Trying to take it easy

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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Wed Sep 07, 2022 10:36 am

A small plot twist

My husband would like us to move to Italy. (He already works online mostly for foreign companies, so it doesn't really matter where we are.) I'm on the fence, but I always knew that sooner or later we'd move. I was just hoping that it would be later, when the kids have finished primary school. So, the plan for now is that we're slowly getting prepared, and when the final urge comes we sell up everything and pack. I need time to get used to idea. My husband would leave tomorrow, the kids are excited, but they obviously don't know what a change like this truly means.

I started to learn Italian again and I'm planning to teach the kids in the weekends. I've bought them the Ambarabà coursebook from Alma Edizioni.

What happens to Spanish?

Honestly, I don't know. I already felt myself at a dead end with Spanish, and I know that I can't study two languages at the same time. I've been studying Italian for the past month diligently, and I didn't even touch a Spanish textbook or a novel in any language.

What's my goal with Italian?

To be fluent and able to tackle the bureaucracy and the kids' school when we arrive. I'll probably need a CEFR exam for work in Italian, and additional exams in English and German would surely be a plus. I can take the CILS in Budapest twice a year, in December or June. The Italians are extremely slow: if I manage to pass the exam, I'll get the results in 3 months. So this is not an exam that you just take quickly when you need it. You need to take it as soon as you can. The level I'll try depends on the date when the final decision is made for the move. If my husband becomes impatient by spring, I'll probably go for the C1 in June.

Where am I now with Italian?

I studied Italian at the university (more than 20 years ago) and reached a B1 level. I've visited Italy a lot of times since then so I practiced the language throughout the years.

What have I done so far?

I study from two CEFR coursebooks, Un nuovo giorno in Italia and Il Balboni. These are the exact same books that I used last year when we were in Veneto. I've finished relearning the A1 volume of both and start A2 next week.

What's my plan?

I'm doing a new lesson every day from the Balboni (no matter what) and some revision or pages from the other book if I have free time. So far I have missed only a couple of days and made up for them on the next. Things will obviously get more complicated when I get to B1, but if I manage to keep this pace I'll finish B2 around January.

I'll try to write extensively about the resources I use, because I always find such reviews interesting and useful in other logs. So first the books I used in the past:

1. Katerinov: La lingua italiana per stranieri

This is an old-school textbook that was written before the 'communicative era'. Every unit consists of a dialogue or a text, comprehension questions, the explanation of the new grammar topic and grammar drills. The first volume takes you to B1-B2, and it contains the 2000 most frequent words of the Italian language. The solutions can be bought in a separate booklet.

I don't know if this book was originally planned for classroom use, but because it totally lacks communicative task, it's a good tool for self-study if you don't shy away from monolingual texts. I managed to learn Italian mainly from this book and some TV, but I think this success was also the product of the time. Language learning resources were very scarce back then, so I learned from the one or two that I could get. I knew this book basically by heart, and I still remember most of it after more than 20 years.

The biggest advantage of this book is that it was really written with care, so although it's totally grammar-focused, the example sentences and the exercises do contain the most important vocabulary. New words are always collected at the bottom of each page. However, it doesn't help you in any way to learn these words so you need to put them in ANKI or cram them in any other way. It's just data upon data. I think learning this book so thoroughly is the main reason why I soon became a confident speaker in Italian. I knew very few phrases, but I knew them really well, and used some basic constructions automatically.

Beside this I had a bilingual Hungarian textbook with similar structure. This also contained a lot of grammar drills that I found very useful.

2. Nuovo Progetto

I was very happy when this came out, because I thought it would be more interesting or effective as it was based on a more modern method. It turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments. This book is probably the most popular and well-known monolingual Italian textbook. If you go to Amazon, the positive, 5-star reviews abound. Those who complain mostly never got the CD or have pages missing. Reviews criticising the methodology or the content are extremely rare. I know I'm basically alone with this but here are the things the bothered me the most.

1. It's extremely boring and dull. The dialogues are lifeless, bookish, robotic. It's huge, with big pictures and a lot of white space. The graphics and the photos are ugly, the whole design is irritatingly outdated (think 1980s or the screen of a Commodore). One small advantage: it's not chaotic visually, it looks organised.
2. It has no structure. It's a montage of a little bit of this and a little bit of that, without any connection. The material of the level is aptly presented but in a seemingly random way without any effective help to retain the information. And this book is coming from an era when we were already supposed to be learning through action.
3. Italian culture is interesting and varied. This book presents it with boring schoolbook-style texts, similar to the ones that I'd be able to collect from wikipedia. You don't get to know the 'secrets', the juicy bits, the really unique stuff that brings you close to the culture. It's cold, lifeless and stereotypical. If I was Italian, I'd be offended by this book.
4. The exercise are dull and mechanic, a real chore to do.

I own volumes 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B, but I only finished 1A.

3. Alma coursebooks: Nuovo Espresso and Domani

I own both but I only leafed through them so I don't have a detailed opinion. Espresso for me seems to be the typical copy-paste textbook, the usual obligatory content without any real concept behind it. Dull, demotivating. Domani, on the other hand is a really interesting book with great dialogues and two huge disadvantages: the content is very difficult compared to the level on the cover and it has no answer key.

To be continued ...
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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Wed Sep 07, 2022 12:33 pm

... continued from previous post

For a long time I was thinking that Italian textbooks in general were quite bad until I chanced upon a blog by a teacher called Martina from Rome. The blog doesn't exist anymore, but I still remember her convincing reasoning that made me try some new resources. She said she had used a lot of textbooks and found the following combination the best:

1. textbook: Un giorno in Italia
2. grammar: Susanna Nocchi: Grammatica pratica della lingua italiana
3. additional book with authentic texts: Morano-Muzzi: Piazza Italia 2

I think there's a typical way how a language is presented in its coursebooks, and in the case of Italian it's the focus on the culture. Martina is not the only native Italian teacher whom I heard complain about the stereotypical way in which a lot of textbooks present them. She said she preferred these resources because they were all effective, useful and culturally more interesting.

The book that hooked me the most was Un giorno in Italia. I've already written about Access to English in my log, a 4-volume English course based on a narrative with great stories and characters. It was my favourite English book and I loved to spend time with it because it gave fun and pleasure. To this day I hate the textbooks I call 'copy-paste', the cowardly ones that don't have character. And I'm always offended when I feel that the writer doesn't care about me, doesn't want to help me learn in an effective way, and doesn't want to help me learn in a relatively fun or interesting way. I'm not a robot.

The original Un giorno (A1-C2 in two volumes) went out of print around that time but I managed to order a copy from the UK. And I also bought the new version (A1-B2 in 4 volumes). Later I realised that the publishing house, Loescher / Bonacci has a lot of good resources, and bought two grammars and another course: Il Balboni.

Loescher books in general:

1. They're all printed on cheap magazine paper. They're small, light and portable. I don't want my textbooks to survive the apocalypse, I write and highlight in them, I use them up. For me this format is ideal.
2. They're for intelligent learners. This in not a self-assessment, this is the attitude of the writers. They think the learner is curious and has high standards.
3. They have a lot of useful audio and additional things for download.
4. They urge learners to use the language almost from the very beginning, seek out authentic materials and use their knowledge for enjoyment. Un giorno has extracts from literature and Il Balboni has teaching materials connected to opera arias.

Un nuovo giorno in Italia A1

It has an interesting narrative with good characters. A train goes through Italy, and the conductor meets a strange girl on it. He also has a might-be girlfriend at home. Some other characters have already appeared in this volume, so A2 will probably contain several story lines. The pictures are nice, some units take the form of a cartoon. Everyday Italian life and customs are presented in a fun and creative way. Instead of getting a schoolbook-style informative text about Italian people, you see what happens to the characters, how they react in different situations. Cities are also presented through action: they are a background for the scenes with the characters.

There's a lot of vocabulary in the book, sometimes from a much higher level than A1. Some vocabulary is not presented in context, but in a list that might take the form of a picture dictionary. There's not much help to learn these words, so you need to cram them with your own method.

I remember that at the blog Martina's colleagues complained that this book was too difficult for most students. I don't think it's difficult, it's just dense. On the other hand, it's interesting and motivating. I wouldn't recommend it to a complete beginner because it's monolingual, but I truly enjoy learning from it. The love story is supposed to get exciting (Martina said so) and I hope this will help me finish the whole series.

You can download the answer key from the website, and the authors have recorded the reading texts on audio. This is a huge help for me in vocabulary learning and I'd be really happy if they recorded the word lists as well. I listen to these tracks while cooking and cleaning.

Il Balboni A1

This is the case when the 100 years of experience is obvious from the first page. I've found one such book so far: Vite et bien. It's a very useful course if you want to move to Italy, because it contains a lot of practical information: bureaucracy, taxes, calling an ambulance, signing a job contract. All in great dialogues with audio. It also helps you learn vocabulary, because everything is repeated regularly with new items added. I don't know how the writer managed to do this, but it works wonders. He knows that teaching is his job and he has to make sure that you retain as much information as possible. A rare attitude.

It's a very well-structured book with short lessons (2-4 pages). I do one lesson every day and some revision with the audio.

The printed book is just the core, there are extra exercises (workbook-style) and videos online, but I only use the book.

The biggest disadvantage is that it doesn't have an answer key, but the method is so effective (for me) that I decided to put up with it.
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby MaggieMae » Sun Nov 13, 2022 6:14 pm

I know I'm late replying, but I wish you lots of luck with the shift to a focus on Italian! I also wish you good fortune in your eventual move, we both know moving to new countries isn't easy, but I think you've got great, attainable goals, and fantastic (and fantastically researched) plans for moving forward. I hope all has been going well so far!

I just heard someone yesterday describe Italian as "bouncy Spanish". I haven't had enough Italian experiences to be able to say if that's accurate or not, but being in the same language family as Spanish can't hurt, right?
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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Tue Nov 15, 2022 7:04 pm

Am I keeping the pace?

Yes and no. I didn't have a lot of free time and energy in October, so I didn't learn as much as before. I decided to take my own advice (always a good idea to do what I preach - meaning know in theory) and moved on without doing the lessons in depth. I read through the A2 books, listened to the audio and started to read B1 this week. Repetition is very important, so it isn't a problem that I might need to go back later and do the exercises.

I'm planning to do mainly audio repetitions, I don't want to write anything down except for the solutions of the exercises. I listen to the audio of the textbooks whenever I can, and I do word lists (just Italian) with the Voice Memos application. I find this method of repetition very quick, and when I was learning French with FIA I had the impression that learning with my ears is very effective for me.

I've finished watching Guida astrologica per cuori infranti on Netflix. I started to watch it a year ago, and I didn't really like it. It's a Bridget Jones type of comedy, not my cup of tea. It was so boring that I started to analyse the horrible outfits and make-up of the protagonist. Still, I saw some everyday phrases in action (context), so it wasn't totally useless.

Book 15: Jonathan Lethem: As She Climbed Across the Table (212 pp.)
A satire of academia and a Shakespearian romantic comedy. I listened to the audiobook version while doing housework, and understood everything perfectly. I can't give a CEFR level, but it was pretty easy. I would have liked it a lot more when I was at university, but it wasn't bad.

Book 16: Stefan Zweig: Brief einer Unbekannten (96 pp.)
This is an extremely polished little novella. It can be interpreted in several ways, and consequently can be read with pleasure various times. In my opinion B1 is enough.
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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Wed Nov 30, 2022 9:34 am

TV series: 1899 (Netflix)

A new series from the creators of Dark, a brainy sci-fi horror. I quite liked it, and I still sometimes think about it, a week after watching the last episode. It's not really good for learning languages, because it's in German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Polish, Danish and English, but none of these is really dominant, so you don't get enough input to practise any of them. The interesting aspect is how the characters insist on speaking their own language, and how they're basically making monologues that no-one understands. I don't know exactly what the creators wanted to show with this, but it was really carried to extremes. Even in situations of great danger people were shouting in their own language instead of choosing something international: for example the Portuguese character said 'espere' instead of 'stop'. The scenes when someone made a speech in front of a crowd verged on being ridiculous.

Book 17: Mohamed Mbougar Sarr: La plus secrète mémoire des hommes (464 pp.)

This novel won the Goncourt in 2021, and it has a rating of 4.22 points at the moment (out of 5.00) on goodreads. I started to read it in French, but after 100 pages or so I gave it up and finished it in Hungarian, because I didn't understand anything. To my surprise, I didn't understand anything from the Hungarian version either. Because there's nothing to understand. I've found it really surprising that someone can write so much without actually saying anything meaningful. It's like Paolo Coelho wanted to write something postmodern, extremely pedestrian (full of clichés) and pretentious (fragmented and complicated) at the same time. Do I recommend it to language learners? Noway. To quote a French reviewer from goodreads: 'Trop de mots inusités, un style ampoulé ont eu raison de ma patience.' I recommend watching this video instead, it contains a lot more useful expressions:



I've been also reading the 2020 Goncourt, L'anomalie by Hervé Le Tellier for more than a year. I don't think I'll ever finish it, and I'm not interested in the ending at all, so I won't even read it in Hungarian. It's (like) very trashy popular fiction with a lot of references to pop culture, the characters are all super heroes and stars. This was at least linguistically easy and readable: an OK choice for a B1 learner. I'll keep myself away from the Goncourt for some time.
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby Le Baron » Wed Nov 30, 2022 10:12 am

I also perused this book and also abandoned it very quickly. It's hard to say if there is something to be gained from it if someone was to put in the effort and become familiar with the unfamiliar words and become accustomed to the style. However I can't justify the time or the risk. This is a major problem with some modern literary works in French. One has to wonder who those rating it to a 4.22/5 really are.
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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:20 am

Le Baron wrote:It's hard to say if there is something to be gained from it if someone was to put in the effort and become familiar with the unfamiliar words and become accustomed to the style.

I often have this problem. For me postmodern novels are like puzzles: you need to finish them (see every piece) to be able to tell if they are good. That's why I've finished this novel at least in Hungarian. I thought that at one point the pieces of the puzzle would come together, I'd see the whole picture and understand the message. But it never happened. The pieces remained pieces without showing anything meaningful or interesting.

Reading good postmodern novels can be huge fun from a language learner's point of view. Some have such depth and linguistic beauty, that studying one puzzle intensively can give pure intellectual joy. Maybe I just need to follow my instincts instead of the reviewers, trust myself and accept that things that look stupid and uninspired remain stupid and uninspired. French literature is very tricky. No-one questions Gaddis, Foster Wallace, Pynchon, Vargas Llosa or Bolaño, but French writers somehow always provoke a 'yes, but' or they're seen as something extremely niche.
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:39 pm

I loved Guida astrologica per cuori infranti. Watched in twice(!) in French dub. Also loved La plus secrète mémoire des hommes. I found his French to be effervescent and thrilling to read. Was the whole greater than the sum of its (many, many) parts? Probably not, but as an American I could really relate to the theme of being an outsider in Europe, and as a former lit major I enjoyed his discussions about the role of literature in life. It wasn’t as profound as it wanted to be, but it was fun.

Anyway, now you know to avoid any recommendations in my log!
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Le Baron
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby Le Baron » Wed Nov 30, 2022 6:42 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:I loved Guida astrologica per cuori infranti. Watched in twice(!) in French dub. Also loved La plus secrète mémoire des hommes. I found his French to be effervescent and thrilling to read. Was the whole greater than the sum of its (many, many) parts? Probably not, but as an American I could really relate to the theme of being an outsider in Europe, and as a former lit major I enjoyed his discussions about the role of literature in life. It wasn’t as profound as it wanted to be, but it was fun.

Anyway, now you know to avoid any recommendations in my log!


There's also the thing about the right time and mood. I know it for myself, though I'm assuming it more or less for everyone else. Another recent(ish) book I started and dropped twice before going back to it was Un crime sans importance (Irène Frain, from 2020). The first two times were like a wet Monday morning, the third time I enjoyed it.

I have nothing against literary books, in fact I prefer them, but there are times when I feel the author was far more interested in presentation than content. I find these exhausting for reasons other than vocabulary.
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby Le Baron » Wed Nov 30, 2022 7:03 pm

BeaP wrote:There's nothing like FIA, and I highly doubt that there ever will be. It combines two very important things: 1) an experienced and extremely talented teacher, 2) unlimited financial resources.


Going back to this after some months, I finally had a look at several episodes of FIA. It's pretty uch the same as the things the BBC did in the 80s to the 90s. Deutsche Plus, Deutsche Direkt, Suenos World Spanish, Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal etc. A lot for French whose names I can't remember except one which was always on BB2 Ici Paris. At the time they also had lots to spend on these programmes and almost automatic assistance from the universities and independent teachers. The scripted parts in FIA are hammy acting, but there's clearly a story to get drawn into and that matters. With presumably increasingly more complicated French for the learner.
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