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

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

Postby lusan » Fri Jan 01, 2021 12:45 am

I always thought that Italian is a beautiful language. It is so musical that at times I have no idea if the speakers are singing or just talking. It amazes me that most Italian words end in vowels, therein rendering the language appropriate for singing. Maybe that does explain by the fact, I believe, that Italy is where Opera originate. The language sounds amazing, so musical, etc… etc… So…

I decided to start learning Italian. I would like to reach at least B1+ by 2021 year end. I looked into the language and, because I am native Spanish, the structure is easy, but there are so many false friends and suspicious similarities that misunderstandings are likely. I am uneasy. It is not an easy language at all for those who want to do better than superficial learning.

Objective: Speaking/Listening – I suppose it means B2/speaking/listening skills. I have no interest in writing or reading. However, I might change my mind later on. I plan to use Spanish as the base language since its similarity to Italian and, because it feels right. It should take me a couple years to get to a comfortable level. I hope sooner than my French journey.

Tools
• Asimil El italiano - Italian/Spanish
• Italian Verbs Drills, - Paola Nanni-Tate
• Italian – A self-Teaching guide – Edoardo A. Lebano - Vocabulary and grammar
• Anki
• Reverso/Taboeba plus Audacity


I believe that it would take me about 5 months to complete the 100 lessons. By that time, I should know most of the common verbs as well as having 2000 words dumped into my old brain. Then, I will evaluate and replan. Maybe I do some italki conversation, serial-TV watching, etc. We’ll see.

I still need to find some easy listening content at A0-A2 level. It would be nice to start listening already 10-30 min/day.

Buono, Inizio il mio viaggio attraverso l'italiano.

Bueno anno.

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

Postby Cavesa » Sat Jan 02, 2021 7:26 pm

Your log has barely started and I love it already! Good luck, I'm looking forward to following you this year. I have no doubts you'll succeed.

I am uneasy. It is not an easy language at all for those who want to do better than superficial learning.

This is extremely wise! It is far too easy to get excellent comprehension skills and much worse production ones, if you rely on the similarities too much and don't actually do things properly (such as really learning the grammar instead of tons of guesswork). It happened to me and I'll need to find time to fix it. I think your humble approach is gonna lead to much better results!

As you use Spanish as the base language, is the Assimil different from one with a different base? Are the notes more adapted to a Spanish native? Or is the main benefit just observing very closely the differences/similarities?

As far as listening content goes, I'd recommend Lyricstraining (Italian popular music is wonderful and very diverse!) and you are likely to be ready for tv series very soon (I started very early with some dubbed Marvel series). Or there are lots of documentaries on the RAI site (and other stuff, such as cefr leveled courses, some normal things but unfortunately often geoblocked).
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby lusan » Sat Jan 16, 2021 2:05 am

Cavesa wrote:Your log has barely started and I love it already! Good luck, I'm looking forward to following you this year. I have no doubts you'll succeed.

I just saw it. It took me some time to get back to you. Sorry.

Cavesa wrote:This is extremely wise! It is far too easy to get excellent comprehension skills and much worse production ones, if you rely on the similarities too much and don't actually do things properly (such as really learning the grammar instead of tons of guesswork). It happened to me and I'll need to find time to fix it. I think your humble approach is gonna lead to much better results!

Italian is a beautiful language. However, there are so many words that a native Spanish speaker surely will get wrong. The problem is the existence of false friends, for example, an italian machina in Spanish is maquina... but no! its italian meaning is carro; another insane one is piano... I was in shock when I saw that it meant piso, plano, superficie, mapa, proyecto, y... piano... totally insane. Every words need to be considered as a new one. To check it out. Likewise, some are french similar, for example fermare. It does not main to close, but to stop! The best is to take them on their own right. I mean, NOT to assume that we know their meaning just because it is the same as Spanish/French.

Cavesa wrote: As you use Spanish as the base language, is the Assimil different from one with a different base? Are the notes more adapted to a Spanish native? Or is the main benefit just observing very closely the differences/similarities?

Assimil italian's notes are terrible, useless. Even the translations made me uneasy. The course need to be complemented with good grammar/verb courses. Side notes, Italian to Spanish in Reverso translations might be totally wrong. They take too much freedom in their translations. We have to be carefull.

Let's not put Assimil italian down. It is a good course and nothing ease. Great very short lessons that suggests that I might want to do another beginning course after I finish it. I am in lesson 17, I do one everyday, however I complement it with other materials that I will describe later. I found nothing in English to help me that I really like.

Cavesa wrote: As far as listening content goes, I'd recommend Lyricstraining (Italian popular music is wonderful and very diverse!) and you are likely to be ready for tv series very soon (I started very early with some dubbed Marvel series). Or there are lots of documentaries on the RAI site (and other stuff, such as cefr leveled courses, some normal things but unfortunately often geoblocked).


I will look into them later. I am still working out the best way to move forward. I need to brainwash myself with 500+ verbs and all common words before I let go and start reading books and news articles. So far, I am very please. I can masacrar el idioma without too much pain. I find that speaking in italian is a heck easier than in French. It seems that the activation barrier is much lower than I had with French. I wonder if I could jump into dubbed serials after finishing Assimil el italiano.

Geoblocked is not an issue for me. I got a VPN that I use to watch French news everyday. I should be able to access Italian TV when I feel ready. No rush. It is a short marathon.
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby lusan » Sun Jan 17, 2021 2:35 am

Cavesa wrote:This is extremely wise! It is far too easy to get excellent comprehension skills and much worse production ones, if you rely on the similarities too much and don't actually do things properly (such as really learning the grammar instead of tons of guesswork). It happened to me and I'll need to find time to fix it.


Tell me more.
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby lusan » Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:35 pm

Today, I will do lesson 26. At this rate, I should be done with Assimil in 74 days. The lessons are pretty dull but... Surely I can bear it for another 2.5 months. Notes/grammar are useless but the media are excellent. The pace is very fast and I keep learning new words/expressions everyday.

After 25 days, I began to see results, however IT IS NOT the only thing. It needs to be complemented with a good textbook. Luckily, after searching around, I found one that pleased me. The book is in totally in italian, I wished to find something in English or Spanish but I did not. Still I am very happy with this one. It is similar to the Grammaire progressive du francais : one page explanation, followed by one page full of exercises. All unknown words are dumped into Anki as part of the active vocabulary.

I began searching for books to read after I finish Assimil. I hope not again Agatha Christi. To my surprise I discovered that I am ignorant of Italian literature/culture. Ops!

Where am I:

Method
    Assimil El Italiano - Spanish version
    Grammatica Essenziale della Lingua Italiana con esercizi – Marco Mezzadri.
    500 Italian Verbs – Barrons

Anki Decks
    Assimil - Bidirectional cards - 100 matures - lezione 25
    Grammar – Cloze - 181 matures
    Verb Conjugations – Cloze - 19 matures
    Infinite Verbs – Bidirectional Cards - 89 matures
    Vocabulary – Bidirectional Cards – 262 matured

When I finish, I probably will have 3 decks: Grammar, Reading, and Active Vocabulary.
For French, I have only 2: Reading and listening.

Tools
    Audacity
    Reverso - Watch out! Their translations to Spanish/English are terrible. I just use their Italian sentences, and improve the Spanish with Google translate
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby Gwendolyn » Wed Jan 27, 2021 6:01 pm

That sounds very interesting, especially what you said about differences between Spanish and Italian! I’ve been thinking it would be easier to learn Italian if one knew both Spanish and French (which I’m aiming to do at some point in the future), but those false friends seem to prove me wrong.
Good luck with your Italian journey!
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby rpg » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:06 pm

lusan wrote:another insane one is piano... I was in shock when I saw that it meant piso, plano, superficie, mapa, proyecto, y... piano... totally insane. Every words need to be considered as a new one.


Actually the Italian piano and the Spanish plano are cognates, I believe. The consonant clusters cl-, fl-, and pl- from Latin often became chi-, fi-, pi- in Italian. Meanwhile in Spanish they often evolved into ll-, so eg mi chiamo and me llamo are both descendents from the same word in Latin.

In the piano case, the natural Spanish descendent is llano, which you can see is indeed a cognate. Spanish has quite a few doublets (pairs of words that both came from the same origin) due to later borrowings from Latin, so that's where plano comes from and why it doesn't have the pl => ll transformation. See also eg llave and clave (and the Italian word is exactly what we'd predict: chiave).
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby lusan » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:52 pm

rpg wrote:
lusan wrote:another insane one is piano... I was in shock when I saw that it meant piso, plano, superficie, mapa, proyecto, y... piano... totally insane. Every words need to be considered as a new one.


Actually the Italian piano and the Spanish plano are cognates, I believe. The consonant clusters cl-, fl-, and pl- from Latin often became chi-, fi-, pi- in Italian. Meanwhile in Spanish they often evolved into ll-, so eg mi chiamo and me llamo are both descendents from the same word in Latin.

In the piano case, the natural Spanish descendent is llano, which you can see is indeed a cognate. Spanish has quite a few doublets (pairs of words that both came from the same origin) due to later borrowings from Latin, so that's where plano comes from and why it doesn't have the pl => ll transformation. See also eg llave and clave (and the Italian word is exactly what we'd predict: chiave).


Indeed. However, it does not help much to know they are cognates because I am not sure if they have the same meaning. Yesterday, I read l'azienda. I thought, sure I know it! It is "farm"... esta palabra la aprendí en mi infancia cuando visitaba mis abuelos en el campo. I checked the dictionary and.... Nope... It is "impresa." There is a sacco di loro like that. So I am suspicious of any Spanish looking word. I would better check them out.

I think I will start a list to keep track of these beasts:

l'azienda
andare
confrontare
etc.
Last edited by lusan on Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby oho » Sat Jan 30, 2021 7:59 pm

lusan wrote:
rpg wrote:
lusan wrote:another insane one is piano... I was in shock when I saw that it meant piso, plano, superficie, mapa, proyecto, y... piano... totally insane. Every words need to be considered as a new one.


Actually the Italian piano and the Spanish plano are cognates, I believe. The consonant clusters cl-, fl-, and pl- from Latin often became chi-, fi-, pi- in Italian. Meanwhile in Spanish they often evolved into ll-, so eg mi chiamo and me llamo are both descendents from the same word in Latin.

In the piano case, the natural Spanish descendent is llano, which you can see is indeed a cognate. Spanish has quite a few doublets (pairs of words that both came from the same origin) due to later borrowings from Latin, so that's where plano comes from and why it doesn't have the pl => ll transformation. See also eg llave and clave (and the Italian word is exactly what we'd predict: chiave).


Indeed. However, it does not help much to know they are cognate because I am not sure if they have the same meaning. Yesterday, I read l'azienda. I thought, sure I know it! It is "farm"... esta palabra la aprendí en mi infancia cuando visitaba mis abuelos en el campo. I checked the dictionary and.... Nope... It is "impresa." There is a sacco di loro like that. So I am suspicious of any Spanish looking word. I would better check them out.

I think I will start a list to keep track of these beasts:

l'azienda
andare
confrontare
etc.


Here's a list:

https://plida.it/documenti/spagnolo.pdf
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Re: Un'avventura in italiano. 0 to B1+ in one year

Postby lusan » Sat Jan 30, 2021 8:54 pm

oho wrote:
lusan wrote:
rpg wrote:
lusan wrote:another insane one is piano... I was in shock when I saw that it meant piso, plano, superficie, mapa, proyecto, y... piano... totally insane. Every words need to be considered as a new one.


Actually the Italian piano and the Spanish plano are cognates, I believe. The consonant clusters cl-, fl-, and pl- from Latin often became chi-, fi-, pi- in Italian. Meanwhile in Spanish they often evolved into ll-, so eg mi chiamo and me llamo are both descendents from the same word in Latin.

In the piano case, the natural Spanish descendent is llano, which you can see is indeed a cognate. Spanish has quite a few doublets (pairs of words that both came from the same origin) due to later borrowings from Latin, so that's where plano comes from and why it doesn't have the pl => ll transformation. See also eg llave and clave (and the Italian word is exactly what we'd predict: chiave).


Indeed. However, it does not help much to know they are cognate because I am not sure if they have the same meaning. Yesterday, I read l'azienda. I thought, sure I know it! It is "farm"... esta palabra la aprendí en mi infancia cuando visitaba mis abuelos en el campo. I checked the dictionary and.... Nope... It is "impresa." There is a sacco di loro like that. So I am suspicious of any Spanish looking word. I would better check them out.

I think I will start a list to keep track of these beasts:

l'azienda
andare
confrontare
etc.


Here's a list:

https://plida.it/documenti/spagnolo.pdf


Molto contento con la lista. Grazie!
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