Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

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StringerBell
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby StringerBell » Sun Aug 21, 2022 2:22 pm

PSA:

If you believe that extensive reading, as defined by the quote from Luca Lampariello I posted recently is such an infallible method that it shouldn’t be questioned or criticized or you are uncomfortable with the fact that I might have a different opinion on extensive reading than you, then I warmly invite you to redirect yourself to one of the many other wonderful logs where people wholeheartedly agree with you.

Based on my personal experience I’m of the opinion that extensive reading is not the most efficient way to improve vocabulary or reading comprehension (at least for everyone). Maybe I’ll change that opinion in the future, maybe I’ll refine it, but right now that’s what I think. However, if people really just like doing it or they see the value in it for themselves, I think that’s great and I’m not advocating that they should stop. Efficiency is not the only important thing in life; so even if it’s an inferior method I think people should do it as much as they want if they are enjoying it or it’s working for them.

That said, I’m interested in exploring alternatives that might end up proving to be superior methods, at least for some people. So far I’m seeing mounting evidence that supports my opinion and I hope in the future other people are inspired - or just curious - to try what I’m doing and report back. Maybe I’m the only person in the world for whom it works well or maybe I’m really on to something here.

My goal in this log is to share my opinion and my experiences. Those may not be the same as yours. I love hearing about other people’s strategies and points of view but I am not interested in people arguing with me here or telling me that I’m wrong. Opinions are personal and they aren't really wrong or right. So I can say, "I think extensive reading in the intermediate stage is flawed and inefficient" and someone else can respond by saying, "no, extensive reading is the holy grail of language learning" and then we're at a stalemate and things get bitter. So since this is my log, I will be sharing what I'm doing, seeing, and thinking. If you are a person who thinks extensive reading is the holy grail of language learning and you can't read about what I'm doing with an open mind, then this is not the log for you and I kindly ask that you move on.

Additionally, I enjoy sharing what I don’t know, which at times includes new words and expressions. Writing about something new I've just learned helps me to remember it. I know a tremendous amount of Italian vocabulary and idioms, including highly specific vocabulary pertaining to areas that even most advanced Italian learners probably don’t know. For example, I can have a detailed discussion in Italian about target shooting at a range and how to clear a malfunction when a firearm jams. I can discuss the pros and cons of using regular vs. wild sourdough starter in bread fermentation. I can discuss the process of making beer along with all the ingredients involved and common things that go wrong, like the airlock growing mold if not prepared properly. I can even discuss how an alembic works in the distillation process which most people can’t do in their native language. These are all things I learned because my household does them on a regular basis so there's reason to know them.

But for all the verbs, idioms, and vocabulary I know there is an endless amount I still don’t know. I’ll never know it all. There's a lot of simple, basic stuff that I still don't know. So when I share something new I’ve come across, I’d like to remind people to be kind and not imply that there’s something wrong with me for not knowing some idiom or construction that’s “super common”. Language learning is not a competition. None of us know everything and all of us have very different experiences. I wouldn't imply that someone who has never stepped foot on a gun range doesn't know Italian well if they don't know that it's called “il poligono” even though that’s a word I’ve heard and used hundreds of times. So if you have the urge to post something like, “how could Stringerbell not know x idiom, I’ve come across it a lot”, instead quietly revel in the knowledge that you knew something that Stringerbell didn’t without needing to announce it to the world.

I will return to my regularly scheduled broadcast in the near future with an update on how my Multiple Rereading Experiment is going, my thoughts on extensive reading/listening, where I am with verb conjugation practice, how I’m starting to resume speaking in my own weird way, potential writing practice in the pipeline, and general observations. Thank you for reading!
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby Le Baron » Sun Aug 21, 2022 4:09 pm

I'm more in agreement with your practise of looking up and re-reading after investigating unknown words/phrases/idioms. It's what I do, and I detailed it somewhere in a thread, though I can't find it. The view of quantity and exposure to many examples leading to acquisition is not without merit. It is doubtless that long-term exposure, use and familiarity is what leads to acquisition; yet this is rarely, if ever, a completely passive process in reality. It's simply impossible to acquire all meaning from just extensive reading without directly and consciously investigating some meaning. The reason anyone gets to a point where they can read to any level at all is because they now understand the meaning of what they are reading.

It was in a thread by Sprachprofi yesterday that 'advanced' vocabulary is somehow absorbed without investigating meaning. I completely reject this as a rule. It's without any established foundation. The curious view that understanding is forged without actively investigating meaning is something quite widespread in language learning now. However we're all familiar with people in our native languages who attach the wrong meaning to words because they simply heard it or read it, but derived their own meaning via guesswork. Or use a word in the right contextual setting by recognising the linguistic pattern, without really understanding its import. To assume this would be any different in a foreign language is bizarre.

I try to read as extensively as I can, because this is the end-goal: to not have to look up meanings. Unfortunately I have to look up some things or the narrative starts to lose sense or certainty. So if there is any doubt I will check. Why wouldn't I? It can only be to my benefit in the long-term. So there's really a terminology problem: everyone reading more than a short news summary is aiming to reading extensively, but there's a meaning obstacle in many cases and this isn't solved by just more blind exposure. Things have to be investigated.

StringerBell wrote:Opinions are personal and they aren't really wrong or right.

Well, opinions given as a sort of hypothesis or thesis stand or fall on what evidence they can provide. Or if they are just utterances and more like a 'belief' they can be justly rejected. Since a lot of this self-study language learning is highly tailored to personal learning preferences it's difficult to make general statements that are acceptable to everyone.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby StringerBell » Fri Aug 26, 2022 2:13 pm

CURRENT EXPERIMENT:
Step 1: Intensive Reading - read 5 pages, look up unknown words, idioms, confusing grammar
Step 2: Extensive Reading - reread those same 5 pages
Step 3: Extensive Reading - reread those same 5 pages
Step 4 Extensive Reading - every time I read 50 pages, go back and reread the last 50 pages
Step 5: Extensive Reading - when I finish the book, reread the whole book from start to finish


Sit Rep: 1/3 book done (100 pages)

I continue to be impressed at the results I’m seeing with my new reading method. Like everything in life, there are pros and cons.

Now that I’ve been using this strategy for a bit (which I'll refer to as IR/ER > Intensive Reading followed by Extensive Rereadings), I’m thinking about making small changes to improve it for the next book. I’m trying to figure out which parts of the process contribute toward the positive results I’m seeing and which parts aren’t necessary.

Pro: in steps #2 and #3 I’m consistently remembering the meanings of all the words I had looked up in step #1. I wasn’t expecting that to happen, which is why I had originally decided to include step #3 but I’m now thinking of eliminating this step, which would reduce it to 4 readings per book. I’m planning to continue the 5 readings for the remainder of the current book.

With previous books I read in the past, either:
-I’d look up a word and then make an Anki flashcard and have to explicitly study those flashcards to memorize the meaning of the word, which had mixed success. Some words were easy to remember, others I couldn’t remember no matter how many repetitions I did and they’d eventually become leaches and I’d suspend them.
-I’d look up the meaning quickly and move on without making any cards. I rarely remembered the meaning of these words (I’d always check the list of hundreds of highlighted words in my kindle upon finishing a book and didn’t recognize most of them). I also almost never recognized words repeating (neither in the same book nor between books) unless the author was really using a particular word A LOT.
-I’d guess the meaning from context and move on. Similarly poor results.

What I find surprising with my current strategy is that not only am I remembering all the meanings of every unknown word I looked up during the first reading, but now at 100 pages into the book, I can flip to any random page, find a word that I’d previously looked up and immediately remember what it means. During step #4 (reread pages 51-100) there were only 2-3 words I couldn’t recall a definition for but I still remembered what the sentence was saying.

What’s more, yesterday I was skimming through unrelated Italian book reviews and came across the word “illeso” (unharmed) and instantly recognized it as a word that I’d looked up a few days ago from my current book and I even remembered what it meant! Before starting this experiment, I was worried that I’d remember definitions only in the context of the book and not when I’d see them elsewhere. Apparently, that’s not a problem.

I often find myself throughout the day thinking about new words I’d looked up recently or even weeks ago. I can actually picture scenes from the book in my mind and remember some of the words I’d looked up from that scene. I can sometimes remember whole sentences even days later. None of these things were ever happening when I was extensively reading books months ago (even when I was doing quick dictionary look ups).

Pro: While it takes some effort to read during the first phase, subsequent re-readings are extremely easy. This is what I imagine extensive reading should feel like. It’s instant gratification for having worked through the pages the first time: word meanings are now crystal clear, sentences flow, and I can see that the effort I put in actually accomplished something.

Extensive reading is a really good thing to do as a general activity. I know it helps to improve a variety of language learning areas. Clearly, lots of more accomplished language learners than me on this forum swear by it and there’s probably good reason for that. BUT when it specifically comes to vocabulary learning and retention, so far my experiment with IR/ER is giving me superior results and as far as just improving vocabulary goes, standard extensive reading just isn’t efficient. I’m curious to see if I’ll still feel the same after multiple books and I would love for other people to give this experiment a try to see if they get similar results with vocabulary improvement compared to traditional extensive reading where word meanings are guessed and chapters aren't reread.

The main negatives I see:

Con: It takes more time, both due to looking up words and due to creating a mental imagery of what’s happening. As a result, getting through a book takes much longer. It’s an issue of quality vs. quantity in my opinion, and to reach the goal I’m working on I think quality is more efficient.

Con: It can be easy to let attention wander during the re-reading phases. So far I’m not really having much of a problem with this. Once in a while I notice that I’m not really paying attention during rereadings as much as I did during the 1st reading because I know what happens and the reading process feels really easy so there's no cognitive burden. However, I usually catch myself pretty quickly when this starts to happen and it doesn't happen frequently, so it’s not a big deal. I could see other people having more of an issue with this, though.

That kind of leads in to another thing I wanted to mention, which is a lightbulb moment I had that made me understand why I have so much trouble with extensive reading while many others don’t. I’ll save it for next time.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby rdearman » Fri Aug 26, 2022 4:43 pm

A little while back you asked me if I could upload a sample of when I was reading Italian.

It is kind of hard to see what is going on, but it was at the beginning of the book, where I typically encounter a bucket load of unknown words. Especially in this book since many of the words were related to uncommon things. Ancient gods, siege engines, etc. What I was going was actually sort of what you are describing without the rereading. I read it, underlined anything I was sure of, wrote down a guess as to what it was, then looked up my guesses to see if I was right or wrong. So you can see here I'm guessing a lot!

Although some of them aren't guesses, it is just I'm not 100% certain I know the word, so I underlined it and wrote down what I thought it was. I didn't do this for all 870 pages of this book. As I read more I remembered more and was more certain about the words, and of course I got lazier. I still forced myself to do intensive reading of each 25th page. So ever 25 pages looks a lot like this. Lots of underlined words, handwritten guesses. I don't really go back and correct the guesses, nor do I make anki cards from unknown words. I'm too lazy for that. :(

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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby CDR » Sat Aug 27, 2022 5:38 am

StringerBell, do you do Step 1, 2, and 3 all on the same day?

My level in Japanese is no where near your level in Italian. However, I guess I came up with a system similar to yours in the end. I cannot read novels, and had a few problems I wanted to solve.
1. My vocabulary is small - so there are a lot of unknown words, even in graded material
2. A lot of unknown words would mean a lot of Anki card creation
3. There is no material to read extensively at my level (See 1)
4. I need to read a lot of words if I want to complete the super challenge, but that is difficult because of 1, 2 and 3.

So my similar system is:

1. Read the short story intensively (this takes forever!)
2. Reread the story two days later (in-contrast, this and future readings will probably only take a few minutes with no look ups required)
3. Reread the story another two days later
4. The story is released into Anki's scheduler to be re-read whenever Anki feels like it

As long as I read it, I grade the card good. I really haven't tried this method enough, and just have a backlog of stories buildings. :lol:

Regardless, I will definitely try your method in the future with Japanese. I have two novels in Japanese that are of a decent length. So once my reading is a bit stronger, I think I will give your method a go.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby StringerBell » Sat Aug 27, 2022 2:55 pm

rdearman wrote: I read it, underlined anything I was sure of, wrote down a guess as to what it was, then looked up my guesses to see if I was right or wrong. So you can see here I'm guessing a lot!


Thank you for sharing that! I love seeing what other people are doing. Btw, all the guesses you wrote that I could read were right, so it seems like you are making lots of accurate guesses!

CDR wrote:StringerBell, do you do Step 1, 2, and 3 all on the same day?


Usually, yes. I try to do steps 1, 2, and 3 all in the same session. Occasionally something comes up and I have to stop in the middle of the session. When that happens, I finish the rest of the steps the next day.

I'm still trying to figure out optimal timing. I suspect there's some flexibility in when the rereadings happen, but my current hypothesis is that it's ideal if steps 1 and 2 happen in the same day, either back-to-back with no break, or with a short break between them. This is purely speculation since I haven't experimented enough to say this with certainty, but it seems like doing step 2 immediately after finishing step 1 helps to solidify all the stuff I had just looked up.

The intensive phase is a lot of work if there are a lot of words to look up or the sentences are just complex or difficult to make sense of. For me, 5 pages seems to be the sweet spot where step 1 doesn't feel grueling and I don't try to procrastinate my way out of doing it. For such a transparent language, I'm a very slow reader in Italian, so steps 1, 2, and 3 take me over an hour. I imagine it would be much slower going in Japanese! I could even see doing step 1 (intensive reading) for 1-2 pages instead of 5, followed by the rereading phase. I like to make my brain work hard (step 1) and then give it something easier to do (rereading) in cycles before reaching my frustration threshold.

I was actually doing something similar to your current strategy when I was studying Polish. I'd read/listen intensively to short texts with audio and then reread/relisten to them repeatedly (probably even hundreds of times) over many months. It was really effective to keep cycling through stuff I knew well. Even though I haven't been studying Polish for several years, I'm often surprised by how much I remember. I think repeated listening/reading is something that many language learners probably don't do enough of.

I hope you get good results with what you're doing - I know in the beginning of a new language it can be a real slog! I hope you write some updates to share how it's going for you!

jackb wrote:Speaking of challenges, have you continued your writing challenge?


Thanks for asking! I stopped my writing challenge a few months ago. The reason was that I actually found freewriting for 10 minutes a day to be extremely easy (therefore not much of a challenge). Just because it was easy doesn't mean I wasn't making plenty of grammar mistakes, which I was. So I'm toying around with how to adjust this challenge to include some practice with specific constructions that I need to work on.

As of now, I'm going to wait until I'm done memorizing all the tenses I mentioned in an earlier previous post, and study some of the things that I never seem to know how to say properly (ex: If I hadn't done x, I would have been x now). I'd also like to use this writing practice to use some of the expressions I'm learning from my books to reinforce them. Even though I find it too easy to just write freestyle about whatever comes into my head I find it very difficult to summarize books and TV show episodes without getting really tripped up, so I'd like to focus my writing on doing more of that.

So the idea I have in the works for writing practice will involve writing a summary of the 5 pages I read that day (including any thoughts or questions I have about the characters/plot), while trying to use at least one new expression from the book and also trying to incorporate some of the grammar constructions I'm working on. Hopefully, I will be able to make use my verb tense study and not make so many conjugation errors. It's a tall order, and I don't know yet how often I'll try to do it. Maybe every day that I do reading? Maybe 5 days a week? When I actually get started, I'll definitely give an update with a clearer outline of what I'm doing.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby Maengin » Sun Aug 28, 2022 2:01 am

StringerBell wrote:
I was actually doing something similar to your current strategy when I was studying Polish. I'd read/listen intensively to short texts with audio and then reread/relisten to them repeatedly (probably even hundreds of times) over many months. It was really effective to keep cycling through stuff I knew well. Even though I haven't been studying Polish for several years, I'm often surprised by how much I remember. I think repeated listening/reading is something that many language learners probably don't do enough of.



Thank you for talking about this. I have read your old logs and enjoyed reading about your method with listening and reading to Polish. I didn't realize you listen to the texts for several months. Did you schedule your repeat listenings or was it random? I'm experimenting with intensive listening to text as a beginner but planned to stop listening to each text after a month of several study sessions. Maybe should base it on how well I can understand the text after month and if not well, repeat the cycle.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby Cavesa » Sun Aug 28, 2022 11:42 am

I think i should reexplain a few things, since I am very sorry you misunderstood my posts in such a way.

StringerBell wrote:No. Maybe this is what happened for you and for others, but don't tell me how my brain works. I know what my abilities are (spoiler alert: they're not the same as yours) and every day I'm experimenting with ways to modify my life to optimize what my brain and body are capable of doing in the face of some pretty significant and increasing limitations. What works for other people sometimes just doesn't work for me.


I was using the generic you. I was in no way criticising your learning method or your preference for intensive reading. I was just correcting your misunderstanding of what extensive reading was.

You are not the only one. Even the "professional" "research" papers on intensive vs extensive reading make the same mistakes. In your case, there is no harm done, you've found what works for you. But that is very different from "extensive reading is worse". In case of the researchers, they are shaming a valid method, because they set up the experiment in a way that the extensive reading was never supposed to work.

After 10+ years and way more than 2,000+ hours of studying, TV watching, reading, and conversations I have learned that your experience is NOT usually my experience. I don't really learn words this way even in my native language. I look up EVERYTHING, even English slang I repeatedly come across on Twitch stream chats. Plus, even when words and phrases are repeated multiple times within the same book (which doesn't happen very often outside of a handful of words), being exposed to 300 or 500 new words per book is so overwhelming that I don't remember any of them at all. I know this because I kept re-highlighting the same verbs in my kindle multiple times which tells me I had no memory of even coming across them before.


It's great that Intensive reading works for you! I was never trying to suggest your method was wrong for you. It is totally normal that intensive works better for some people, and extensive for others. It just doesn't make it ok to talk about extensive readers as if we were just some dumb lazy morons, who never learn and believe in some nonsense.

So far my process is working for me. In just 70 pages I see a massive difference in how much I'm learning, remembering, AND ENJOYING. It's combining intensive reading with extensive reading of the same material, which for me seems to be the silver bullet. Why is it a problem for you if that leads me to think that what I'm doing just might be a superior method (at least for some people)? Wait, don't answer that. I'm not looking for a fight.


Because you are doing the same thing you are so angry about. While I make a difference between the generic you and the you you, you are now twisting it. Your method is superior for you, but it is not generally superior. Why? Because you are not comparing them, you have option for one option (which is totally fine)and just spit on the other without really trying it. That is problematic part.

I don't know what I was thinking by writing about my opinion and what works for me in my own log. I guess every log should be a carbon copy each other's praising how great extensive reading is and if someone sees issues or limitations with it (or it simply doesn't work for them for whatever reason) they can just go elsewhere and keep it to themselves.


Nope. Definitely not. It is just suprising to criticise a whole method WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING WHAT EXTENSIVE READING IS, and then be so angry, when someone tries to kindly explain to you. You were actually not just saying what works for you, the way you wrote was clearly a criticism of extensive readers.


I love hearing about what works for others but I don't enjoy having someone come on my log to tell me the 100 ways that I'm wrong and don't know what I'm talking about. Since I am not interested in arguing I will continue the rest of my experiment with rereading on my own without documenting it.

I never suggested you were doing something wrong concerning your learning But your description of extensive reading was a 100% that you didn't know what you were talking about. I never thought you would take a correction so badly.


Cavesa wrote:Actually, I remember encountering exactly this various times in tv series. Which is extensive listening. I know very well what it means, because I heard it used various times in various situations.


Congratulations! You win Italian.


Nope, that was never the point. The point was, that Extensive reading and listening works (for many people, even if it is not the best method for you), but the success depends heavily on how much content your consume, and also what content you consume. People consuming very different genres and authors from me are likely to know different stuff.

StringerBell wrote:PSA:
If you believe that extensive reading, as defined by the quote from Luca Lampariello I posted recently is such an infallible method that it shouldn’t be questioned or criticized or you are uncomfortable with the fact that I might have a different opinion on extensive reading than you, then I warmly invite you to redirect yourself to one of the many other wonderful logs where people wholeheartedly agree with you.


Nobody ever said that. No need for the straw man.

That said, I’m interested in exploring alternatives that might end up proving to be superior methods, at least for some people. So far I’m seeing mounting evidence that supports my opinion and I hope in the future other people are inspired - or just curious - to try what I’m doing and report back. Maybe I’m the only person in the world for whom it works well or maybe I’m really on to something here.

What evidence? You mean the research made by people, who misunderstood extensive reading the same way you had, and actually worened it by setting up experiments bound to confirm their prejudice?

You're not the only person in the world, the two approaches have both their strengths and weaknesses. You were comparing them in a way that wasn't at all appropriate, and overgeneralising the conclusions in a way that sounded rather offensive towards the people walking a different path from yours.


My goal in this log is to share my opinion and my experiences. Those may not be the same as yours. I love hearing about other people’s strategies and points of view but I am not interested in people arguing with me here or telling me that I’m wrong. Opinions are personal and they aren't really wrong or right. So I can say, "I think extensive reading in the intermediate stage is flawed and inefficient" and someone else can respond by saying, "no, extensive reading is the holy grail of language learning" and then we're at a stalemate and things get bitter.

But nobody did that! What I did was "but what you describe as extensive reading is not extensive reading at all". I never said it was the holy grail, nor did I attack your personal success with intensive reading. But do you really hate so much being corrected, when you are objectively wrong? Is it really so offensive to do so?

Really, you seem very upset about something else than what really happened. Nobody attacked what works for you. I just corrected that majority of your criticisms has actually nothing to do with real extensive reading at all.


So since this is my log, I will be sharing what I'm doing, seeing, and thinking. If you are a person who thinks extensive reading is the holy grail of language learning and you can't read about what I'm doing with an open mind, then this is not the log for you and I kindly ask that you move on.

Now I don't know what to do. I have never said such nonsense as "holy grail", nor have I thought it. But you wrongly believe I have, just because I pointed out your misudnerstanding. Am I supposed to move on?

I just wanted to clear this up. I value your log and admire your achievemens. My only "crime" was explaining your misunderstanding, I never thought you would take it so personally and interpret it in such an erroneous manner. I am sorry you got offended for no reason at all, I will avoid your log in the future. But I wanted to explain what really happened.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby StringerBell » Sun Aug 28, 2022 11:04 pm

Lightbulb Moment: Why do I have so much trouble with extensive reading? :roll:

According to various sources, the general consensus is that extensive reading should consist of these two things:

-reading material is easy
-reading is enjoyable

Since I've started tracking, I’ve read about 7,000 pages and 17 different novels. While I may have fewer unknown words per page than many other extensive readers, reading novels still doesn’t feel easy nor enjoyable for me. :cry: It often takes a fair amount of effort to make sense of what I’m reading and not just gloss over things I don’t understand.

Reading difficulty is not only determined by the number of unknown words on a page. There are times when I know every word in a sentence and I can’t quite put them together in a way that makes sense (and it’s not due to some of them being an idiom). However, when I come back to the sentence a few minutes later, suddenly it’s crystal clear and I don’t know why I had been struggling so much the first time around. It’s not uncommon that I have to reread some sentences 2 or 3 times to really nail down who is doing the action vs. who is receiving the action. Toss in a few unknown words per page and a supposedly “easy” activity turns into a mental workout that requires me to slow down and take my time.

For something to feel truly “easy” I’d probably have to read something on the level of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which I can breeze through. While those are silly and entertaining, they are not the kind of books that I want to be reading anymore. So there is no way for me to truly fulfill this requirement of extensive reading.

As for the “enjoyable" requirement: that’s also not happening. The lightbulb moment happened when I realized that I think other people really enjoy what they’re reading extensively even if they are reading material that’s probably way too difficult for their current level to be considered "easy". They don't care if they miss some details because they really want to see what happens next.

The truth is that while I love reading in English, I just don’t like reading in Italian. I don’t know how to find books I actually care about reading (though I keep trying). So far, everything I’ve read has been a translation from another language (usually English). Reading something translated into Italian feels artificial and I can’t escape feeling that I’d rather just read things in the original language. I had the same problem finding Italian original TV series which is why I’ve had to watched so much dubbed stuff or resort to YT videos. All my friends, exchange partners, and in-laws in Italy predominantly watch and read dubbed/translated stuff. They’ve been no help in recommending quality books or TV shows or movies that are modern Italian originals. A few months ago I got like 50+ ebooks from my Italian friend and every single one was a translation.

A bigger issue than translations is that most of the books I’ve read have been chosen because they were useful due to the kind of language/dialogue they have. I stand by that choice because I find it more useful to read books written with modern colloquial language and dialogue rather than antiquated or flowery, poetic, or highly technical or specialized language.

But most are not books I’d ever willingly choose to read in English. So I end up reading a lot of books that either: I hate / I’m neutral toward or I’ve already read in English (in the original language) which makes it hard to get excited. Maybe extensive reading would come easier if I had a stack of Italian originals that I was super excited to read but for now those seem to be extremely elusive. I know they’re out there somewhere but I can’t find them.

I have the same enjoyment reading novels in Italian that I have using textbooks. While reading is a chore I keep doing it because I know that if I put in effort, I’ll see results. I think this also contributes to my frustration; going through book after book and never feeling like I’m improving makes it hard to justify what I’m doing since I’m neither enjoying the process nor seeing results.

However, if instead of blowing through books quickly in an attempt to “read a lot” I treat those books as tools where my goal is to squeeze as much understanding as possible out of them as possible, suddenly it no longer matters how crappy the plot is or how poorly developed the characters are or whether I’ve already read it in English. The enjoyment I get comes not from being entertained by the book during ER, but from seeing concrete improvements after every single session during IR>ER. Using my current strategy at least allows me to achieve the “reading is easy” requirement during the rereading phases, where I’d say my level of ease is comparable to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

So this lightbulb moment made me realize that extensive reading doesn’t work for me not just because it’s in my personality to want to understand things (and also because I believe it’s an extremely inefficient way to learn new vocabulary) but also because it’s actually impossible for me to fulfill the requirements of doing extensive reading in Italian to begin with.
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Re: Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby rdearman » Mon Aug 29, 2022 8:48 am

I am on the phone so can't express how much I agree with all you've written! This was a lot of the reason my recent spate of French reading was a chore, especially that horrible novel Red and Black everyone seems to love. I too have had a lot of times where I knew all the words but they made zero sense.

I just wanted to suggest that you open an Italian books thread like camody did for French. He has gotten tons of recommendations and some book reviews. Also if you tell me what kind of books you like I can try to help find some original stuff. The Italians really do detective novels well. But what is your favourite genre? Sci-Fi, mystery, chick lit, romance, fantasy, horror?

I would avoid Andrea Camilleri books unless you are ok with a lot of scicillan slang. :)
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