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

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

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jun 19, 2017 1:37 pm

I love your realistic approach to learning languages and your travel reports!

You are absolutely right that the improvement at the advanced level is slow and takes a lot of dedication and time which could be spent on learning a different language to the same level, therefore opening a whole new world on top of the already accessible ones. I'd say it is a matter of finding a reasonable compromise. The "reasonable" term being defined by each individual learner. Based on my experience, I would even argue that postponing other languages and really putting the time into the very advanced one doesn't hasten the process much. Or at least it doesn't make it faster by far not as much as intensifying learning at the lower levels.

German natives don't switch much even with beginners, like me. They are awesome at this, even though the overall level of English knowledge is definitely not bad. So, I definitely recommend the language. Plus there is the bonus of a huge bookmarket, and beautiful castles to visit. In some regions, I would add food on the list, even though the awesome tastes are one of the reasons why I cannot spend more time there, I simply couldn't resist :-D
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby Elenia » Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:05 pm

I definitely agree. When all is said and done, what is important is that you are happy with the level that you've achieved and what you can do with it.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jul 02, 2017 8:22 pm

Being guilty of what you mentioned, I should say that once I reach a higher level in a language (the one you got in Italian) I just let it take care of itself. Even though the vocabulary to be learned is supposed to be less frequent and thus harder to run into, I don't think I need to binge study such languages anymore. I had an evidence of this with my French that improved consistently after the time allotted to it halted at 30 min a day after reaching basic fluency (I only went through some grammar books later, but not continuously, and even this took less than 10 minutes).

So I think you should make the law of diminishing returns your partner, not your rival. I think you will keep improving in Italian with just using the language while still having time and brain energy for new languages such as German.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby garyb » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:14 am

Thanks for the comments!

Cavesa wrote:Based on my experience, I would even argue that postponing other languages and really putting the time into the very advanced one doesn't hasten the process much. Or at least it doesn't make it faster by far not as much as intensifying learning at the lower levels.


Expugnator wrote: I should say that once I reach a higher level in a language (the one you got in Italian) I just let it take care of itself. Even though the vocabulary to be learned is supposed to be less frequent and thus harder to run into, I don't think I need to binge study such languages anymore. I had an evidence of this with my French that improved consistently after the time allotted to it halted at 30 min a day after reaching basic fluency (I only went through some grammar books later, but not continuously, and even this took less than 10 minutes).

So I think you should make the law of diminishing returns your partner, not your rival. I think you will keep improving in Italian with just using the language while still having time and brain energy for new languages such as German.


Good to hear that both of you have had this experience of continuing improvement even without very intense study (and I certainly didn't have either of you in mind with my criticisms of "jack of all trades" learners; I've always been impressed by how much you get done and felt you're honest about it). Once I leave Italy that's probably going to be my approach: work on it just a little to keep it alive and hopefully still make some progress, and free up time for other pursuits (maybe languages - as well as prospective new ones I'd also like to get my Spanish up to a more conversational level - or maybe other things).

Cavesa wrote:German natives don't switch much even with beginners, like me. They are awesome at this, even though the overall level of English knowledge is definitely not bad. So, I definitely recommend the language. Plus there is the bonus of a huge bookmarket, and beautiful castles to visit. In some regions, I would add food on the list, even though the awesome tastes are one of the reasons why I cannot spend more time there, I simply couldn't resist :-D


Sure, I've always thought German had a lot going for it. I've always had positive experiences of the country and the people, although I've not spent long there. Bavarian food is great, as are some of the beers. That and Greek are definitely on my list for the next few years. German is more attractive overall (easier and more useful) but Greek is for family reasons (I'm half Greek but have never learnt much of the language or felt much in contact with the culture, and sooner or later I want to get in touch with that part of me) so I'm not sure which will be next!


Some more of my classic native speaker experiences: at the moment I'm staying in an AirBnB room with a host who refuses to believe that I know Italian, even though I sent the original message to rent the room in Italian and I've pointed it out since. The other day, another guest (an Italian) arrived and I happened to be in the hallway at the time so I introduced myself, and then the host started saying things to her like "he's not even Italian, don't bother speaking to him", and of course I understood everything. When I said this, he pretended to not understand and then condescendingly said "oh, you speak a little bit?". I had been warned that there are sometimes strange attitudes towards foreigners in Sardinia (like anywhere else, I suppose) and indeed I've had a few like this. Another one a couple of weeks ago was when a tourist agency employee again refused to use Italian when I asked for information about bus tickets although she clearly had difficulty understanding my English, refused to believe me when I said I had already tried the place she advised, and eventually sent me on a wild goose chase to a place that didn't exist in order to get rid of me because it was the start of her lunch break. Anyway my overall rating of Sardinia for Italian learners is not the best but not the worst. Better than Rome or Sicily, but not quite Florence!
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby DaveBee » Mon Jul 03, 2017 9:31 am

garyb wrote: Just be aware that the Events section of the site doesn't work very well: often it says "no events found" but they show if you reload the page, or you might have to search by the place name in the local language ("Seville" gives no results but "Sevilla" shows events).
I ran into a similar experience driving in Belgium, at some point signs for Liege became signs for Luik. Very confusing.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby zenmonkey » Mon Jul 03, 2017 10:22 am

DaveBee wrote:
garyb wrote: Just be aware that the Events section of the site doesn't work very well: often it says "no events found" but they show if you reload the page, or you might have to search by the place name in the local language ("Seville" gives no results but "Sevilla" shows events).
I ran into a similar experience driving in Belgium, at some point signs for Liege became signs for Luik. Very confusing.


And Lüttich coming from Germany ... those signs can be very confusing.
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Cavesa
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 03, 2017 12:43 pm

garyb wrote:
Cavesa wrote:German natives don't switch much even with beginners, like me. They are awesome at this, even though the overall level of English knowledge is definitely not bad. So, I definitely recommend the language. Plus there is the bonus of a huge bookmarket, and beautiful castles to visit. In some regions, I would add food on the list, even though the awesome tastes are one of the reasons why I cannot spend more time there, I simply couldn't resist :-D


Sure, I've always thought German had a lot going for it. I've always had positive experiences of the country and the people, although I've not spent long there. Bavarian food is great, as are some of the beers. That and Greek are definitely on my list for the next few years. German is more attractive overall (easier and more useful) but Greek is for family reasons (I'm half Greek but have never learnt much of the language or felt much in contact with the culture, and sooner or later I want to get in touch with that part of me) so I'm not sure which will be next!


Yes, German definitely has a lot to offer. Too bad it usually gets promoted just like a language that will allow you to make more money and the language of incoming tourists (and Germans, when I was very young, were one of the least pleasant nations to encounter in my country or abroad). No wonder many people find it surprising that there is much more to it, most learners just keep learning it for the money (with various results). And no wonder I had hated it so much for many years. It seemed to be a very hummiliating language. But once I got to know more about the actually interesting parts of the culture, it changed.

A very good point for the language learners are German based learning resources. My visits to various German bookshops (I usually visit those, when I visit a city abroad) revealed interesting resources for the scandinavian language learners, Modern Greek learners (something not seen in Prague), and others as well. And the resources for German learners! There are plentiful, and for example Spanish resources have started to catch up in amount and quality only recently. The Germans still have been mostly sticking to useful teaching style in the books, very few falling for the "modern and conversational at all costs" style, which makes looking for a good course easier than in the French shelves in a usual bookstore. And I would say the resources tend to be reasonably and realistically priced, which is where some French publishers are a bit lacking too.
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garyb
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby garyb » Mon Jul 03, 2017 2:30 pm

Cavesa wrote:Yes, German definitely has a lot to offer. Too bad it usually gets promoted just like a language that will allow you to make more money and the language of incoming tourists (and Germans, when I was very young, were one of the least pleasant nations to encounter in my country or abroad). No wonder many people find it surprising that there is much more to it, most learners just keep learning it for the money (with various results). And no wonder I had hated it so much for many years. It seemed to be a very hummiliating language. But once I got to know more about the actually interesting parts of the culture, it changed.

A very good point for the language learners are German based learning resources. My visits to various German bookshops (I usually visit those, when I visit a city abroad) revealed interesting resources for the scandinavian language learners, Modern Greek learners (something not seen in Prague), and others as well. And the resources for German learners! There are plentiful, and for example Spanish resources have started to catch up in amount and quality only recently. The Germans still have been mostly sticking to useful teaching style in the books, very few falling for the "modern and conversational at all costs" style, which makes looking for a good course easier than in the French shelves in a usual bookstore. And I would say the resources tend to be reasonably and realistically priced, which is where some French publishers are a bit lacking too.


I've never found that to be the case at all in the UK and especially Scotland, where German is quite highly regarded (even if the butt of many jokes for its "aggressive" sound). It's always been seen as quite a "cool" and interesting language. Probably since Germans often speak good English, we've never had the idea that learning German would help us to make money from tourists, and in more recent years our economy fortunately hasn't been bad enough to make moving to Germany an attractive option for many young people as is the case in much of Southern Europe. Of course I understand why it's seen that way in non-English-speaking countries. For us it's one of the two main languages taught at schools along with French, and I'm a little envious of my friends who studied German at school as they mostly seemed to come out with a much more useful level than those of us who did French.

Nice to know about the quality of resources both for learning German and other languages from German!
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby DaveBee » Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:04 pm

garyb wrote: For us it's one of the two main languages taught at schools along with French, and I'm a little envious of my friends who studied German at school as they mostly seemed to come out with a much more useful level than those of us who did French.

Nice to know about the quality of resources both for learning German and other languages from German!
In my school days German was the default L3, but very few people studied an L3.

I think German and Spanish would both a be better choice than French for the default L2 in UK schools.
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Re: Languages and Life: Gary's log (Italian, Spanish, bits of French)

Postby garyb » Mon Jul 03, 2017 8:42 pm

On the subject of road signs, they can be a bit confusing in Barbagia. Sometimes they use the Italian places names and sometimes the Sardinian ones (like Nùgoro instead of Nuoro), and the locals are known to cover them up or point them in the wrong direction in order to mislead tourists. Or occasionally pepper them with shotgun holes...

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