Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

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StringerBell
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Eternal Sunshine of the Italian Mind

Postby StringerBell » Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:04 pm

The title of this log is something that I can never seem to remember how to say quite right (plus it's legit been long time no see, y'all!) so I'm hoping that by seeing that phrase constantly I can start using it without racking my brain every time!

Ok, so as I said I took a long hiatus from language learning (~2 years?). I was feeling really frustrated and decided that for all the time I was spending on languages I wasn't seeing the kind of improvements that I should be seeing. Plus, I had a lot of other big life changes going on and I was missing consuming books/shows that I actually wanted to be reading/watching in English instead of choosing things I wouldn't have chosen otherwise if it were not to improve a language.

Recently, doubt starting creeping in... should I give Italian another try? Is there something I could do differently that might lead to better results? Was I really as crappy at speaking as I was thinking or was I just frustrated and being overly critical of myself? Did I give up too soon? So, I've decided to give Italian another go :) This time I'm going to do something totally different. Instead of focusing on watching TV/listening to podcasts (which served their purpose) I'm going to focus mostly on output now: speaking and writing. And I'm not counting anything (like # hours speaking) the way I was doing previously. Maybe I will in the future, we'll see.

I'm also not going to focus on any other languages beside Italian. While I seem to have lost all my Polish speaking ability, I can still very easily understand my grandmother when she switches into Polish, so I'll consider that a success. I would like to resume Latin at some point, but not until I get to a point where I'm really happy with how I speak Italian. Since that day may not come for a long, long time, Latin will be on the back burner indefinitely.

I have an extremely rebellious subconscious so anytime I feel like I'm forced to do something (like an "immersion" where I can't use English) it backfires and I'm able to say less and less no matter how much I try. So instead of trying to speak as much as possible from the beginning I'm restarting slowly; a few things here and there and gradually speaking more and more. The minute I feel frustrated I can revert to English so there's no pressure. I know that's the opposite of what all the advice says to do, but this is what is currently working for me. It turns speaking into something I want to do instead of something I have to do.

I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to transform silent activities into ones that require speaking. I read an interesting article https://www.thinkinitalian.com/speaking ... ined-talk/ (man, I don't remember how to create hyperlinks anymore!). The part I found particularly interesting was the pie chart that demonstrated how to make all activities involve speaking:
writing > writing aloud* (sounds like scriptorium!)
reading > reading aloud*
listening > listening and repeating
speaking > conversation (no change)

*This has gotten me to start thinking about ways I can do more output in addition to just conversations. So, hopefully this log will be a place where I can keep track of various things I'm trying to increase output (I'm also open to suggestions!). I may also try my hand at writing future posts in both English and Italian.

Anyway, I'm glad to see y'all again!
Last edited by StringerBell on Fri Aug 05, 2022 9:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby StringerBell » Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:33 pm

lusan wrote:Very interesting. I faced the same challenge with Italian but for the last 2 months I have been doing the following practices.

1. Reading Aloud everyday 5 simple conversations of 101 Conversations in Simple Italian by Olly Richards. I chose this book because my own Italian sentences are too complicated and I believe that nobody speaks that way. I repeat 3X lesson with a 5 lesson moving schedule. I mean if today I am in conversation 10, then I do 3X lesson 10, and 3X conversations 6, 7, 8 , 9. I keep incrementing the lower end: 11X and 7, 8, etc. Every conversation so is repeated 15X.

2. Writing 10 sentences mini-conversations about ordinary things/activities every day. Once a week I send them to an Italki 's tutor to check the grammar and spelling.

After I collect at least 50 or so... I plan to used them to replace item 1. These conversations would reflect my own words and thinking pattern. I am very excited with this practice since they are my own words, I count to remember them easily.

I firmly believe that writing is undervalue in the language learning community relative to comprehensive input. That is Ok if one just wants to read but if one desires to speak then... well... well....


Hi Lusan! I've been thinking a lot lately about writing vs. talking so it's interesting to hear about what you're doing. My husband is convinced that just talking is the way to go and that while writing won't hurt, it won't help much either. I was of the opinion that for me writing has a lot of potential to help. But now I'm starting to wonder if that's actually true. I'm not really sure where I stand right now but I do think it's worthwhile.

I've been talking to my husband in Italian (for the most part) this past week. Mostly little stuff here and there but yesterday he asked me to recount an episode of a TV show I watched. It was difficult because there were a few things I couldn't figure how to say that he had to help me with. For example: "Ha iniziato a frequentare delle persone losche." I could say everything except "frequentare" because I thought it was only used to talk about attending school, I didn't realize it could be used to say "to hang out". For some reason, every time he told me how to say the whole sentence, I kept getting a different part of it wrong, so he made me say it like 20x in a row. I eventually got it but it took a lot of work. Recounting the whole episode was a struggle and I felt like I was talking reeeeeeally slowly and in a very halting way because I'd stop after every few words to figure out the rest of what I wanted to say.

So today I had a call with a friend in Italy who I've been helping practice English. I told her that I'd like to resume practicing Italian and she was delighted to do a proper exchange, both Italian and English. So we talked for a solid 45 minutes of the call in Italian and it was fantastic! I decided to recount the same episode I did yesterday and surprised myself by how much easier it was the second time around. I felt like the words were flowing with almost no effort; it didn't feel like a struggle at all. Discussing the episode led to chitchatting about other things and before I knew it, it was time to go. At the end she said she was really impressed with the way I was using verbs and that I was using all the right articles. The main place I was struggling was with noun endings (this is a huge achille's heel for me). I was shocked at how well it went and I feel really amped up to continue.

I've been practicing saying variations of "fidarsi". It's really counterintuitive (for me) in Italian to talking about trusting someone because "mi fido" literally means "I trust me" but it's how you say "I trust you". So I've been going out of my way to say stuff like "posso fidarmi?" or "posso fidarmi di te?" just to get the construction ingrained so I don't have to do mental gymnastics to figure out how to say "simple" stuff like that.
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby lusan » Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:40 am

StringerBell wrote:
Hi Lusan! I've been thinking a lot lately about writing vs. talking so it's interesting to hear about what you're doing. My husband is convinced that just talking is the way to go and that while writing won't hurt, it won't help much either. I was of the opinion that for me writing has a lot of potential to help. But now I'm starting to wonder if that's actually true. I'm not really sure where I stand right now but I do think it's worthwhile.


That's why I thought too, but I changed my mind because I realized that I already know very well my native language quindi il mio cervello ha già un modo naturale di parlare. If I want to speak the way I feel, then I must used words that are already at the tip of my tongue in Spanish/English. It doesn't serve me to use other people's words. For example, I could say in "Questo è sufficiente per me!" or "Basta!" I feel more confortable with the short version "Basta!" than with the longer one... because that the way I speak. There are so many ways to express our thoughts but there is only one way that comes easy which is already there. Another example, easier for me is to say "Salve!" than "Ciao." By writing short dialogues I want to find those expressions and words that come naturally when I speak.

In addition, writing helps to "evidenziare e controllare la nostra gramatica." So we get 2 per one: grammar and our own expressions. The problem is that whatever we write need to be verified by a language teacher. Many advocates writing descriptions as you mentioned, I feel then we turn it into school work. I prefer using writing otherwise and learning ahead to say simple things like "Oggi vado al supermercato. Ci voliogno il latte.", etc.

Warning: Writing is not a substitute for speaking but a completely different skill that I believe ought to help facilitating speaking if done correctly. I believe that our writing vocabulary is different than our speaking one. Nobody speaks with convoluted sentences in day-to-day interactions. Nobody speaks with a books vocabulary neither. So, I seek to find the minimum set that I use to develop my own active vocabulary.

StringerBell wrote: I've been talking to my husband in Italian (for the most part) this past week. Mostly little stuff here and there but yesterday he asked me to recount an episode of a TV show I watched. It was difficult because there were a few things I couldn't figure how to say that he had to help me with. For example: "Ha iniziato a frequentare delle persone losche." I could say everything except "frequentare" because I thought it was only used to talk about attending school, I didn't realize it could be used to say "to hang out". For some reason, every time he told me how to say the whole sentence, I kept getting a different part of it wrong, so he made me say it like 20x in a row. I eventually got it but it took a lot of work. Recounting the whole episode was a struggle and I felt like I was talking reeeeeeally slowly and in a very halting way because I'd stop after every few words to figure out the rest of what I wanted to say.


A good example of my point. Frequentare per Reverse could be "uscire con, stare con, andare in giro con, etc." I like frequentare because in Spanish exists a cognate for it that I would use, but someone else might like uscire con, etc. The thing is to keep it easy and simple. The fact that I have to repeat it many times might be a warning that maybe there is another way. When a word/phrase doesn't stick with 4-5 repeats, I move on... there are thousands others waiting at the door.

Ciao!
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby StringerBell » Wed Nov 17, 2021 8:46 pm

I recently discovered what seems like a relatively new subreddit italiano sì. It has some interesting expressions and words now and then - some I know but several expressions involving colors popped up that I'd never seen before: numero verde (toll-free number), essere al verde (to be broke), fare nero qualcuno (to beat someone literally or figuratively). Anyway, when I come across something new there, I've been repeating it in my head and trying to come up with some sentences to practice using them: Sono al verde fino alla prossima settimana. Mi chiesto se i giovani in questi giorni capiscono qual'è un numero verde.

I'm also slowly trying to fill in expressions that I'm missing. Things that I should just say without thinking like: grazie per essertene occupato/a (thanks for taking care of it). Or Non far scorrere l'aqua (don't flush the toilet). Flushing the toilet would probably never pop up during a language exchange so I'm trying to narrate stuff throughout the day (when I think of it) in Italian to identify what I still don't know.

I just realized that I never uploaded the last 2 transcripts of Lucifer in Italian that I did. I still have to get them checked for errors before I can post them. I've not had motivation to do that (mainly because I doubt they are of use to anyone else) but maybe I'll try to get that done in the next week just to avoiding leaving it hanging. I was expecting that transcribing ten 45 minute episodes would have improved my Italian a lot but I honestly don't think it did anything for me.

After a few days I finally remembered how to say, "udite, udite!" (hear ye, hear ye!). It took me several days to stop saying, "udine, udine" (which is a city in Italy). I don't know why, but this is one of my favorite things to say. Sometimes I just go around the house proclaiming silly stuff, like "udite, udite! I piatti sono sporchi!" (hear ye, hear ye! the dishes are dirty!)
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby StringerBell » Fri Nov 19, 2021 12:01 am

Yesterday I spent about 40 min reading aloud this article in Italian about how to learn English. I'd read one paragraph aloud, then go back and reread it a few times until I felt like my pacing was right. It turned out to be a much longer article than I was thinking. Every so often, I'd find a sentence or even just a phrase that I really liked and I'd say it a few extra times. Then I went back to the beginning and started recording myself. I was about 1/2 way through recording myself reading the article (which was 11 min of recording) when my husband came in the room and messed up the recording because he didn't realize what I was doing. :lol: So I gave up on the recording.

But since he was there, I asked him to listen to me read aloud and assess my accent because to me, it sounded like it was much better than I remembered it being in the past. He made a few corrections but overall said that my accent was excellent! :D So I wasn't just imagining it. He is not capable of giving positive feedback if it's not true so if I'm not doing something well, he will absolutely tell me. It's kind of funny to remember how in the beginning I couldn't roll an r or pronounce double consonants or make certain sounds like "gli". I still struggle with the double consonants when I'm speaking faster, which was one of the things he corrected; I read l'anno (year) as 'l'ano (anus). I really, really, hate having to say the word l'anno because I'm always afraid of not pronouncing the double n properly (which is something that took me forever to be able to do) so I usually overemphasize it - unless I'm trying to speak faster.

I also wrote a summary of a True Crime episode I watched. I decided that I wanted to try a little experiment; write up a summary of something, get it corrected, then read it over a few times and then discuss the same episode the next day during a conversation. My LE today got postponed to tomorrow. I'm curious to see if it helps me discuss the episode in way that's more fluid than what I usually come up with on the spot. I was really worried that my writing would be much worse than it was when I was writing a couple of years ago. I'm still making plenty of mistakes, but the good news is that it doesn't seem to be any worse. So, as far as pronunciation and writing go, my 2 year hiatus doesn't seem to have made me regress at all.

MY ORIGINAL SUMMARY (before corrections):

una sintesi del episodio di "L'omicidio viene a paese" (Murder Comes to Town)
In questo episodio, una donna che lavora in una pizzeria ha scoperto il corpo di una persona; Valerie, una donna che lavorava nella stessa pizzeria. Immediatamente ha chiamata 911 per riportare il omicidio. Dopo aver arrivato, gli sbirri hanno scoperto un altro corpo, quello di suo marito, Harvey. In effetti, è stato un doppio omicidio. Sono stati omicidi incredibilmente brutali. C'era sanguine dappertutto. La testa di Valerie è stata distrutta con un estintore e tutti i due gole sono stati tagliati. Gli sbirri intervistavano tutti per capire che è successo e sopratutto, chi era colpevole. La lavoratore che ha scoperto il primo corpo di Valerie ha menzionato che di recente, Valerie ha detto che il tipo che lavora accanto a loro la spaventava. Gli sbirri hanno lo intervistavano ma il suo alibi è stato confermato è non c'era prova contro di lui, quindi lui era un vicolo cieco.

Il figlio di questa coppia ha detto che pensava un altro era colpevole; un lavoratore della pizzeria. Ma, anche questo tipo aveva un alibi confermato. Alcune anni ha passato è gli sbirri hanno deciso di tentare ancora. Un investigatore è stato assegnato allo caso. Leggeva tutti gli appunti dagli altri investigatori ed intervistava tutte le persone un'altra volta. Questa volta, notava che il figlio della coppia sembra un po' strano. Rispondeva tutte le domande con un "sì" o "no" ma nient'altro. Quando l'investigatore intervistava l'amica di Valerie, diceva che ha visto i lividi sulle braccia di Valerie nelle settimane prima della morta. Valerie ha ammetto che il suo figlio l'ha data i lividi. Quest'amica ha suggerito che il figlio aveva bisogno di aiuto ma Valerie ha detto che è stato troppo tardi per aiutarlo. Alcune giorni dopo, lei è trovata morta. Dopo aver sentito questa informazione, l'investigatore era convinto che il colpevole è il figlio. Le polizie ha assunto un interrogatore professionale, chi è stato in grado di ottenere una confessione del figlio.

***********

I had to look up "un estintore" (fire extinguisher) and "il suo alibi è stato confermato" (his alibi checked out) because I had no idea how to say either of those things. But today I noticed that I was able to recall and use both of these things in sentences spontaneously.

What else could I do with this summary to really make the most out of this activity? The only thing I can think of would be to try to write out a summary of the same episode and then compare it to the corrected version to see if I made fewer mistakes. I wonder if anyone else has ideas about how I can use the corrections I got to make improvements?
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby StringerBell » Fri Nov 19, 2021 9:02 pm

This week has been amazing for Italian.

I wish I knew why it's going so right. I did a LE today, 1 hr in Italian, 1 hr in English with my other LEP. My original one is currently MIA for a couple months so in the meantime I decided to convert 2 of my Italian friends into LEPs. Rather than just talking in English, we're now doing proper exchanges.

I was speaking so fluidly and easily that I might as well have been speaking English. I have never had that experience before! When it was time to switch to English, I felt my brain trying to get me to go back to Italian. Even my friend was shocked; he hasn't heard me speak Italian in years and I think he had very low expectations of what I'd be able to say. At the end he didn't have any mistakes written down to go over with me. I genuinely don't know how that's possible, but it put me in such a good mood! Even if I go back to struggling with speaking, I'm going to try not to care and just remember how good this week was. I think the low-pressure approach might be working.

He did ask for future reference how I'd like him to deal with corrections. I told him that I have a handful of mistakes that I tend to make repeatedly and I'd like him to be on the lookout for them, and point them out when I'm done with the sentence/idea:

1) not using the correct auxiliary verb in some past tense constructions (saying ha venuto instead of è venuto, for example).
2) not using the correct past tense (ho detto vs. diceva vs. stavo dicendo). Half the time I choose one of these at random and don't really have any kind of sense of what sounds right.

I know I tend to make mistakes with masculine/feminine endings but I told him to ignore those for now. I have my husband correcting these, which hopefully over time will help. However, if I say something that just sounds weird or awkward and isn't at all how an Italian would say it, then correct me.

What I've been doing with them is to jot down a quick note when I hear them mispronounce something and at the very end we spend about 5 minutes going over pronunciation. English is such a weird language - it's impossible even for native speaker to know how to pronounce something unless we hear other native speakers say it first. One of the things I LOVE about Italian is that you say what you see.
Anyway, dealing with corrections in real time can be such a tricky thing; giving feedback without disrupting the flow of the conversation is an art.

I didn't even discuss the episode that I had written up. But I decided to write a summary the same episode just for myself. I haven't gotten it checked; I'm sure there are still mistakes. However, I'm *pretty* confident that there are fewer mistakes than the first try, and I was able to incorporate several of the corrections I got.

For example, in English we'd say that police found a body (implying that the person is dead). But in Italian you don't say you found "un corpo", you use the word "cadavere". That's a true friend with the English word cadaver, so it's an easy one to remember. But it would sound so bizarre to say that police found a cadaver at a crime scene. So far, I'm really liking this strategy of using corrections to try to redo the same thing again. I think repetition is really, really useful for me and I'd like to focus on doing it as much as possible.

Here is my 2nd attempt at a summary of the same True Crime episode:

11/19/21: Secondo Tentativo: la mia sintesi dell'episodio "L'omicidio arriva in paese".

All'inizio dell'episodio una dipendente ha scoperto il cadavere di Valerie, una donna che lavorava nella pizzeria. La sua testa è stata distrutta con un estintore. Era una scena orribile. Ha chiamato 911 (ovviamente) per riportare l'omicidio. Dopo essere arrivati, i poliziotti ha scoperto un altro cadavere nel fondo della pizzeria; il marito di Valerie. In effetti, è stato un doppio omicidio. Entrambi avevano la gola tagliata e c'era cosi tanto sangue dappertutto. Gli investigatori intervistavano la donna che ha scoperto il primo cadavere. Lei ha detto che secondo lei, il tipo che lavora accanto alla pizzeria sia sospetto. Nella settimana precedente, Valerie ha detto che quello tipo la spaventava. Ma la donna non sapeva il perché. I poliziotti intervistavano quello tipo, ma aveva un alibi confermato. In altre parole lui era un vicolo cieco. I poliziotti intervistavano anche il figlio di Valerie e Harvey alcune volte ma non gli dava un ragione per sospettarlo. Dopo un po', il caso diventava freddo. (Non so se si può dire "freddo" in questa situazione).

Tre anni più tardi, un altro investigatore era assegnato al caso. Ha cominciato all'inizio: intervistava tutte le persone (i dipendenti della pizzeria, gli amici e la familia di Valerie e Harvey). Notava che c'era qualcosa che non va con rispetto al figlio; ha risposto con un "sì" o "no" alle domande, pero non aggiungeva nient'altro. Sembrava che non gli interessa il caso. Dopo aver parlato con un'amica di Valerie, il figlio sembrava più sospetto. Quest'amica ha detto che nella settimana prima della morte, Valerie aveva i lividi sulle braccia. Ha detto che il suo figlio l'ha causati. L'amica suggeriva che il figlio aveva bisogno di aiuto ma Valerie ha detto, "è troppo tardi di aiutarlo." La prossima settimana era trovata morta. I poliziotti portavano il figlio al dipartimento di polizia per altre domande. Il dipartimento ha assunto un interrogatore speciale e dopo un po', lui era in grado di ottenere un confessione.
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby StringerBell » Mon Nov 22, 2021 4:51 pm

So I was able to incorporate a lot of corrections in my 2nd version of my TV episode summary BUT my verb tenses are still a mess. So was it worth doing? I'm not sure. I don't know what I can do to deal with the verb tense confusion. Over 2,000 hours of input hasn't given me a sense for what sounds right. And studying a grammar book and doing an edX course hasn't helped, either. Every time my husband has tried to come up with a rule for which verb tense to use we then immediately come up with a bunch of exceptions that don't fit the rule. I even tried collecting & generating sentences with various verb tenses to see if I could find a pattern and that didn't help, either.

Here's just one example. My husband said that when things happen repeatedly, use L'imperfetto (imperfect). I even looked up the rule and found, "the imperfect is for setting a scene, habitual actions and states of affairs." Seems simple enough, right? But then I came across this today while reading: "Ho osservato tante volte..." (I observed many times). Whoa, whoa! WTF? That's passato prossimo, not l'imperfetto. I even double checked with him to make sure it wasn't wrong, and he confirmed it sounded right even though it was the opposite of the rule he'd just given me. He couldn't explain why it was right. I think he's as frustrated as I am! :lol:

I tried looking up some explanations about Italian past tenses to see if I could get some clarity and I found, "The Italian past is generally a mind-boggling gallery of horrors." I think that's a perfect way to describe it! :lol:

So, I'm a bit at a loss for how to navigate out of the fog here. And while my instinct is to get frustrated, I keep reminding myself of the scene from Schitt's Creek where David is really anxious about taking his driver's license test and Alexis gives him the speech that "literally nobody cares." Who really cares if I continue to screw up past tenses? Nobody! So I'm going to try not to take it seriously.
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby lusan » Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:36 pm

StringerBell wrote:
Here's just one example. My husband said that when things happen repeatedly, use L'imperfetto (imperfect). I even looked up the rule and found, "the imperfect is for setting a scene, habitual actions and states of affairs." Seems simple enough, right? But then I came across this today while reading: "Ho osservato tante volte..." (I observed many times). Whoa, whoa! WTF? That's passato prossimo, not l'imperfetto. I even double checked with him to make sure it wasn't wrong, and he confirmed it sounded right even though it was the opposite of the rule he'd just given me. He couldn't explain why it was right. I think he's as frustrated as I am! :lol:

I read somewhere that southern Italy loves il passato remoto. No so much in the north. I would check a good grammar book. I am a native Spanish and I make all the time mistakes with i tempi dello spagnolo. My italki tutor says that even Italian makes many mistakes when they speak. I would trust the book!

StringerBell wrote:So, I'm a bit at a loss for how to navigate out of the fog here. And while my instinct is to get frustrated, I keep reminding myself of the scene from Schitt's Creek where David is really anxious about taking his driver's license test and Alexis gives him the speech that "literally nobody cares." Who really cares if I continue to screw up past tenses? Nobody! So I'm going to try not to take it seriously.


Sorry, but I think people care if they want to speak well. Otherwise...
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby Iversen » Mon Nov 22, 2021 6:44 pm

"Ho osservato tante volte" is neither passato remoto, nor imperfetto, but this is a view back in time from today, and then passato prossimo seems totally perfetto to me, no matter whether it's fore- or background and whether there is repetition or not. But I'm not an Italian so my gut feelings may not be your best guide.
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Re: è un po che non ci vediamo

Postby garyb » Tue Nov 23, 2021 6:01 pm

It's perfect tense rather than imperfect because it describes a discrete occurrence (or in this case, number of occurrences) rather than a continuous one. Bad explanations from native speakers can do more harm than good!
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