Italy has become a credible study destination for many Cameroonian students: public universities with moderate tuition fees, regional scholarships, and a labour market open to certain profiles. But an Italian application turns largely on language, and that is where many candidacies stall.<\/p>\n
Two routes exist. Programmes taught in English require an English certification. Programmes in Italian — the majority of the public offer, particularly at bachelor level — require a certified Italian level, generally B1 or B2 depending on the institution and the course.<\/p>\n
The second route is often the more accessible in terms of places and costs, but it imposes a calendar constraint: reaching B1 or B2 from scratch cannot be improvised in the weeks before a deadline.<\/p>\n
This is why Italian has to be started avant<\/em> the rest of the application, not alongside it.<\/p>\n Several bodies certify Italian as a foreign language. The ones most commonly named in applications are:<\/p>\n As with German or French, the rule stays the same: it is not your preference that decides, but the list of certifications accepted by the university you are applying to. Check it on the institution’s admissions page, not on a forum.<\/p>\n The four usual skills: listening and reading comprehension, spoken and written expression, sometimes with a structures section. A minimum score is required in each paper, which rules out offsetting weak speaking with excellent writing.<\/p>\n Italian offers a real advantage to a French speaker: lexical and grammatical proximity is strong. Vocabulary is often transparent, verb tenses follow a logic close to French, and pronunciation is regular — what is written is what is said.<\/p>\n That advantage is real but it has a limit: proximity makes comprehension easier and correction slower. False friends and calques from French settle in quickly and are hard to undo. Guided learning from the start avoids fossilising those errors.<\/p>\n In practice, a structured intensive track progresses markedly faster than scattered study. PVT Institut offers Italian from A1 to B2, with an intensive format of one month per level; details are on the page language courses and fees<\/a>.<\/p>\n Planning to study in Italy?<\/strong> The language level required governs the calendar of the whole application. Have it checked before you commit.<\/p>\n Discuss your plans<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n This is the method that prevents incomplete applications. Start from the university’s application deadline, then work back:<\/p>\n This last step is regularly forgotten. Transcripts, diplomas and certificates often have to be translated, and that translation takes time. PVT Institut provides translation of administrative and academic documents<\/a> between French, English, German, Italian and Chinese.<\/p>\n A point often overlooked: the certificate gets you in, but your real level keeps you there. Following lectures, writing assignments, sitting orals and living day to day demand more than a score scraped by.<\/p>\n Students who arrive with a genuinely consolidated level — not just a piece of paper — settle in faster, understand their courses from the first semester and find student work more easily. That is an argument for not aiming at the bare minimum.<\/p>\n It is the longest step in the application: it has to start first.<\/p>\n Proximity helps you understand, not produce. The exam assesses production.<\/p>\n Sitting a test the target institution does not recognise means starting again, with a session lost.<\/p>\n A plan to study in Italy is built around language: identify the level required and the certification accepted, start Italian before the rest of the application, and work the calendar back from the deadline, factoring in exam and translation delays.<\/p>\nThe CILS certification and the others<\/h2>\n
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What an Italian certification tests<\/h3>\n
How long does it take to reach B1 or B2?<\/h2>\n
Build the calendar backwards<\/h2>\n
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What language gives you after admission<\/h2>\n
Three common mistakes<\/h2>\n
Leaving the language until last<\/h3>\n
Assuming that “Italian is like French, it will be fine”<\/h3>\n
Not checking which certification is accepted<\/h3>\n
In summary<\/h2>\n