Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

[lusan]

Yesterday I finished Assimil Il Italiano. I took me 5 months to go through the 100 lessons.
---I was really hating it at the end... so darn boring....grrrr.....!

I am a little burned out, so I am taking a week off from heavy study work.
Just Anki and reading....

Then....

[Cavesa]

Congratulations! You're awesome!

[lusan]

Congratulations! You're awesome!

Thanks!

[lusan]

Status

Assimil El Italiano: DONE!
Boring like hell... I dragged myself through the finish line.

Anki – Mature cards
Vocabulary – 3136 cards as L1 > L2 and L2 > L1
Read – 331 cards as L2 > L1

Books read
• Short Stories in Italian – Olly Richards
• Italian Short Stories for beginners

On going reading:
Easy Italian Reader

Currently I only read intensively to build vocabulary. It will take a while to get to my desired B2 reading level. I confirm my belief that Italian is not as easy as normally expected for a Spanish spoken person. One gets the feeling that understand but is just that; the false friends are killers. At the rate that I am going, I suspect that I should be there by Xmas time.

To my surprise, I discovered that listening is a heck of a lot easier than French. Actually, on listening I noticed a boost in my comprehension –Spanish Effect? – It will be very helpful when I start giving time to listening materials later this year. At this time, I read aloud every night.

At this stage I work on:
New Italian Grammar in practice – Susanna Nocchi. It must be done. I have not study seriously any grammar. I do 30 min or so a day. I like it so far.

Assimil Perfectionnement Italiano – 70 lessons. These are much longer lessons that the previous course; it uses French as a base that is fine with me. I decided for this course instead of Textalks, because I want some more intensive listening practice. I assume that I should be done with these courses by October, then the plan is to read/watch films as I did for French.

I changed my approach with Assimil. I divided the lesson in 2 parts. First day, I work on understanding, and the second day, I do repetitions.

We plan to visit Italy next year. I will take some A2 course as a pseudo-FSI and work repetitions 3 months before our trip.

I am looking forward to just enjoy reading and watching serials as I already do for French.

[lusan]

French is frozen.
Polish is dormant.
Italian? All in.

I will drive hard Il Italiano till next summer at least –unless I change my mind. All other languages are now in stasis. Watch dubbed serials, documentaries, read, write, and Anki till sometime next year. Maybe I add a long vacation to Northern Italy –if Covid allows.

Anki Mature Cards
Listening Sentences : L2>L1 – 970
Origin: Read books

Active Vocabulary: L2>L1, L1>L2 – 4,191
Origin: Basic Vocabulary

Active Sentences: – 40 L1>L2
Origin: Writing, Italki and grammatical patterns.

I believe that counting Italian passive vocabulary for a native Spanish speaking person has no meaning. Both languages resemblance too much to give to that count any significance.

Books read
1. Il fantasma di Canterville –Oscar Wilde
2. I Racconti di Oscar Wilde
3. La casa delle Voci of Donato Carrisi - On going.

All read unknown words are used to make L2>L1 Cards. Eventually I need to read non-fiction books and news to acquire their vocabulary.

Grammar
1. New Italian Grammar in practice by Susanna Nocchi – finished
2. Italian Demystified by Marcel Danesi – Began. I am in lesson 7 of 20. I am doing this book, because Nocchi is pretty schematic and I might have missed point here and there, therein a good review is due. After this book, no more grammar for a long while.

Dubbed Serials
1. Grimm – 85 Episodes – Finished. Loved it. I watched 3 to 4 episodes every day. I started with little understanding and ended with about 95+. Of course, I watched without subtitles.
2. Heroes – Season 1 done. Currently in season 2. It is a much tougher one since the dubbing a faster and more complicated. Targeting 3-4 episodes every day.

*Assimil Italien Perfectionnamento: suspended on lesson 20.

New things
Tutors. I decided to take to active the il Italiano prior to a long Italian vacation. Quindi I am taking a paio di Italky teachers. Plan to have 2 hours di lezione di converzacione/per week for a while then I will see.

Writing. To active a language, I think that writing should be an useful tool. Quindi I write 10 short Italian sentences every day that I plan to review with the Italky’s tutors. Since they flow from my mind without any external inputs, I believe that they represent the words that I might use I am want to speak. I have not heard/read of other using writing in such a way. If so, I would love to know about their results.

After about 1/2 year into this adventure, I feel that I have advance enough to be happy with the results so far.

[lusan]

Originally, I intended to reach B1 skills in Italian by year end. However, I accomplished these goals in just 8 months. Now it is August and I found that I am able to:

Read: Novels with > than 95 % comprehension.
Listen: News and dubbed serials without subtitles.
Write: Thoughts in general without too many mistakes.
Speak: General phrases beyond “Mi chiamo Luis” or “Dove è il bagno?”

So, it is time to adjust the targets. I have reached a point where enjoying the language is already available/possible.

What’s now?

Read: Italian only till next year summer end. I want to consolidate the Italian reading ability. I have a long reading list. Of course, I will read only extensively while selective words/chunks will be added to Anki.
Listen: 2 dubbed episodes of a seriale/days as well as news and podcasts.
Write: Maintain un Diario in italiano. I concluded that it is benessimo for me to write. I love it. I will very likely do the same for French and Polish upon my return to them next year.
Speak: 1 italki lezione/week to get fluency. Develop a minimum vocabulary/sentence set that reflects my own interest.

Grammar wrap up: Finish Italian Demytified and wok on Enjoy Italian by Silvia Lymbery.

That’s it.
Time to declare victory and move on. Most likely, I will return to French and Polish by next year summer end after I penetrate deeper into il mondo italiano.

This is probably my last post in this log.

Arriverderci!

[einzelne]

Congratulations!

I wonder what kind of books you can read at this stage. Can you read Elena Ferrante, for instance? I read her Neapolitan novels in English and thought that she had a very easy language. But translations might be misleading.

[lusan]

Congratulations!

I wonder what kind of books you can read at this stage. Can you read Elena Ferrante, for instance? I read her Neapolitan novels in English and thought that she had a very easy language. But translations might be misleading.

Read so far:

Il fantasma di Canterville by O. Wilde
I racconti di Oscar Wilde
La casa delle Voci by Donato Carrisi

Avventure di Sherlock Holmes - On going
Sono Vendetta by Sharif Radwan Ali - Next

Note that these are not ease readers. Just books that I have around. I am just spreading my winds.