Stelle's log (Spanish, Italian, Tagalog)

[Brun Ugle]

Hmmmm...I have enough to keep me busy for the next little while. But I'm very open to the idea of learning Kiswahili in 2018. If anyone else is still interested, I'll look for you then.

If the Finnish group learning experiment goes well, I'd be open for trying another one. That's assuming I don't get so excited that I jump the gun and start before then.

[Stelle]

I just signed up for the six-week challenge in Italian. Last time my involvement fizzled out due to work demands, but this time it should work out very well. I think I'm at the perfect level for an intensive study binge. I have a lot of resources, so I won't get bored or burned out. I'm also on vacation, so I have some time.

The 6WC will end just a week or so before I head to Guatemala. My goal is to solidify what I already know and bump up my level a bit, so that my Italian doesn't atrophy to absolutely nothing while I'm doing my Spanish immersion. Ideally, I'd like to get to the point where I can maintain minimally in a few minutes a day, since I don't want to focus heavily on Italian while in Central America, and then be able to pick up where I left off once I get back to Canada.

I'd say that currently, my receptive skills are somewhere around A2 (maybe even a very shaky B1 at times?). My productive skills are pretty much non-existent. I did have one 30-minute Skype conversation, but nothing since then.

I'm thinking of aiming for 4 Italian sessions per day, as follows:

1st session (45 minutes): all of my computer "stuff", since it's fun and I'm motivated to do it first thing in the morning. Over the past few days, I've been doing these in order, each for somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes:
- anki (just the text-based cards)
- BliuBliu (I'm loving the Italian content! It's rich and varied, with full audio.)
- Memrise
- Duolingo
- Conjuguemos

2nd session (35-45 minutes): anki audio deck (consisting of past Assimil dialogues), followed by a new Assimil lesson

3rd session (30-45 minutes): either a Skype conversation or a listening session, consisting of some mix of:
- Peppa Pig (Italian episodes on YouTube)
- videos by Yotobi (probably over my head right now, but I'd like to start intensively listening to some full-speed colloquial Italian, just to start training my ear)
- Al Dente podcast (listen / read intensively)
- a second BliuBliu session (I'm using the free version and can only do 5 minutes at a time)

4th session (15-30 minutes): extensive or intensive reading
- finish reading Le Streghe
- finish reading La Fabbrica di cioccolato on Readlang (second read)
- after that, choose a new book: probably either Gli sporcelli or James e la pesca gigante (both by Roald Dahl)

Whew, that's a lot of Italian! But it is, after all, meant to be a challenge.

In preparation for the 6WC, I've already booked 3 Skype sessions for the first week of August, with 2 different teachers. Two of them will be 30-minute sessions (my preference), and one will be a 60-minute session (since the teacher doesn't offer 30-minutes sessions). Between that and the active phase of Assimil (which should begin next week), I'm hoping to start building my productive skills.

Spanish will obviously take a backseat during the 6WC, but I'll make up for it once I'm in-country!

[Stelle]

Oh dear. I had a sudden realization while responding in Elenia's log about Xhosa.

Remember when I said this?

I spent several months backpacking in Eastern Africa when I graduated from university 16 years ago, and I fell in love with kiSwahili. I have a notebook full of words that I jotted down while I was there, and I still find myself saying "yebo" (yes) and "polepole" (slow) on a semi-regular basis.

Well...I was wrong.

I've always thought that yebo (which I say a lot) was Swahili. But as I thought about my travels to South Africa, it just clicked (ha! Get it? Clicked? It's a Xhosa joke.) that yebo is actually Zulu for yes. And to think that for the past decade and a half, I've been telling people that "yebo" was yes in Swahili. Oops.

[Stelle]

Very quick update tonight!

italiano

Last week's goals:

- complete six Assimil lessons - done!
- keep up with anki and memrise every day - done!
- get at least 30 points on Duolingo every day - done!
- listen intensively (ie. listen at least three times, as well as intensively reading the transcript) to an episode of Al Dente - almost. I read intensively and listened twice.
- read up to page 100 of Le Streghe - done! I'm up to page 110.
- post at least once on italki for corrections - sort of. Italki's making it difficult for me to update my language profile, so I can't post in Italian yet. But I did send a paragraph to an email language partner and she sent me corrections.

Here's my original Italian paragraph:

Mi chiamo Stephanie, e vivo in Toronto, una città in Canada. Toronto è la più grande città del Canada, e mi piace molto vivere qui. Ma il traffico qui è terribile! La gente sempre se affretta. Vivo insieme con mio marito, JP. Lui è filippino, ma vive in Canada da 20 anni. Ora sto visitando mei genitori e il loro gato, un bellissimo gato bianco con i occhi verdi. Oggi è la prima volta che scrivo in italiano – mi dispiace se faccio multi errori!

Here's my corrected paragraph (changes in bold):

Mi chiamo Stephanie, e vivo a Toronto, una città del Canada. Toronto è la più grande città del Canada. Mi piace molto vivere qui, ma il traffico è terribile! La gente è sempre di fretta. Vivo con mio marito JP. Lui è filippino, ma vive in Canada da 20 anni. Ora sto visitando i miei genitori e il loro gatto, un bellissimo gatto bianco con gli occhi verdi. Oggi è la prima volta che scrivo in italiano, mi dispiace se faccio molti errori!

Overall, I'm happy with my first real attempt at writing in Italian!

Next week's goals:

I'm going to switch over to time-based goals for the 6WC, since my goal is to do as much studying as I can. So I'm setting myself a goal of at least three 30-45 minute timed study sessions per day (with an ideal day having four sessions). I'm going to rotate my sessions between:

- computer-based learning (anki, memrise, duolingo, bliu bliu, conjuguemos)
- Assimil
- intensive and/or extensive listening
- intensive and/or extensive reading

I have three Skype sessions set for next week, so they'll just slide into the rotation.

I'd like to try to log much more regularly during the 6WC. I don't know if I'll manage daily, but I think that daily updates are ideal for this particular challenge. We'll see!

español

I reconnected with a language partner that I haven't spoken to in a while, and she was shocked by how much my Spanish has improved. I'd be a liar if I said that didn't make my day! She's working on her C1 English exam (she took it once, and failed by a hair on the oral section), so we're going to try to talk regularly and practise C1-type questions. I figure I may as well practise doing the same sort of speaking activities in Spanish! She's an absolutely lovely person, and I'm thrilled that we've reconnected.

While that exchange made me feel like a Spanish superstar, I was brought back down to earth during my weekly Skype lesson. Ha! I was struggling with the subjunctive, which is something that I don't usually do. Ah well, I'll chalk it up to lack of sleep. My tutor is amazing, and the hour flew by as it always does, even if I did butcher her beautiful language a bit.

[Stelle]

I had a good start to the Six Week Challenge today, with 133 minutes.

session 1 (47 minutes): anki, bliubliu, memrise, conjuguemos, duolingo
session 2 (41 minutes): Assimil lesson 45
session 3 (15 minutes): bliubliu, Peppa Pig
session 4 (30 minutes): extensive reading of Le Streghe

[tastyonions]

I'm sure you'll progress really quickly in Italian given your French and Spanish. Tutors seem to be very impressed with my level in the language in spite of the fact that after Assimil I did nothing much other than casually read news articles and listen to the radio. It really flies by when you already have two other Romance languages!

[Stelle]

A very successful day for Italian, with 154 minutes logged.

1st session: conversation (38 minutes) - first I warmed up a bit with bliubliu and duolingo, and then I had a 30-minute Skype session with an Italian italki tutor. It went relatively well! There's definitely some interference from Spanish, but we stayed in Italian the whole time. My tutor told me several times that I had a good accent, which was nice. We're both dog-lovers, so it was fun to talk about our dogs. I found a few gaps in my vocabulary, so I created a few L1->L2 anki cards with words that I wanted to use.

2nd session: listening (43 minutes) - I listened to Al Dente 7 for the third time, and also watched a few short episodes of Peppa Pig in Italian. I sandwiched those between three sessions of bliubliu, which is quickly becoming one of my favourite resources. I found it mediocre when I used it for Tagalog, but it's excellent for Italian. I'm using the "most popular" in the advanced section. Each entry is the length of a solid paragraph, and most of them have full audio. I listen to each entry without looking at the text, and then read the text. I'm finding it very useful for training my listening.

3rd session: computer (28 minutes) - anki, memrise, duolingo, bliubliu.

4th session: Assimil (27 minutes) - lesson 46. 44 and 45 were painfully dull (a job posting and a curriculum vitae), so I was glad that we seem to be moving on to more conversational lessons.

5th session: extensive reading (18 minutes) - two chapters of Le Streghe. At this rate, I should be finished with the book within a few days. I'm far from my urban library with a selection of Italian books, so when I finish this book, I'll have to either read it again, or finish reading La Fabbrica di cioccolato for a second time using ReadLang.

I'm sure you'll progress really quickly in Italian given your French and Spanish. Tutors seem to be very impressed with my level in the language in spite of the fact that after Assimil I did nothing much other than casually read news articles and listen to the radio. It really flies by when you already have two other Romance languages!

I think that I'll advance relatively quickly now that I'm really focusing, especially since I'm aiming for at least two Skype sessions per week. Conversations will highlight my gaps and help me focus my learning.

[Stelle]

Six Week Challenge: Day 3 - 141 minutes

1st session - computer (46 minutes): Memrise, anki, Bliubliu, duolingo, conjuguemos
2nd session - listening (35 minutes): Bliubliu, Al Dente 8 (first listen), anki audio deck, Peppa Pig
3rd session - Assimil (30 minutes): lesson 47
4th session - extensive reading (30 minutes): 2 chapters of Le Streghe

[Stelle]

I just did a full hour of Italian with a new Skype tutor. We got along well, and I think I'll keep working with her, but my brain started melting somewhere around 45 minutes. I started tossing in French and Spanish words, and even a bit of Tagalog. She was patient and encouraging, though, and we laughed a lot.

One thing that I love about Skype conversations is the way that they help me pinpoint holes in my vocabulary. Today we were talking about wild animals in Italy and Canada, and aside from "dog", "cat", "bird" and "bear", I realized that I didn't know any animals names at all. My anki deck now has picture cards for wolf, raccoon, moose, skunk, squirrel, boar and deer.

My anki deck is starting to get a bit bloated. When I was only using it for Assimil, I usually only had about 20 words waiting in my "unseen cards". Now, with Assimil, Skype and Al Dente, I have well over 150 waiting for me. I was making cards from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I find them boring and frustrating, so I'm not making any more of them and I'm deleting them as they pop up. I'm sticking to my current pace of 20 new cards per day. Eventually I'll take a break from making new cards and I'll be able to catch up.

In other news...

I saw some very interesting videos of Filipinos speaking Spanish as a native language. Spanish was an official language of the Philippines until just a few decades ago, but Spanish never took hold in the Philippines the way that it did in Latin America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSC7D5ahyyU&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enKztzTbn4o&feature=youtu.be

[Stelle]

141 minutes of Italian yesterday.

1st session - conversation (60 minutes): one hour Skype conversation with a new italki tutor
2nd session - computer (61 minutes): anki, memrise, duolingo, bliubliu, conjuguemos
3rd session - extensive reading (20 minutes): Le Streghe

I finished reading Le Streghe last night. It's really one of my favourite Roald Dahl books, although I found the part where the Grand High Witch was speaking was a bit tedious, since she speaks with an accent. This meant that I had to go through two layers to guess at the meanings of some of the words (What is the actual Italian word that she's saying? And what does it mean?). It was easier for me to do in Spanish, since The Witches was the fourth Spanish novel that I read and my reading level was higher. However, Le Streghe is only the second Italian novel that I've read, so it was a bit more of a challenge.

I'm a bit disappointed that I don't have any new books to read. I can reread Le Streghe or I can finish rereading La Fabbrica di cioccolato. But I much prefer having an unread book for extensive reading. Oh well, I'll be heading back to the city in a week, so I can manage until then!