Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, German, Japanese, bits of French)

[Serpent]

My point however is that if I had just wanted receptive skills then I could have saved myself a few years of effort and a lot of stress (looking for conversation opportunities etc.) since so much of my studies were focused on productive skills and they're the more difficult skills to develop (although of course there's some overlap, since input does contribute to speaking ability as well as comprehension).

Well, the really advanced levels of comprehension do require you to have some active skills

[garyb]

Well, the really advanced levels of comprehension do require you to have some active skills

What do you mean by this - any examples?

[garyb]

I'm trying to fit more language time into my routine again. I know I criticised the typical "hidden moments" advice a few posts ago, but there is always time for more listening. If I put on a podcast while cooking or cleaning or getting ready for work in the morning, I can get in a significant amount of fairly focused listening. For reading, the Kindle app isn't the best but it does the job if I don't have my actual Kindle with me and it's better than time-wasting apps. News sites are also an option. As for production, I can fit in a few minutes of writing most days, and self-talk is always an option. I've had a few short Italian conversations with my flatmate too. For Spanish I'm accepting that conversation opportunities won't come to me so I can either just keep working on receptive skills or I'll have to go out to the meetup or use some of the credit that's been lying around in my iTalki account for a while now.

I discovered the "Español Automatico" podcast thanks to a mention in another thread. I had been looking for something similar to Italiano Automatico, which I think is useful even for quite advanced learners and I always think that learner-oriented stuff can complement native materials. It's quite good although I do find it a bit too sales-y, for example the latest episode had a clickbait-like title about how aimless listening can harm your Spanish, and in it they tell you to instead sign up to their Learn In 5 Days course to find out their One Weird Trick for productive listening (not in these words but that's the idea). Of course everybody has to earn a living, and producing these podcasts takes time and effort, but that kind of marketing is off-putting to serious learners. Despite that it does seem like a decent resource produced by people who're genuinely interested in language learning and teaching, and misleading marketing is par for the course in language materials: we all know that Assimil won't take you to B2 and Michel Thomas won't make you fluent but we still use them because they're great for what they do achieve.

Another typical "trendy" piece of advice is to follow an online education course (MOOC) in your target language. I've been taking music courses on Coursera from Berklee which are in English but there's an option for Spanish subtitles and transcripts which I thought would be nice just for a little language exposure while I'm doing something I'd be doing anyway. Unfortunately though, many of them aren't properly synced with the videos and in some cases don't even match the video at all. Maybe in the future I'll follow a course that's actually taught in a target language, but as is often the case the stuff that interests me the most is in English.

[garyb]

Italian: I'm having maybe one short conversation per week, which is better than nothing. For several weeks I've been trying to make plans with Italian friends, either in real life or online, but not succeeding. Still watching some films (some classics and also checking out some stuff that's come out over the last couple of years), reading, and writing a little.

Spanish: Lots of input again, but I'm thinking that I need to be a bit more focused in my approach. That might be from Español Automatico's influence: I've listened to a few of their recent podcasts and pretty much all of them are on the same theme ("why your listening needs to improve, sign up to our courses to find out how"); despite all the marketing I do agree with the core message that random listening isn't the most beneficial thing. I still feel, as I've been saying for a long time, that my Spanish listening comprehension is on a plateau where easy materials (radio, podcasts, etc.) are too easy but everything else (film, TV, real conversations) is too hard, so I need to bridge that gap with "n+1" materials. Recently I've mostly been watching whatever Spanish films I find on Netflix or at the cinema, but they're still above my level: I struggle without subtitles, and even with Spanish subs there's plenty unknown vocab.

The most recent film was "Perdiendo el norte" / "Off course", which was a strange cross between a formulaic European comedy (think everything that "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" inspired) and a formulaic American comedy. I've nothing against a decent rom-com but this one, which certainly had potential and was very topical with the theme of unemployment in Spain, was ruined by a Hollywood-style over-the-top storyline filled with clichés and improbable serendipity. Every plot point felt like something I had seen in another movie or five. The characters were a bit more bearable and less spineless at least than in the typical "loser gets the girl in the end" story. It's sad times when European cinema is taking influence from that kind of crap, but hey. Anyway, back on subject, it was a challenging film full of informal dialogue and slang so it would be useful for a more advanced learner if they're not too fussed about quality.

My plan for more focused listening: more TV series and less film, more podcasts and less radio, listening to the same things several times instead of always listening to new material. I'm also realising that there are still huge gaps in my vocabulary for things that aren't totally everyday but aren't uncommon either, and that's part of my difficulty in comprehension. I've started reading the old favourite, Harry Potter translations, since I've been meaning to re-read the series for years anyway. It's quite challenging (and if Harry Potter is challenging that says a lot about my level) but hopefully it'll have enough repetition of some of these medium-frequency words to hammer them in.

Using Anki might also be an option; I've tried to avoid it thus far, but I think that where it excels is for helping with this category of vocab, especially if you're not in immersion and don't have time for hours of input per day.

I feel like I got past this stage so much more quickly in Italian, where I got from zero to B2 in a short time of a year and a half or so, while I've been learning Spanish for years albeit on-and-off. Maybe SRS was one of the things that helped me, although of course the main "secret" was just that I was averaging more hours of study over that period. Language learning can be frustrating like this because we do so many activities that it's hard to figure out which ones give the most results.

I would like to speak a bit too, but for now I'm still at that point of feeling there's not much use in trying to speak if I struggle to follow the conversation.

[garyb]

I've had a few good Italian conversations recently. As ever it's hard to assess my level - sometimes the words and expressions flow without much thought while others I struggle with relatively basic language, and there are always a million variables - but overall I was quite happy. I just need to remember to take my time and think about what I'm saying, not rush.

I've been watching some modern films and some YouTube stuff and listening to a bit of Italiano Automatico (each episode several times, since I'm always hearing so much about the benefits of repeated listening).

On reading

For a while I've believed that listening (especially watching TV or films) is a much better tool than reading for lower-intermediate learners, while reading becomes useful (but not a substitute) as one reaches a more advanced level, but I've not been quite sure where that point is. I've now read most of Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban and I'm convinced that it's helping me a lot, so maybe my Spanish is at exactly that point. As I've said already, one of my main weak points in listening and speaking is simply vocabulary, and reading a book like this with a lot of repeated semi-basic language (especially words related to actions) seems to be helping with that. Time will tell how much that really helps my listening and speaking though. In any case, for listening and reading, choice of material is very important yet often seems to be ignored in discussions on this forum that focus almost exclusively numbers of hours and words.

In Italian I'm reading Vino e pane by Ignazio Silone, which was a definite "cultural interest" choice and is great for learning about small-town Italian life and politics during that period of history, but I'm quite aware that it's going to help my spoken Italian very little if at all. A hundred pages of a more modern and less literary work would surely help much more than a thousand pages of this kind of writing, but as I say I chose it for other reasons.

Anyway HP seems like a good choice just because I'm already familiar with the story (although it was so long ago that I had forgotten many important parts!) and it's so enjoyable between the nostalgia and it being a real page-turner that I'm getting through it quickly and at times almost forgetting that I'm reading in a language that I'm far from fluent in. Once I'm finished I'll be happy to read the next one or two in the series in Spanish as well, and maybe one in Italian for good measure (I already re-read the first two in French a few years ago).

I don't really do new year's goals but for next year I do hope to start speaking Spanish a little more, be it through meetups or one-to-one exchanges or lessons or whatever other options I have available to me. It's hard to gauge my progress when I'm participating in real conversations so infrequently. In the next few weeks, when I have some time off work, I'm going to try to put in some good quality hours of input.

[nooj]

The most recent film was "Perdiendo el norte" / "Off course", which was a strange cross between a formulaic European comedy (think everything that "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis" inspired) and a formulaic American comedy. I've nothing against a decent rom-com but this one, which certainly had potential and was very topical with the theme of unemployment in Spain, was ruined by a Hollywood-style over-the-top storyline filled with clichés and improbable serendipity. Every plot point felt like something I had seen in another movie or five. The characters were a bit more bearable and less spineless at least than in the typical "loser gets the girl in the end" story. It's sad times when European cinema is taking influence from that kind of crap, but hey. Anyway, back on subject, it was a challenging film full of informal dialogue and slang so it would be useful for a more advanced learner if they're not too fussed about quality.

They made a television series out of it of the same name, which was quite good as well. If you're in the mood for more colloquial Spanish! I've never seen the film though.

[garyb]

They made a television series out of it of the same name, which was quite good as well. If you're in the mood for more colloquial Spanish! I've never seen the film though.

I had no idea there was a series! I'll keep it in mind for when I'm more advanced.

I've been continuing the Harry Potter theme by watching a couple of the films in Spanish too. I'm not a big fan of dubbing but it's done acceptably in these and the language level is good: I can understand almost everything yet I wouldn't call it too easy. On reflection I think I've been a bit too much of a "native materials snob" by insisting on original works until now, especially because there's no shortage of choice in Spanish, meaning I've been overlooking translated novels and dubbed films and TV which are a great resource for bridging that comprehension gap that I keep talking about.

Original works obviously have many advantages like cultural context and more realistic speech, and in the long term I believe a learner should focus on them if they're available in their language of study, but in the shorter term I reckon that spending some time on easier and more engaging things will be more productive than slogging away either on native materials I like but are too difficult for me (cinema, crime series, etc.) or on ones that are less challenging but not interesting enough to keep me focused (Cuéntame, El ministerio del tiempo, etc.). I do see some learners who get stuck in a comfort zone with dubs and translations and never seem to advance onto "real" native materials, but that's probably easy enough to avoid if one is conscious about it.

[reineke]

In Italian I'm reading Vino e pane by Ignazio Silone, which was a definite "cultural interest" choice and is great for learning about small-town Italian life and politics during that period of history, but I'm quite aware that it's going to help my spoken Italian very little if at all. A hundred pages of a more modern and less literary work would surely help much more than a thousand pages of this kind of writing, but as I say I chose it for other reasons.

Anyway HP seems like a good choice just because I'm already familiar with the story (although it was so long ago that I had forgotten many important parts!) and it's so enjoyable between the nostalgia and it being a real page-turner that I'm getting through it quickly and at times almost forgetting that I'm reading in a language that I'm far from fluent in. Once I'm finished I'll be happy to read the next one or two in the series in Spanish as well, and maybe one in Italian for good measure (I already re-read the first two in French a few years ago).

I don't really do new year's goals but for next year I do hope to start speaking Spanish a little more, be it through meetups or one-to-one exchanges or lessons or whatever other options I have available to me. It's hard to gauge my progress when I'm participating in real conversations so infrequently. In the next few weeks, when I have some time off work, I'm going to try to put in some good quality hours of input.

Vino e Pane is a short 20th century novel (under 300 pages). I don't think it's a bad choice but I suspect you're at a point where a single novel won't make much difference.

[garyb]

Vino e pane felt longer than 300 pages, and even if it's not exactly old it's in quite a literary style and the way the characters interact seems a bit old-fashioned. For language learning purposes, I consider "modern" to mean the last few decades or so... I didn't know there was a TV adaptation, I might have to check that out!

I've been off work for the last wee while so not been keeping up with the forums; just catching up now before the New Year!


Italian

Just chugging on with films, YouTube, podcasts, etc. Not much speaking as my flatmate and other Italian friends are back in Italy for the holidays. There's more Italian cinema appearing on Netflix these days, which is a great thing even if it's mostly just standard-issue drama and comedy. Slam was good fun and nostalgic since I'm a former skateboarder, and Fiore was an interesting prison drama and love story.

Spanish

More Harry Potter: watched the first three films and currently reading the fourth book. Apart from that, the heist thriller series La casa de papel, recently added to Netflix, has taken over my life in the last week or so! And from reading the forums it seems it's not just me. The plot does get a little over-dramatic and far-fetched at times, but it's Spanish so you expect that , but it's very gripping. Sadly, only 13 of the 15 episodes are currently available on Netflix, presumably the others are still being translated (which I don't care about as it's actually quite easy to follow, aside from a fair bit of specialised vocabulary), and I want to know how the story ends dammit! I'm not having any luck getting around Antena 3's region-blocking either, so I'll either have to wait it out or find an alternative.

(EDIT: I've done a bit of research and it turns out that the episodes on Netflix don't match up with the original ones from Antena 3: if I've understood correctly, the 9 episodes of the first part (info on Spanish Wikipedia) have been edited into 13 shorter ones by Netflix, so what's on Netflix is effectively just the first part and the 6 episodes of the second part aren't yet available. This means there's lots more for me to watch...)

[garyb]

New year! I'm again keeping the same log as there are no big changes to my studies. I'll do a brief year in review though.

Obviously the main important point of this year is that I spent five months of it in Europe, including around a month and a half in Spain and three in Italy. This helped me considerably with everyday usage in these languages, and perhaps even more importantly, gave me a more realistic idea of what immersion is and isn't, in the form of some harsh lessons. It's beneficial but not magical, and progress is still slow. Many native speakers don't react very well to foreigners trying to come into their culture and speak their language, and some will refuse to speak it with you if you're clearly a non-native no matter how high your level and how low their English level; this goes for Spain and Italy just as much as the infamous France. Having anything more than basic interactions requires connecting with people, which is a wonderful thing to do but it takes time and it's hard if you're just visiting a place. If you're beginner or intermediate, trying to living in the language is damn difficult and frustrating most of the time.

The trip also wasn't easy for me psychologically: the stress of constantly organising the next part and moving around, fitting in work around other plans, not having any kind of routine, the loneliness at times, and more. I've understood that long-term travel is not for me. If I were to do it again, I'd at least stay in fewer places for longer.

After coming home I mostly lost my interest in languages for a month or two, but it's since come back again and with more realistic expectations. Languages are a lower priority in my life than they were a couple of years ago, and I'm now putting a lot more free time into music, but I still enjoy them and hope to keep working on them when I can.

Italian: The trip certainly filled in some gaps and gave me plenty practice. Since then, I've not done loads of speaking but I have convinced my Italian flatmate to use her native language with me sometimes and I chat with Italian friends now and again, face-to-face and on Skype. Still getting plenty input, which is becoming easier thanks to more Italian films being added to Netflix. My plan is to just keep all this up and hopefully make some very gradual progress, which is all I can hope for at this level.

Spanish: I made some progress this year with some lessons before my trip, the time in Spain itself, and quite a bit of input since. As I've said recently, my main priority for now is getting my listening comprehension and vocabulary up to scratch, but this year I also hope to start speaking more often. I don't hang out with any Spanish-speakers regularly but there are options like tutors, exchanges, or meetups. All have their problems - tutors cost money and it's hard to find a good one, and pursuing exchanges and attending meetups can get soul-destroying - but if I want to speak I need to do something! Even a conversation every couple of weeks or so would be nice. I've also picked up a copy of Breaking out of beginner's Spanish which might help me and complement the input and speaking.

French: Just trying not to lose it completely! After my realisation that the problems that made me quit French are also common with other languages, I am sometimes tempted to pick it up again, but for now I still just don't have a practical use for it. No regular contact with French speakers, no plans to visit French-speaking regions. The plan is as before: just watch TV and films and read books now and again, and speak it if the opportunity comes up.

General learning philosophy: As ever I'm still not sure what balance of input to output works best for me, which proportion of my time to spend on different activities, or many other of the great mysteries that are debated on here. If anything I'm less confident in my beliefs now than a few years ago, which I suppose is a sign of experience and maturity. But there are a few principles I believe in and want to try and stick to. Quality over quantity: selecting input materials that I enjoy and are appropriate to my level and goals and concentrating on them properly, rather than just putting in the hours; good conversations with friendly and sympathetic native speakers and not wasting time with unhelpful ones. Solid basics: prioritising a good grasp of everyday language over trying to learn every word and expression. Not making life unnecessarily hard, making the most of resources that facilitate learning like subtitles, L2-L1 dictionaries, translated/dubbed materials, and courses. And lastly, not taking it too seriously, remembering that I'm doing this for enjoyment, not letting anyone tell me that I'm wasting my time, and if I'm getting stressed out about it then something's wrong!