This week in Italian, I...- watched several videos on EuroNews
- listened to two episodes of Al Dente
- finished reading Il Misterioso Ladro di Formaggi
- listened/responded to Language Transfer tracks 16-17
- worked on Duolingo and Memrise every day
- did a a few pages of Italian Grammar Drills
- had a half-hour Skype conversation (!!!)
I have to say that my study time has decreased dramatically since I had to return Assimil to the library. I think that the idea of getting through the book was really motivating me to study every day, and - at least for me - studying begets more studying. I think that this coming week, I'm going to aim for at least 15 minutes per day with Italian Grammar Drills. I definitely need to keep building my active vocabulary, and I feel that the Drills book is a huge help.
on reading Geronimo Stilton...What a fun book! It was silly without being stupid, and - although I found it easy to read - I learned a lot of new vocabulary. Because it's illustrated, new vocabulary is very easy to pick up. I'm planning on starting a new Geronimo Stilton book this evening, something about a Cat Gang, if I recall correctly. Riveting stuff, I'm sure.
While I'm really looking forward to reading Io Non Ho Paura with Spoonary (
and perhaps some other forum members, if I can drum up some interest?), I'm also looking forward to reading a bunch of silly Geronimo Stilton books. My library has 17 of them available, and while I'm not committing to reading all of them, I would like to read at least five. I'm interested in seeing how my reading improves from book to book.
conversationToday was my first time speaking Italian in nearly a year. It was really difficult! This is the first time that my receptive skills far outpace my productive skills as a language learner, and there's definitely a layer of frustration there. When I started learning Spanish, I started speaking quite early on in the process. This time around, I've studied far more Italian before starting my speaking sessions, and Spanish gave me quite a discount with regards to my receptive skills. It's strange to understand every word that my tutor says, but find myself fumbling over the simplest responses.
That said, my tutor was patient and let me work through my thoughts, which was really helpful. I've come to realize that my number one priority in a tutor is someone who allows me wait time. Nothing else helps me more as a beginner speaker than being allowed the time necessary to process my thoughts, put my words together, and repeat the same idea multiple times until I feel confident. I must have said "My dog loves going for walks, but he gets angry every time he sees another dog or a bicycle" a half-dozen times before I felt satisfied! And through it all, my tutor smiled, nodded, and waited until I was finished before she made any suggestions.
I've booked half-hour sessions for every Saturday morning for the next month. I'm interested to see how much I can improve between now and the end of my five-lesson package.
Edited to add a question:Does anyone know of a good source of long-form journalism in languages other than English? I sometimes check out
longform.org or
longreads.com for English articles, and I know which publications tend to offer good long-form journalism, so I'll also go directly to their sites. I'd love to read some high-quality long-form journalism in Spanish, Italian and/or French. Any recommendations?
(I'll also post this question in its own thread.)