The Bee's Knees: Lianne starts the 20s with French and Italian

[Lianne]

What specifically do you find easier about French than Italian? The one thing I like about Italian is that the pronunciation is consistent. I'm about three months into Portuguese and the pronunciation is quite difficult for me but I do find the grammar much simpler than Italian. Although it might be partially because I'm already familiar with the parts that are similar to Italian. I believe Italian is considered the easiest of the Romance languages.

Specifically, the fact that I've been exposed to French for the past 30 years. And I've been studying it off and on for quite a number of years, and daily for the past year.

It's not that I think French is intrinsically easier than Italian; it's just that I'm used to French, and starting Italian is a struggle to get my brain to switch gears. When I'm asked to say something in Italian, first it comes into my brain in French, and then I have to stop, switch to Italian, and answer, and by then usually the Pimsleur guy has moved on, lol. I know it's just because I'm just starting out, and I haven't started out as intensively as I meant to, either. It's been a rough year so far and I've been doing the bare minimum, which isn't a great way to make progress! I've just been so tired, and it feels so much better to curl up with a French book...

[Cavesa]

I agree that Italian is not so easy. I'd say it's like Spanish. Rather easy to get to the touristy level, but hard to become really good at.
I personally find the prepositions difficult, especially those connected to the articles, the tenses are used in a slightly different way than in French or Spanish (and that's exactly the problem, the seemingly "slight" differences), and so on. Don't let it discourage you, Italian is worth it.

You might profit from using books like these:
Vocabulaire Italien, published by Nathan et Robert
Grammaire Italienne, published by nathan et robert
there are even free samples on the publisher's website nathan.fr

[golyplot]

About romance languages, I would say that Spanish is the easiest to learn due to being a phonetic language and having a more straightforward grammar.

Italian is a difficult language to learn well, in the grammar department.

Italian vocabulary is not the problem; it is Latin based, of course.

The problem with Italian is grammar:
The plural is different; it does not use the "s" at the end.
Too many prepositions.
The pronouns are hard too.

I agree with all of this so much.

One other thing I found difficult about Italian is the gender and number endings. For one thing they aren't very consistent - the usual pattern is o/a/i/e, but some words use e in the singular or end in i despite being feminine or whatever because screw you (blame Latin's billion declension patterns for this), and to make things even more confusing, adjectives have two different contradictory ending patterns. And to add insult to injury, English speakers are trained to ignore vowels at the end of a word because they're all just schwas (well a and e are anyway), which makes it doubly difficult. Also, I have no idea how you're supposed to hear the difference between capelli and cappelli.

P.S. In addition to being simpler and more phonetic, Spanish is also easier because it is a much more popular language. Italian resources can be hard to find, but you practically have to go out of your way to avoid Spanish.

[PfifltriggPi]

Also, I have no idea how you're supposed to hear the difference between capelli and cappelli.

I'm sure most of you already know this all, but just in case :

First, for speakers from the north-west of the country, there is often no difference : those dialects did not preserve the gemination. That said, in the standard language, you literally say both "p"s. It helps that there is a syllable break between them. So in this case you would close the first syllable with a /p/ and then start the second syllable with another /p/. In "capelli" only one "p" hears itself. The most commonly sited example in English would be compound words like "hat-trick" or "pen-knife", where there is a similar phenomenon. (That is, unless you speak an Atlantic Canadian dialect of English which does all sorts of horrible things to poor innocent "t"s. [æʔ. tɾɪk])

[Lianne]

French
OK, you know what, there's no way I'm gonna be able to remember what I did on which days for the past week. Really gotta get back into the frequent updates!! But I should at least be able to list everything I did altogether. It'll add up to 7 hours over 7 days and you'll just have to trust me that that was an hour each day!

Feb. 7-13:
2 hours, 15 minutes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Bargaining, parts 1 and 2; After Life)
2 hours, 15 minutes watching Angel (Heartthrob; That Vision Thing; That Old Gang of Mine)
2 hours, 10 minutes reading La vie compliquée de Léa Olivier, tome 3: Chantage (60 pages, ending on pg. 143)
20 minutes listening to Duolingo French Podcast (Entre deux mondes)

Italian
Neglected. Extra French done daily to compensate in the 366 Day Challenge.

[Lianne]

OK. So, I burned out. Been a while since that happened! I felt good with my daily French all through 2019 but as soon as I started trying to do that plus Italian every day in 2020 it all fell apart. Too much pressure! And once I fail at a daily thing, I tend to fail at doing that thing at all, lol. So, I need to get back into at least my French!

As for updates, I think the only thing I didn't log before I went a long stretch without doing anything was:
Feb. 29:
35 minutes of Kwiziq (French)

I remember that because I was trying to use my month's free quizzes.

On the bright side, the Super Challenge starts up pretty soon, and it's probably best that I had a break before that. I always find the Super Challenge quite motivating, and with the amount I got done in 2019 I have high hopes of actually completed the challenge for the first time in 2020-21. So I will certainly be joining that again in French. I might also join in Italian but with no aspirations of actually completing it; even though Italian had a rougher start than I anticipated, I don't want to give up on it altogether.

On Social Distancing

I also haven't been on the forum except to occasionally skim my notifications, so I'm super out of the loop, but I'm sure people have been discussing social distancing and its effects on people and their studying. I think that if I hadn't burned out before being stuck at home, I probably would have at least maintained my studying once at home. But as it is, I haven't picked it back up again. When I have unstructured time, I'm not generally very good at managing it. I have done decently well at catching up on some housework, and have made time for beating a video game (something that normally doesn't fit into my schedule). But even my English reading has suffered, due to effects on my attention span.

Anywho, in conclusion, I'm back! But haven't actually studied yet. I'm hoping that posting this here will guilt me into doing something that I can log.

[Lianne]

Happy May Day!

I studied a tiny bit in the last couple days, to warm up for the challenges starting today!

French
April 29:
15 minutes Duolingo

April 30:
5 minutes Duolingo


Super Challenge 2020-2021!!!
I LOVE the Super Challenge! I've been so excited for it to start again! This will FOR SURE be the Super Challenge that I finally complete in French. So I've signed up for a full challenge in French, and also a half challenge in Italian, though I don't know if the latter is realistic. I mostly just want to be able to track my Italian too and see how it goes.

In French, I will be continuing with my Buffyverse watching (I'm early in season 6 of Buffy and season 3 of Angel, so I have nearly five seasons left to watch). I'm not sure what my main viewing will be after that. I have lots of movies with French audio (dubbed), and some other TV series too I'm sure. My reading will continue with YA novels for now, hopefully getting to a comfort level where I can start to add in some not-too-hard adult novels as well. I've got a box at home, and the public library has a lot (when they reopen). Actually, I just checked, and my library also has French ebooks now! I don't think they did before; this may be an addition due to the pandemic and the library being closed.

In Italian, I'll be starting with Peppa Pig, along with the Italian Netflix original series (with English subs). I've also got the first Harry Potter book in Italian in both ebook and audiobook. So I'm going to be trying some L-R much earlier than I otherwise would. (I don't know how long my library will have these available on Overdrive, as it seems to be for a temporary Harry Potter thing going on.)


6 Week Challenge - Italian
I meant to do the February 6 Week Challenge in Italian, to kick off my Italian study, but the beginning of 2020 burnt me out so fast I never got to it. So, I'm doing the May one. My resources will be mostly the same as I was using before, except that I'll be using more English base things rather than French base. As much as I wanted to be able to use laddering to learn Italian, my French just isn't up to the task, and starting a new language is hard enough. I think that, at least while I get the basics, it's best if I'm translating to and from English.

[Lianne]

Got a nice start on the Super Challenge today! I wish the bot were up so I could get the satisfaction of the graph and seeing my name move up higher in the list! It's so motivating!

May 1:

French
15 minutes Duolingo
45 minutes watching Angel (Billy)
45 minutes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Life Serial)

On Duolingo, I was pleased to find no obvious backsliding from my months away. Watching my shows, on the other hand, is always noticeably weaker after a break. Hopefully I get comfy with them again soon.

Italian
15 minutes Duolingo (started the English->Italian tree)
1 hour, 20 minutes watching Luna Nera (episodes 1+2) (Italian audio, English subs)

I love watching Netflix's foreign shows in general, and had a few Italian ones on my list. It occurred to me that I could use them for the Super Challenge, since subtitles are allowed! I made sure to actually focus on the language as I watched, rather than just focusing 100% on the subtitles (like I do when I watch Japanese shows). Italian is transparent enough to me that I was able to pick out a decent number of words when hearing them spoken and seeing the English subs! So that was encouraging. Also, Luna Nera is good! Too bad it's only six episodes.

[Lianne]

French
May 2: nothing

May 3:
45 minutes watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (All the Way)

Italian
May 2:
10 minutes Duolingo
35 minutes watching Luna Nera (episode 3) (Italian audio, English subs)

May 3: nothing

I want the Super Challenge bot to be working! I'm making a good start on the films portion of both my challenges!

[Lianne]

French
May 4:
15 minutes Duolingo

May 5:
1 hour reading La vie compliquée de Léa Olivier #3: Chantage (36 pages)

Got back into my French book! I had to go back to the beginning of the chapter I'd left of in, and still I don't remember all the drama going on in this ridiculous teenager's life, but I think I'm getting back into it pretty well.

Kwiziq has a sale on! All of their plans are 20% off right now. It doesn't say when the sale is going to end, which is leaving me torn about when to pay for a month again. Right now isn't ideal. I'm being laid off (temporarily) at the end of the month, so the next few weeks I'm still working full time, albeit from home. I'm also doing the 6 Week Challenge in Italian. So I'd like to hold off but I worry the sale will suddenly end!

Italian
May 4: nothing

May 5:
30 minutes L-R: Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale, Italian audiobook with Italian ebook, 18 pages (chapter 1)

L-R at such an early point is a lot, but I'm curious to see if I notice a benefit from it! From the start, I find that I can follow along fine. It feels fast, and the words run together, but as long as I stay focused I can always find my spot. The speed also limits how much I can notice words that I know or can figure out what they mean. We'll see how it feels as I progress through the book!