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

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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 11:30 am

6 Week Challenge - May 8 (yesterday - the log that I posted yesterday was actually for May 7th)

30 minutes online resources – Memrise, Duolingo, Bliubliu
20 minutes listening – America 24 (4 x 5:00)
30 minutes Assimil – reviewed lessons 6-10, filled up the last few minutes with shadowing
30 minutes reading – James and the Giant Peach

TOTAL: 110 minutes
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Thu May 11, 2017 10:53 am

I'm a little over halfway through James e la pesca gigante. It's...strange. I have a high tolerance for strange books and I usually quite like Roald Dahl, but I can't say that this story is doing much for me. I'll finish it, and then move on to Gli Sporcelli by the same author (another book that I've never read in any language). I also reserved a few Geronimo Stilton books in Italian from the library. When I taught fourth grade, kids loved those books, but I've never read one myself.

The first three days of the week went well for Italian. I'm really tired after work, but I still had enough time and energy to do a few blocks of Italian learning every day. I'm finding that my original plan of 30 minute blocks works for learning, but it's a little bit hard to make it work for life. It's easier for me to fit in 15-25 minute sessions. I guess I'll do 30 minute blocks on the weekend, and just do what I can from Monday to Friday.

I also find it hard to focus on serious listening in the evening, because I don't want to plug in my earbuds and ignore the people around me. J and I can drink tea and sit together while I work in a workbook and he does something on the computer. Although we're both quiet and focused on what we're doing, it feels like something that we're doing together. The second I put in my earbuds, I cease to be present with another person. We went from being together all day every day for months and months to having about four hours per day between me coming home from work and going to bed. Help make supper, eat, clean up, organize stuff for the following day, walk the dog, and there's really not much of that four hours left. I don't want to spend an hour of it plugged in and isolated.

On that note, I'm going to start getting up 20 minutes earlier so that I can at least do some Assimil in the morning before anyone gets up. I'll also try to do more listening on the weekend, when I have more time and flexibility.

Six Week Challenge Update:

May 9
25 minutes online resources: Duolingo, Memrise
20 minutes reading James e la Pesca Gigante
23 minutes Italian Grammar Drills (finished first chapter on nouns)
Total: 68 minutes

May 10
30 minutes online resources: Duolingo, Memrise, Conjuguemos
22 minutes listening to Al Dente (episode 10)
13 minutes Italian Grammar Drills
20 minutes reading James e la Pesca Gigante
Total: 85 minutes

Edited to add totals.
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Fri May 12, 2017 11:26 am

I had a very productive day yesterday!

May 11
33 minutes: reviewed Assimil lessons 11-17
23 minutes: Language Transfer tracks 6-9
24 minutes: listened to America 24 (3 x 8:00)
24 minutes: Duolingo, Memrise, Conjuguemos
18 minutes: reading James and the Giant Peach

total: 122 minutes
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Mon May 15, 2017 1:52 am

Three days of nothing.

After a particularly difficult day at work on Friday, I decided to take the day off. Apparently my day off extended to the entire weekend. Now I'm going back and forth on whether or not I should do a bit of reading before bed. Both James e la Pesca Gigante and La Huésped are sitting on my bedside table. While I should open the Italian book, I'm much more interested in the Spanish.

Tomorrow's a new day - thank goodness. I'm going to try to get back in the race.
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Wed May 17, 2017 1:05 am

Six Week Challenge - May 15th (yesterday)

18 minutes Assimil: quickly reviewed lessons 18-27
25 minutes online resources: Duolingo, Memrise
23 minutes reading: James e la Pesca Gigante
32 minutes grammar: Italian Grammar Drills workbook

TOTAL: 98 minutes

I've changed the way that I'm approaching Assimil. As I mentioned earlier, I previously completed the first 50ish lessons of Assimil. It was almost a year ago, and of course I can't just pick up where I left off. But reviewing the lessons was painful. I was listening to the dialogue once on its own, then listening once while reading along, and then orally doing all of the exercises. It wasn't even remotely interesting. I was getting through about five lessons in half an hour - at that rate, I would be looking at ten days of stab-my-pen-in-my-eye boredom before I got to anything new.

I claimed that my approach to Italian right now is to choose challenging but pleasant material. Reviewing Assimil lessons was neither challenging nor pleasant.

However, when I was doing the lessons last summer I thoroughly enjoyed them. I don't want to abandon the resource altogether. Instead, I've decided to do a speed review of 10 lessons in about 20 minutes per day. All I do is listen once to each dialogue while reading along. That's it. I don't shadow. I don't reread. I don't close my book and listen to the dialogue on its own. I don't even look at the written exercises. I just listen once while reading, then turn the page and move on to the next lesson.

At this rate, I should reach lesson 50 in the next day or two. At that point, I intend on focusing on Assimil for 30 minutes per day, at least five times per week. Although I'll surely change and tweak things as I go, my general plan looks something like this:

    day A: active wave lesson. Read the English, write out the Italian, then correct my work. Re-read the notes and quickly read through the cloze sentences, filling them in orally.
    day B: passive wave lesson. Some combination of: listen only, listen/read English, listen/read Italian, read aloud, shadow. Then I'll read the notes and do the exercises orally. I don't plan on doing any writing for passive wave lessons.
When I first started using Assimil, I made dozens of anki cards for each lesson. I included snippets of dialogue, new vocabulary, cloze passages and audio. I deleted that deck a few weeks ago without a second thought, and I look forward to learning without having to spend so much time building the cards and then doing endless reviews.

I'm looking forward to hitting lesson 50 and sinking my teeth back into Assimil!
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Wed May 17, 2017 11:20 am

I've been enjoying the Al Dente podcast, listening to each episode twice. I listen the first time while reading along. I open the transcript in readlang so I can quickly look up unknown words as I go. Then, I listen a second time without the transcript, usually while walking or doing something around the house. I find that just sitting and listening to audio doesn't work for me. My mind wanders. If I'm doing something else while listening with earbuds, it's much easier for me to focus.

If you're a high-beginner or early-intermediate Italian learner, I highly recommend Al Dente.

Six-Week Challenge - May 16

25 minutes online tools: Duolingo, Memrise, Conjuguemos
20 minutes Assimil: quickly reviewed lessons 29-39
27 minutes listening: Al Dente episode 11
15 minutes writing: journal entry
20 minutes reading: James e la Pesca Gigante

total: 107 minutes
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Stelle
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Thu May 18, 2017 11:33 am

I finally finished James e la Pesca Gigante. It got worse before it got...well...it didn't actually get better. This is the first time that I've ever read a book that I really didn't like in a target language. At least it was relatively quick!

6WC for May 18th:

25 minutes Language Transfer – up to track 11
19 minutes Assimil – quickly reviewed lessons 40-49
22 minutes online resources – duolingo, memrise
23 minutes reading – James e la pesca gigante
23 minutes listening – America 24

Total: 112 minutes
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Sat May 20, 2017 6:35 pm

Didn't do anything except for 11 minutes of Italian in the past few days! I did lesson one of Assimil, active wave. It went relatively well. I was able to translate from the English to the Italian without much difficulty, and with only a few errors. As with Spanish, prepositions in Italian are giving me a hard time. I never know when to use in, di, da... I'm going to have to do some formal study of prepositions. I have the Italian Grammar Drills book, but there's a lot of vocabulary that I don't know yet, so I was finding myself getting stuck at some of the translation activities.

I'm not terribly worried, though. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing: choosing activities that are intrinsically motivating, and trusting that things will continue becoming clearer over time.
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Sun May 21, 2017 2:25 pm

Spanish

I just had a lovely hour-long chat with my favourite italki tutor after a long absence. It felt relaxed and comfortable, like coming home. We talked about our travels and our plans for the future. We're back to weekly hour-long sessions every Sunday morning, so I need to think about how I want to use this time. Up until now, we've just chatted. Informal conversation is the most important thing for me, so I'm more than happy to continue with our conversations. But I'd also like to start spending 15 minutes of the hour "working", and I need to think about what, exactly, I want to do with that time. I know that I need to work on past subjunctive and hypothetical sentences, since I still struggle with producing those. I'd also like to write more in Spanish.

I'm about a third of the way through The Host in Spanish. It's such a silly, guilty pleasure read. I'd planned on reading for half an hour in Spanish every night, but with the Six-Week Challenge in Italian, I probably only read in Spanish three times a week or so. I think that I might cut off Italian at 8:30 every night, so that I can focus on reading in Spanish at night before bed.

I also may have watched a few clips of Super Nanny in Spanish on YouTube. I will neither confirm nor deny.

Italian

Yesterday was a very Italian-heavy day. Here's my six-week challenge update for May 20:

26 minutes online resources: Duolingo, Memrise, Conjuguemos
28 minutes reading: started Gli sporcelli
23 minutes listening: America 24 podcast
21 minutes Assimil: lesson 50 passive wave
25 minutes grammar: a few pages of Italian Grammar Drills
22 minutes Language Transfer: tracks 12-14
18 minutes writing: uncorrected journal entry
25 minutes listening: Al dente episode 12
45 minutes watching: Star Trek the Next Generation 1x03

total: 233 minutes

If I kept up this pace (which obviously would be impossible) and added in 30 minutes of language exchange or Skype tutoring at least three times a week, I have no doubt that I would be able to reach a functional B2 level in three months.

Super Challenge

I'm not sure if I'm still in the Super Challenge. I haven't tweeted my progress in a while, and I don't think that I'm going to start again until I know that the bot and the page are up and working. When everything is back to normal, I'll decide whether or not I want to start tracking again. In the meantime, I'll keep reading and watching, Super Challenge or not.
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Re: Stelle's log: Italian (with a side of Spanish)

Postby Stelle » Mon May 22, 2017 1:35 pm

Warning: angst ensues.

I've been feeling some angst lately, of the "what-should-I-be-doing-with-my-life" variety. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I was working less than 30 hours after our plane touched down. Part of the goal of the trip was to think about life and where I want to be - and then, I found myself in exactly the same place as before I left, without time to reflect or process the experience.

For those who didn't read my old log, I'm an elementary school teacher in Canada. We saved up money and then I went on sabbatical (well, actually, I quit my job) to travel on a budget with my husband. We camped and hiked in the United States for two months, and then spent six months studying and backpacking in Central America. I got home from Guatemala at 3:00 AM on Wednesday morning, paid a visit to my principal at 3:00 PM on Wednesday afternoon, and accepted a full-time teaching job starting the following morning.

Wah-wah, my life is so hard, I get a well-paying job after nearly a year of travel...I know how ridiculous it is. I hate the term "first world problems" with a passion, but I can't deny that this is really that.

I love a lot of things about my job, but I also get frustrated and exhausted and overwhelmed. I miss the quiet, simple routine that we established in Guatemala, and I sometimes think that what I need is a job rather than a career. On the one hand, I appreciate the fact that my job is demanding and stimulating and rewarding. On the other hand, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to save my mental (and physical) energy for everything that I want to do outside of work.

For almost a year, I slept soundly every night. Like a baby. Well, the kind of baby that actually sleeps through the night, that is. I went to bed at a reasonable hour, fell asleep quickly, woke up refreshed. Now, I'm back to my old habits: eyelids drooping by 9:00, try to get to bed by 10:00, fall asleep, wake up at 12:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 and toss and turn for hours while my brain just won't. shut. down. Finally fall back sleep only to be woken up by an alarm, feeling bleary and unrested.

For almost a year, I walked and hiked and swam every day. I found myself doing push-ups in the middle of the day because I felt like it. If you know me, then you'll know just how hilarious that is. I lost weight effortlessly, stopped snacking and obsessing over sugar, incorporated deep breathing into my mornings. I challenged my brain and body with physical activity that I'd never done before: surfing lessons, cliff-jumping, swaying on hanging bridges. Now, I'm on my feet all day rushing from place to place. When I get home, my brain and body are tired and I just want to crash on the couch. I walk the dog for half an hour after supper, but other than that I have no energy for physical activity. I've started eating mindlessly and putting on weight again.

For almost a year, I had so much time. Of course I studied Spanish, but I also had time to learn other things. I read everything I could get my hands on. I started re-learning math at a pre-algebra level, since all things math sloshed through my brain and slid out my ears decades ago. I wrote every day. My brain felt so awake. Now, I spend most of my free time thinking about school and studying Italian.

Yes, I'm studying Italian. That's a good thing, right? Except that I have to face a hard fact: often I study Italian as a form of procrastination from other things that I want or need to do, things that take more motivation to get started on. Studying Italian is easy for me (by which I don't mean that the language itself is easy, although it's definitely more transparent to me than Spanish was when I first started learning - but the study itself, with a huge pool of interesting resources, is intrinsically motivating and therefore easy to do).

I usually consider myself a positive, optimistic person (annoyingly so, at times). But today, I think I'm just feeling tired. I need a plan - either to find a new field of work or to find better work-life balance in my current career.

And yes, I do realize that this post is annoying and dripping with privilege. There's no way to compare life on vacation to life with a job. Of course I can't be on vacation forever - and to be honest, I wouldn't want to be. I like to work. I like routine. I like to contribute to the world around me. But I need to figure out how to do that without giving my entire life over to work.

I know that this is only marginally language-related, but I would welcome anyone's thoughts on how to balance work and life. Have you found the secret to staying calm and centred when work takes up most of your time and energy? How do you structure your day to make the most of the limited hours outside of work? (And people with kids? Mad props to you. Balancing work and home must be so much harder for you than it is for me.)

(end angst)

Well, I suppose that I should talk at least ever-so-briefly about language, seeing as how this is a language log!

Six Week Challenge - May 21

27 minutes listening: America 24
24 minutes online resources: Memrise, Duolingo, Lyrics Training
20 minutes reading: Gli Sporcelli
13 minutes grammar: Italian Grammar Drills
13 minutes Assimil: active wave lesson 2
45 minutes watching: Star Trek the Next Generation 1x04

total: 142 minutes

I tried out Lyrics Training for the first time, and enjoyed it quite a lot! I'm not sure how useful it would be to me as a learning tool, but it's definitely fun as a game. I think I'll use it from time to time just to expose myself to some Italian music.
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