WRITING:7 weeks of WriteStreak and I've only accidentally missed 2 days, so I've done 47 days total. Of course I'd prefer that it was 100% but even if I continue to accidently skip some more days, at the same rate I will have written for 358/365 days, which is not too shabby.
I also finally figured out how to turn on the word count in Pages. It was actually super easy and I don't know why I didn't think to this is in the past.
When I attempted an Output Challenge in the past I was manually counting handwritten words which was...tedious. After 7 weeks of 10 minutes/day free writing I have exactly
8,812 words written. I only end up writing about 2 paragraphs per session, which feels like nothing when I'm actually doing it but it's starting to add up.
By my estimation, if I continue along the same trajectory, I should end up with ~ 67,000 words written by the end of the year. Even though that's more than the requirement of the Output Challenge, it actually feels like it's less. I think the reason is that I'm focusing on the 10 min/day aspect and not the total words written part. It's strange that by subtlely shifting my goal I'm able to change my perception of how easy or difficult a challenge is.
VOCABULARY:I've been contemplating the whole studying-words-with-Anki strategy lately. There are a few cards that can identify instantly but I still question whether I’d recognize these words in the wild. It feels like I’ve memorized the cards but not the actual words so if I were to come across those words in another context I don't feel confident that I would recognize them. This only applies to a few words, though, so probably not a big deal even if it's the case.
Some cards have words that are really specific and I periodically wonder if I should actually devote the time to learn them or not. One in particular in this category was:
l’intingolo (a sauce produced from meat juices, usually a roast). I know and use a more colloquial word with the same meaning (which is Italian, not dialetto, but possibly regional):
pucia. I don't even know if I spelled it right because I've only ever heard it in conversation. I keep going back and forth on words like
intingolo - how likely am I to come across a word like this again? Is it worth studying?
Well, yesterday I pulled a Latin/Italian copy of the Satyricon off the bookshelf. I was curious to gauge whether it was something that I could feasibly read in the near future. I opened to a page at random in the middle of the book and in the very first sentence, what do I see? “
Gli intingoli” I read the rest of the paragraph to confirm that it was the word I thought it was, and it was.
So I guess that answers my question about whether these infrequent words are worth studying! Infrequent words come up very rarely (duh!) but when they do, knowing them really does make a difference. So even though it feels like a pointless endeavour, I think I will continue trying to learn them at least passively. Or until I reach my frustration threshold.
I have noticed that explicitly studying unknown words is slowly paying off. I'm recognizing words from my Anki cards in other novels. Without Anki I doubt I would be recognizing most of them as many just don't appear frequently enough for me to make connections. For example, in my current book, the word
la culla (crib) has been repeated several times, so I didn't need to make a card for it. However, in my recent Anki reviews, a card from a previous novel just appeared for the first time:
cullare (to lull, to rock, to cradle). I had no memory of making the card, and I certainly didn't remember seeing the word
cullare when I read the word
la culla. But now that I know
la culla, it's extremely easy to remember the meaning of
cullare without even trying. I might even just suspend or delete that card now. But had I not made the card originally, I would not have made that connection (or at least not for a much longer time).
GRAMMAR:Somewhere I read someone online highly praising the grammar workbooks from the ALMA publishing company. I made a mental note of it and I keep almost buying a few of their workbooks only to talk myself out of it because
shouldn't I finish the edX Wellesley courses first??? Speaking of that online course, I'm still doing the intermediate one. I go through the sections that I know well (like reflexive verbs) pretty fast and slow down when I come to something that's a rule I probably should have already learned but didn't. I'm going through it pretty slowly since I'm prioritizing reading so I don't often have both time and mental energy to deal with doing a course.
Right now I just learned the rule for when to use
più/meno...di vs.
più/meno...che when making comparisons. I mentioned to my husband I learned a rule about this topic and his response what that he had no idea what the rule was even though he uses it correctly and obviously knows what sounds right or wrong. It's strange since they teach
so much grammar in Italian schools, so this must be one of those grammar points that since native speakers instinctively pick it up very easily it's not explicitly taught because it would be a waste of time for them. However, I'm very happy to know the rule now! I wrote a page full of practice sentences applying it and I think I feel confident with it. It's always a good feeling to patch up one more hole.