does Parlaviva work if I am a complete beginner?
Yes, and the beginner case is designed for deliberately. If you say you are starting from zero during onboarding, you are placed at A0 and skip the placement quiz entirely. At that stage the coach speaks almost entirely in your own language — English or Spanish — slowly, teaching one Italian word or phrase per turn: it says it, tells you what it means, and invites you to repeat. It will not throw Italian sentences at you that you have never met. As you get comfortable the balance shifts across five stages: mostly your language, then about seventy percent, then half and half, then Italian-led, then almost entirely Italian. The first chapter of the path is called First steps for the same reason.
Do I need to learn Italian grammar before I start speaking?
No. Parlaviva runs the opposite order: you speak, and grammar arrives attached to something you were actually trying to say. There is no syllabus to finish before the microphone opens. When you get a tense, an article or an agreement wrong, the coach recasts it and gives one short reason, then the conversation continues. Afterwards every correction is filed by category — tense, conjugation, agreement, article, preposition, word order, word choice, spelling, and a catch-all other — so the pattern in your own mistakes becomes visible over weeks rather than staying a vague feeling. That is the grammar work: specific, tied to a sentence you meant, and reviewed later instead of memorised first.
What devices can I use Parlaviva on?
Parlaviva runs on iOS and the web. The iPhone app is on the App Store; the web app lives at parlaviva.com and works in a normal desktop or mobile browser with a microphone. There is no Android app. Your account is the same in both places — sign in on either and your progress, your coach's memory of you, your saved corrections and your plan follow you, because they are stored against the account rather than the device. Signing in is passwordless: Continue with Google, Continue with Apple, or a magic link emailed to the address you type. You can set your own language to English or Spanish, and the coach scaffolds in whichever you choose.
How much does Parlaviva cost, and what is free?
The free plan is called Assaggio, a taste. It gives you fifteen minutes of live speaking a month, free forever, with the full lessons, review and flashcards — and when the minutes run out your coach is still there to chat by typing. Paid plans buy more speaking. Parlaviva is sixty minutes a month at $9.99 monthly or $79 a year. Fluente is 150 minutes a month at $19.99 monthly or $159 a year. Voice minutes refresh on the first of each month. Subscriptions are bought on the web: Apple's rules keep purchases out of the iOS app, so you subscribe at parlaviva.com and simply sign in on your phone.
How does the free month work?
The free first month belongs to the annual plans only. Subscribe to Parlaviva or Fluente annually within a week of creating your account and you get thirty days free; the year then bills automatically unless you cancel before the trial ends. A payment method is collected when the trial starts, which is what lets it roll over on its own. Monthly plans carry no trial — they are charged today and renew each month with no commitment — and so does an upgrade made after that first week, which is billed straight away. It is one trial per customer, ever, checked against subscription history, so cancelling and signing up again does not restart it. The reasoning is plain: Assaggio's fifteen free minutes already do the try-before-you-buy job.
Can I use Parlaviva if I am moving to a specific region of Italy?
Yes — it is the question onboarding actually asks. You choose your destination as deep as you like: a region, a province, or your exact town, searched against all 7,904 Italian comuni. Every one of the 20 regions has a researched local pack behind it: greeting habits, the bar ritual a newcomer gets wrong in their first week, what is eaten and when, the social register, and situations worth rehearsing there. Your coach draws on those specifics instead of improvising. Where a region is thinly documented the pack is deliberately short, and the coach is instructed to say it does not know rather than invent a custom, a dish or a price.
Does Parlaviva teach Italian dialect?
Not as something you speak, and that is deliberate. You are always taught standard Italian to produce. A beginner who starts saying jamme (let's go, in Neapolitan) at a bank counter has been badly served, so local forms are never drilled as things to say. What Parlaviva does teach is recognition: the coach tells you what you will hear around you so it does not throw you — in Campania, that final vowels collapse to a schwa and guaglione lands as guagliò. Every region has its own note. If you try a local form, the coach is delighted, then hands you the standard version you can use anywhere in the country.
How do corrections work?
Twice: in the moment, and afterwards. During the conversation the coach recasts — your words first, then the better version, plus one short reason — and picks the single most useful issue rather than listing everything, varying how it raises the point so it never sounds scripted. Those recasts appear as highlight cards as you speak. After you hang up, a separate analysis reads the transcript and writes out the mistakes worth fixing, each labelled by category and given your version, the natural one, and — where it differs — how a local would really say it. You can discard any you disagree with. The rest are saved to Review, which brings back the ones you have gone longest without practising.
Is my data private, and are my voice sessions recorded?
During a live session your microphone audio is streamed to the voice provider to power the conversation. Raw audio recordings are not retained on Parlaviva's own servers; the text transcript may be kept as part of your learning progress. Your data is not sold and is never used for advertising. A short list of processors does the work: Supabase for accounts and storage, Google for optional sign-in, Anthropic for the coach's replies and corrections, ElevenLabs for voice, Stripe for payments — card details go straight to Stripe and are never seen or stored by Parlaviva — PostHog for product analytics, and Vercel for hosting. You can export everything the app holds about you as a JSON file from your profile.
Can I cancel Parlaviva at any time?
Yes, and nothing is trapped behind an email. Go to Profile, then Plan and usage, then Manage subscription: that opens the Stripe billing portal, where you cancel or change your payment method. Cancelling stops future charges and you keep access until the end of the period you already paid for — cancel on day two and the month you bought is still yours. On an iPhone in the United States, existing subscribers reach the same portal in the system browser. You can also delete your account outright from your profile: it cancels any active subscription first, then erases your account and progress immediately, and sends you a confirmation.
Fifteen minutes of spoken conversation a month, free forever. iOS and web.