Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

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Stelle
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Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Sat May 06, 2017 10:12 pm

I know that I said that I was going to take a break from language learning, but my break didn't last very long. I'm itching to turn my focus to a language that I can't yet speak. My old log was getting a bit unwieldy, so I thought I'd start a new one to match my current focus: Italian.

Goal: bring Italian to a conversational level in the next three months

Current level: not quite sure. A2ish? I spent a few months focusing on Italian about a year ago, but I haven't touched it since last August. I'm fluent in French and I feel confident that (with a bit of test prep) I could pass a Spanish C1 exam, so I have a strong base in romance languages. That should give me a huge leg up in Italian. I do worry about Spanish interfering with my Italian (or - even worse - Italian interfering with my Spanish), but I hope to get past that.

Learning Resources:
    *Assimil Italian With Ease - I reserved the book from the library and it should come in tomorrow. Last year I made it through the first 50ish lessons. I'm planning on quickly reviewing what I already learned and then carrying on with the course.
    *Language Transfer Introduction to Italian - I previously listened to the first 11 tracks, but I'll start again at the beginning.
    *Bliubliu - I can only use it for five minutes at a time, since I don't pay for membership, but it's a very good source of short audio clips.
    *Conjuguemos - quick verb conjugation drills
    *Duolingo - I was about halfway through the tree, but I'll start by regilding from the beginning.
    *Memrise - vocabulary from Duolingo. I'll start by reviewing the 600ish words that I learned last year, and then carry on with the course.
    *Al Dente - A2/B1 podcast with full transcripts
    *Italian Grammar Drills - workbook published by McGraw Hill
Native materials:
    *Star Trek The Next Generation dubbed into Italian (on Netflix)
    *translated children's books from the library: Roald Dahl books (James e la pesca gigante, Gli sporcelli). The library also has the first four Harry Potter books.
The Plan: I'm going to aim for three half-hour Italian sessions per day on weekdays, although I'll be happy if I complete two per day. Work keeps me really busy! I'll try to make up for it by aiming for four half-hour Italian sessions on the weekend.

I'm not going to make myself a complicated schedule or rotation system. I'm just going to decide what I feel like doing and put on a timer for 30 minutes. If I feel after a few weeks that I'm focusing on certain skills to the detriment of others, then I may decide to do something more structured.

I'll leave Skype tutoring/conversations for July, when summer holidays kick in and both my time and my mental energy increase exponentially.

I have no plans at all to start or revisit my old anki decks. This plan will be anki-free, at least for now.

But what about Spanish?

It's still here! I'll continue reading novels for at least half an hour every day and talking via Skype for an hour once a week. Other than that, though, I'm going to be focusing on Italian for the next few months. Come the end of the three months, I'll probably switch at least some of my focus back to Spanish TV, otherwise I'll never win the Super Challenge.

But for now, the push is on Italian.

Andiamo!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby iguanamon » Sat May 06, 2017 11:24 pm

Good to see you back, Stelle! I've missed you around here. I'm sure you'll have rapid progress with Italian, given your Spanish and French background. Looking forward to following along!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby rdearman » Sat May 06, 2017 11:39 pm

I will be looking forward to reading about your experience!
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Sun May 07, 2017 4:29 am

I decided to join in the 6 week challenge, just so that I can get started on the right foot and have a record of what I'm doing. Since my approach right now is "do whatever I feel like, so long as it's in Italian", it might be helpful to see what, exactly, I felt like doing over the course of several weeks. Besides, I did a six week challenge in Spanish when I first started studying, and I made some great gains.

So here's what I did on this first day of my 6WC (day 6 for everyone else):

    *26 minutes online resources: Memrise (reviews), Duolingo (revising from the beginning), Bliubliu
    *45 minutes watching/listening: Star Trek the Next Generation, season 1 episode 2. I understood bits and pieces, although I missed a lot. Still, I was able to follow the general story and I think that watching regularly will help me progress. I was very tired after 45 minutes.
    *30 minutes grammar: finished up to page 13 in Italian Grammar Drills, drilled present tense regular verbs on Conjuguemos. I'm doing the first chapter of Italian Grammar Drills, which focuses on nouns. Today I went over the gender of nouns.
    *30 minutes reading: Il libro della giungla
    TOTAL: 131 minutes
I have a parallel English/Italian text of The Jungle Book on my Kobo. Although I love to read, I don't really like reading the classics. I've never made it past the first ten pages of The Jungle Book in English. So far, it's much less annoying in Italian! I'm not sure if I'll read the whole thing, but it's enjoyable and it's giving me something to read while waiting for the Roald Dahl books that I reserved at the library.

I love the feeling of reading in a different language. Reading is probably the language learning activity that motivates me the most. I have to figure out a way to balance my reading, though. A year ago, I realized that I'd spent so much time reading in Spanish that I had fallen out of touch with other books and literature. Now, I try to balance reading in Spanish, French, and English, aiming for at least some non-fiction in amongst the novels. Adding Italian reading to the mix will upset the balance a bit, at least at first.

I just wish I had more hours in the day!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby garyb » Sun May 07, 2017 8:54 pm

Good luck, I'll be following with interest.

I'd warn against getting too over-excited about making fast progress, just based on my own experience: I've struggled a lot with Spanish even after knowing French and Italian. However, you're approaching it with much higher levels in the related languages, being a bilingual French speaker and at a higher level in Spanish than I am in any foreign language, so that might mean less interference and quicker progress even beyond the basics!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby indigo » Mon May 08, 2017 2:37 am

Count me in as someone else who will be following your Italian endeavors. I'm on the brink of plunging into the language myself; just trying to get a few other things in order first. (Unlike you, though, I'll be starting completely from scratch). I look forward to reading about your progress and I wish you great success!
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Mon May 08, 2017 11:21 am

garyb wrote:I'd warn against getting too over-excited about making fast progress, just based on my own experience: I've struggled a lot with Spanish even after knowing French and Italian. However, you're approaching it with much higher levels in the related languages, being a bilingual French speaker and at a higher level in Spanish than I am in any foreign language, so that might mean less interference and quicker progress even beyond the basics!

Thanks for the warning! It's always better to temper expectations. I do expect that my Italian comprehension will progress pretty quickly, but I don't expect to be able to speak Italian without a lot of hard work. I find it easier to read in Italian than in Esperanto, despite the fact that I've studied Esperanto on and off for longer, and it's an objectively easier language.

indigo wrote:Count me in as someone else who will be following your Italian endeavors. I'm on the brink of plunging into the language myself; just trying to get a few other things in order first. (Unlike you, though, I'll be starting completely from scratch). I look forward to reading about your progress and I wish you great success!

I hope you join me soon!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Mon May 08, 2017 11:36 am

6 Week Challenge - May 8

30 minutes online resources – Memrise, Duolingo, Bliubliu
30 minutes listening – America 24 (4 x 7:30)
30 minutes Assimil – reviewed lessons 1-5, filled up the last few minutes with present tense drills on conjuguemos
30 minutes Language Transfer – tracks 1-6
20 minutes grammar – Italian Grammar Drills
20 minutes reading – James and the Giant Peach

TOTAL: 160 minutes

Yesterday was a good day, both for language learning and for life! I got up early, walked the dog and studied a bit before going out for lunch with the girls (mom, sister, sister-in-law, two nieces). I had a 30 minute ride to the restaurant, and spent the whole time listening to the podcast America 24 on repeat. If I focused with 150% attention, I was able to understand quite a bit of it, but it's hard to maintain that level of focus. Listening to the same 7-minute podcast multiple times was interesting. I understood a little bit more each time. While watching Star Trek is more fun, intensively listening to shorter audio is probably more useful at this point in time.

I listened to Language Transfer while chopping vegetables for supper. It took me a long time to chop, because I kept waving my hands in the air when I responded to the audio prompts. J was laughing at me because he thought I was trying to be funny, but the truth is that I was doing it without thinking. LT is really an excellent program and I'm looking forward to doing all 45 tracks.

Reviewing Assimil is going relatively quickly. I listen once without the text, listen once with the text, and then orally complete all of the exercises. I expect that when I get to later lessons my pace will slow down, since I'll have to review them more often before feeling confident with the material.

I restarted James and the Giant Peach, and I understand it quite well. I really enjoy starting out with Roald Dahl books when reading in another language. I may or may not return to The Jungle Book. While I quite liked the story, it's a parallel text epub and I have absolutely no idea how many pages long it is. Since I'm still in the Super Challenge for Italian (although very far behind), I'm much more motivated by books that I can log. As I mentioned in my reply to garyb, reading in Italian feels much easier than reading in Esperanto, despite the fact that I studied Esperanto for longer and it's meant to be an easy language. Italian just seems to flow more naturally in my head when reading.

30 minute learning sessions are working out really well for me. It's the perfect amount of time for focused attention, and easy to fit in around other activities. If I stop at a natural point before the 30 minutes are up, I just do a few reviews on Memrise or Conjuguemos to fill up the last few minutes. It was getting late, but I still wanted to do some grammar and some reading. While 20 minute sessions were long enough to get something done, I was left feeling interrupted when the timer went off. While I'm naturally ready to stop at 30 minutes, 20 minutes felt just a bit too short.
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Brun Ugle » Mon May 08, 2017 12:39 pm

I second garyb regarding learning a related language. I was feeling a bit dumb for not being able to learn German instantly when I already knew Norwegian, but it doesn't work that way. Comprehension came quickly, but I still struggle to get the words in the right order with the right genders, cases and adjective-endings in my own sentences. Still, it is nice that at least something comes easily.
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Tue May 09, 2017 11:28 am

Brun Ugle wrote:I second garyb regarding learning a related language. I was feeling a bit dumb for not being able to learn German instantly when I already knew Norwegian, but it doesn't work that way. Comprehension came quickly, but I still struggle to get the words in the right order with the right genders, cases and adjective-endings in my own sentences. Still, it is nice that at least something comes easily.

Thanks for the warning! Like you, I think that comprehension will come quickly, but that I'll struggle with my productive skills. I'm ok with that.
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