Stelle's log (Spanish, Italian, Tagalog)

[Stelle]

I'm all set to start reading Io non ho paura. I'm at my parents' house in a small town for the next week, and their front porch is the perfect place for language learning. I'm just waiting for the coffee to be ready.

@Spoonary - I like your idea of reading at our own speed. Maybe others will join us, but until then we can talk here and on your log.

My plan: read extensively (ie without stopping to look up any words) for 20 minutes. Choose an interesting page and read it intensively (ie look up new vocabulary and look closely at sentence structure and verb conjugation). Rinse and repeat. Do at least one "book session" per day, but aim for two.

My pomodoro plan has been a bust so far. I seem to be repaying a sleep debt, sleeping about 10 hours per night, so I'm not getting up as early as I'd anticipated. I am spending time each day with both Spanish and Italian, but it's nowhere near as structured as I'd planned.

Current Italian focus:
- Starting Io non ho paura
- Listening daily to America 24
- Keeping up with daily Memrise and Duolingo practice
- Finishing the Language Transfer Italian course
- Listening to (and reading) Al Dente

Current Spanish focus:
- Just started reading Harry Potter 6
- Listening to Nómadas (I guess I've been home long enough to get itchy feet again!)
- Did first lesson of GdUdE C1 - but left it at home, so it will have to wait at least a week
- Did a lot of reading and listening about urban agriculture (more on that in a future entry)

No conversation at all for the past few weeks, in either Italian or Spanish. I needed a mental break!

On my to-do list: finding an addictive Spanish series on Netflix.

Ok, coffee's ready. I'm going to start reading NOW!

[Stelle]

day one of Io non ho paura

Yesterday I read with a timer for 20 minutes, then chose a single page to read intensively, which took about ten minutes.

Extensive reading: 9 pages in 20 minutes
The book is very readable and interesting so far! I think I'm going to really enjoy it.

Intensive reading:
I read through page 11, jotting down phrases containing unknown words. Then I went through my whole list, thought about what the words probably meant, and confirmed using google translate.

I was able to guess most of those words through context and inference. Even when I guessed wrong (for example, I thought that "pazzo" probably meant "mean", but it actually means "crazy"), it didn't have any negative effect on comprehension. I only had a comprehension breakdown once, with the word "bassotto", but a few paragraphs later it said "un cane di razza", and I immediately realized that it was a dog breed - a Bassett, probably. (Spoiler alert: it was a dachshund).

I counted the words on the page to calculate my comprehension rate. My years of experience teaching reading in a second language setting have led me to aim for a minimum 95% comprehension rate for extensive reading. I've already committed to reading this book even if it's not at that level, but I was curious.

Here's my formula for calculating comprehension rate:

- count the number of words in one line
- count the number of lines on one page
- multiply the number of words by the number of lines
- multiply that number by 0.05
This will give you the maximum number of unknown words on that page if you're looking for 95% comprehension or better.

I actually counted each word on page 11 instead of multiplying number of words by number of lines.

- 256 words
- 256 x 0.05 = 12.8

There were 13 unknown words on the page, which puts me pretty much spot on for 95% comprehension. Happy surprise! (Although I wasn't really surprised, since the reading felt pretty smooth, easy and interesting.)

I haven't calculated the comprehension rate of a novel in years. After doing it a few times as a Spanish learner I was able to then instinctively choose books at the right level. But when I first started language learning, I found it very helpful, since I sometimes founds myself trying to claw my way through books that were too difficult for me. Now that I'm happily convinced of the power of reading easy stuff, I no longer need calculations to help me choose appropriate books.

Anyway, I'll look at my reading speed and comprehension level again towards the end of the book, just to see if anything changes.

Happy reading!

[jeff_lindqvist]

I haven't calculated the comprehension rate of a novel in years. After doing it a few times as a Spanish learner I was able to then instinctively choose books at the right level.

Neither have I, until a few days ago when I felt that this Paolo Coelho book in Portuguese was pretty easy to follow, so I counted unknown words as I kept reading. About 5 unknowns per page, sometimes up to 7-8, but still that feels great as it's the first (!) book I read in the language (apart from ~20 children's books with a lot of pictures, all of them finished in say 60 minutes).

[Stelle]

Neither have I, until a few days ago when I felt that this Paolo Coelho book in Portuguese was pretty easy to follow, so I counted unknown words as I kept reading. About 5 unknowns per page, sometimes up to 7-8, but still that feels great as it's the first (!) book I read in the language (apart from ~20 children's books with a lot of pictures, all of them finished in say 60 minutes).

Interesting! It's really a different experience, learning a related language as an experienced language learner. I'm having a similar experience in Italian. I've read 6 or 7 children's novels, but this is my first "real" novel. I expected it to be more difficult than it is.

[Stelle]

So my plan to focus intensively on my languages this summer has been...well, not quite a bust, but definitely not as intensive as I'd planned. I've been doing planning and creating materials in preparation for a grade change at work next year, and I get into a state of flow that lasts hours. That's a good thing, because I love being in a state of flow. In my day-to-day job, I don't get to that point very often because there are so many things to keep an eye on. My goal is to help my students enter a state of flow, rather than trying to enter one myself. But in the summer, when I can focus on planning and creating, it's such a gratifying feeling! But it's not very conducive to language-learning.

Still, I've been doing something every day, which is better than nothing!

Italian
I've been continuing with Italian at a very leisurely pace. I do about 20 minutes of Memrise and Duolingo every day, which keeps me in basic maintenance. I've also been reading a few pages of Io non ho paura most days. I read a passage a few days ago that made me gasp aloud. It's a great book, and I highly recommend it to any Italian learners.

I've also watched a few episodes of SOS Tata. It was a guilty pleasure in English (does anyone else without kids sometimes watch Supernanny? No? Come on, I can't be the only one...), but in Italian it's studying. Ha! It really is a great way to expose myself to various Italian accents. Depending on who's speaking, sometimes I can understand almost everything, while at other times I can barely make out a word.

Spanish
I'd like to say that I've been doing something in Spanish every day, but that would be a big fat lie. That said, I did spend a week or so intensively reading, watching and writing. I chose "urban farming" as a topic, and collected a variety of online materials. Over the course of several days, I:

- listened to a podcast: http://bit.ly/2szEyJf Agenda de Desarrollo Sostenible (Futuro Abierto)
- read an article and watched a short video about huertos urbanos: http://bit.ly/1tAxRjH (Tomates en el balcón - El Pais)
- watched a documentary about urban/community gardening in Puerto Rico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSruHajpAQ4 (GeoAmbiente: Huertos Urbanos)
- watched a short video: http://bit.ly/2tIOOyd
- read a wide variety of articles on https://www.planetahuerto.es/revista
- read a long-form article about Vandana Shiva: http://www.revistaanfibia.com/cronica/la-resistencia-la-semilla/ (“El futuro es una semilla” - resistir las modificaciones geneticas)
- read the UN site on urban farming: http://www.fao.org/urban-agriculture/es

Throughout it all, I took notes, collected vocabulary, and jotted down quick opinions and reactions. Then, I wrote a text and sent it to my tutor. Honestly, this is where my efforts fell a bit flat. I'd planned on writing a short essay, rechecking my work, improving my writing before sending it over to her - in essence, really exerting myself, as though it were an academic task. Instead, I waited until the day before my tutoring session, panicked a bit, and slapped something together. Still, it took me a good hour and it was more writing than I've done in a very long time, so I'm happy with that.

During my tutoring session, Auri went over corrections using a shared google document, which was extremely helpful. After seeing just how valuable those ten minutes of shared corrections were, I'm hoping that I'll be more motivated to keep writing. After correcting my text, we had a discussion based on related questions that I'd prepared.

Overall, a very interesting and worthwhile activity. I'll definitely do something similar again. I just have to decide which topics I'd like to focus on.

[Stelle]

Hello LLORG!

I haven't posted in a while. Not really surprising, because I haven't studied languages in a while, either.

I started a new job teaching a new grade in September, and it's been really time-intensive and demanding. We added a two-year-old mutt to our family at the end of August. He's an amazing dog, but he had a hard start to life and he needs a lot of time for exercise and training. I also agreed to edit my 18-year-old niece's first novel. So all of a sudden my language-learning time has been replaced with planning-and-assessing time, walking-playing-training-and-ear-scritches time, and correcting-tense-errors-and-asking-questions-about-world-building time.

Yesterday, though, I felt really restless. I realized that not touching any of my languages for several months has left a huge void. Being a language-learner is a big part of how I identify myself, and I just felt as though something were missing.

Besides, I've been halfway through Io non ho paura since mid-July.

So yesterday, I spent half an hour on each of my languages:

Italian - I did a bit of catch-up on the MASSIVE backlog in Memrise and Anki, and then read a chapter of Io non ho paura.

Spanish - I started reading Divergent on ReadLang. Yes, it's a silly book and it's not much of a challenge. But it's easy to read and relaxing, and it's exponentially better than doing absolutely nothing.

Tagalog - I bought a new box of flashcards at the book store several months ago: Tagalog in a Flash. Last night I finally opened the box and started reading through the cards. They're very well-made, with a Tagalog word on the front and four sample sentences with English translations on the back.

So, here I am. And here I hope to stay. I don't think that I can make and stick to complicated language learning schedules right now. But I would like to commit to doing something in at least one of my languages every day.

[Brun Ugle]

Welcome back! I've been a bit quiet lately too, but I'm hoping to change that.

[Spoonary]

Welcome back Stelle! I wondered where you'd been. I, too, have been pretty absent around here, due to my lack of language learning to report. When I saw you had posted though, I had to come and see what you had been up to.

I hope that new job craziness doesn't last too long and that you find time for daily language practice soon. Oh and let me know what you think of Io non ho paura when you finish it.

[Stelle]

Welcome back! I've been a bit quiet lately too, but I'm hoping to change that.

Let's do our best to keep each other in line!

Welcome back Stelle! I wondered where you'd been. I, too, have been pretty absent around here, due to my lack of language learning to report. When I saw you had posted though, I had to come and see what you had been up to.

I hope that new job craziness doesn't last too long and that you find time for daily language practice soon. Oh and let me know what you think of Io non ho paura when you finish it.

I expect the job craziness to last...well...forever. Ha! It's ok, I knew what I was getting myself into when I chose this career! But I'm not going to lie...I really do wish I were better at work-life balance. As for the book...oooooh...it's getting really good! I just finished the chapter where Michele overheard his Dad and company while he was trying to sneak into the bathroom.

[Stelle]

Well, it appears that I went from nothing to trying to do everything! Honestly, all I want to do is make some tea, wrap up in a blanket and read in all of my languages. I'd kind of like to neglect my work life altogether for the next little while. Not going to happen, but it's nice to imagine!

Over the past week:

Spanish

I'm about 20% of the way through Divergente. It's a rather silly book, and there are a few pages with typos, but overall I'm enjoying it. I also contacted Auri (my favourite iTalki teacher) to see about starting up our weekly chats again.

One of my students has Spanish-speaking parents who immigrated from South America. We chatted briefly at Open House, which was really fun. I have to meet with them shortly, and I think that I'll offer to hold the interview in Spanish. If they prefer English, then of course we'll do it in English, but I'll give them the option.

I've reached a level in my Spanish where a three-month hiatus doesn't seem to have had any effect at all on my ability to read, listen or speak. I'm now trying to decide if that's good enough, or if I should think about doing a language test in the future. I definitely think that I could handle the C1 test (with some writing practice beforehand). I'm just not sure if it's something that I want to spend my time and money on pursuing.

Italian

I'm still working on my enormous Memrise and Duolingo backlogs, to the tune of about 15 minutes per day. I read a few chapters of Io Non Ho Paura (which is getting better and better). I also listened to some America 24 and Al Dente podcasts.

I think that - for now, at least - I'm going to focus solely on receptive Italian. I really don't need to activate it right now. I have no plans to travel to Italy in the near future, and I don't know any native speakers to practice with. I think I'll just read a bit, listen a bit, and do my Duo/Mem reviews daily. I may also keep working through my Italian grammar workbook, but I'm undecided. When I'm ready to activate my Italian, I'll do an intensive speaking and writing challenge. For now, though, listening and reading is more than enough.

Tagalog

I'm really surprised by my sudden urge to study Tagalog! I have an on-again-off-again relationship with Tagalog. I want to be able to understand it, but I've never really found resources that I love, and I actively dislike much of the native content that I've found online.

Anyway, I decided to renew a 3-month online subscription to Rosetta Stone. I bought RS on sale a few years ago, and I now live on a lonely island of one: a LLORG member who finished - and actually mostly enjoyed - Rosetta Stone. If the software itself is a bit lacklustre, the online resources are great. For 12 dollars a month, I have access to weekly half-hour online tutoring sessions and graded readers with full audio. So for now, I'm just reviewing the core lessons and making anki cards from the RS transcripts, reading/listening/recording myself with the stories, and doing a weekly tutoring lesson. My first session on Wednesday went really well! Of course, it was all review, the session only covered lessons 1 and 2, and I realize that I'm "cheating", but it just felt so fluid and easy and natural, so I'll take the win and run with it. I'm aiming to review the content of Rosetta Stone over the next three months, and then move on from there. Hopefully at that point I'll be ready to try Skype tutoring again.

I've also been using the flashcards from Tuttle, which are very well-made. I'm using a very loose low-tech form of spaced repetition. As I read through each card, I decide which of four piles it should go in, from difficult to easy. The difficult ones I read each day and then re-sort. I revisit the moderate pile every three days and then resort. I'll revisit the moderate-difficult pile once a week. The easy pile...well, I'm not sure if I'll revisit them at all. We'll see! Maybe on the first week of the month, starting in December. But some of the words are really easy - like Pilipino - so on the revisit, I may retire some of the cards altogether.

I've taken out the other Tagalog resources that I hung on to during our move. Some of my resources - Teach Yourself Filipino, I'm looking at you! - found their way to the thrift shop during our last pack-up, but I did keep a few that I liked. I haven't done anything with them yet, but they're definitely singing a siren song. I kept Tuttle's Elementary Tagalog (textbook, workbook and CD). I made it through the first 10 units the first time around, and I'm considering starting again from the beginning. I don't have any way to play a CD, though, so I'll have to see about transferring the audio somehow. (Strange - I remember when CD players were new and exciting, and now the technology is so old that I don't even have a laptop that will accept them anymore!)

Other than that, I have a few children's books: Bertday ni Guido, a bilingual picture book with parallel text, and both an English and a Tagalog version of an early chapter book called Si David at si Jacko: ang Lagusan ng mga Zombie. Yes, I have a zombie book in Tagalog. I felt like the world was smiling on me when I found it! I've never read it, because I was a bit overwhelmed when I tried the first time. I just didn't feel confident about the pronunciation, and Tagalog has so many long tongue-twister words. I think that what I need to do is get someone to record the Tagalog audio for me. So right now, that book is definitely a goal.