Understand Italian is easy at first to convert into binary form (8)
I believe the answer is:
digitise
'convert into binary form' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'understand italian is easy at first' is the wordplay.
'understand' becomes 'dig' (digging is a kind of understanding).
'italian' becomes 'it'.
'at first' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'easy' is 'e'.
'dig'+'it'+'is'+'e'='DIGITISE'
'to' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for digitise that I've seen before include "Convert into binary form" , "Put into a form suitable to a computer" , "To transcribe data" .)