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

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
tastyonions
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1574
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:39 pm
Location: Dallas, TX
Languages: EN (N), FR, ES, DE, IT, PT, NL, EL
x 3857

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

Postby tastyonions » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:01 pm

Yeah, I am probably one of the least assertive people out there, so when I get switched on or immediately addressed in English I just submit and speak English.
2 x

User avatar
tarvos
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2889
Joined: Sun Jul 26, 2015 11:13 am
Location: The Lowlands
Languages: Native: NL, EN
Professional: ES, RU
Speak well: DE, FR, RO, EO, SV
Speak reasonably: IT, ZH, PT, NO, EL, CZ
Need improvement: PO, IS, HE, JP, KO, HU, FI
Passive: AF, DK, LAT
Dabbled in: BRT, ZH (SH), BG, EUS, ZH (CAN), and a whole lot more.
Language Log: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/fo ... PN=1&TPN=1
x 6093
Contact:

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

Postby tarvos » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:23 pm

Cavesa wrote:
garyb wrote:Maybe I've become too passive, but it's mainly because my relationship with languages has changed in the last year or so. I still love languages but I've lost the desire to "fit in with the natives". That evening I was tired and was happy to just relax and socialise which is much easier in my native language that everyone at the table spoke very well than in a sub-B2 one. I didn't want to turn a laid-back meal into a linguistic power-struggle either. I've had so many of these social struggles (linguistic and otherwise) in the last few years that I'm tired of them and they just make me feel bad. Now I prefer to avoid them when I can. I'm happier now even if my language progress is slower.

Sometimes I wonder about those people, who so ardently preach the "just keep speaking in their language and everything will turn fine" strategy. Whether they are really perceived as positively as they think or at least as they present it on the internet. I don't doubt there are many people with much better social skills than mine, more outgoing, more positively presenting themselves, better at making a good impression and making people like them and want to be liked.

But I simply cannot believe all those situations described in language blogs or on youtube are just naturally laid back with everyone happy to accept the learner's stubborness. A part of them must be power struggles lost by the natives. And I don't think such a victory should automatically be perceived just as another successful practice opportunity and proof that it is all just about attitude. Perhaps the most successful "just speak and speak" learners just lack the bad feeling you describe.

However, being able to win such a power struggle and do well on the other person's own ground feels great in certain situations. Such as the moments, when someone tries to be patronising and put me in the position of a stupid foreigner who needs the wise native to graciously dumb stuff down for me.

I would probably address the person more stubbornly in Spanish or even directly joked about the disparity in such a situation, but that is a different personality type, I worry about opinions of others sometimes too little for my own good :-D So, I admire your patience with people.


I did things like this quite a few times in Italy! Especially in situations where my Italian was clearly better than their English. The joke approach definitely takes them by surprise and gets a reaction - it's a real "pattern interrupt". It worked a few times, and when it didn't it was with people who were unpleasant anyway. I'm less confident to do it in Spanish though, given my level and the vicious circle of not being confident to speak because I don't speak frequently.

A good strategy then, thanks for confirming it works :-)
But it's hard to find a way out of the vicious circle, I agree. This "joke" has definitely risen up on my list of solutions to the switching natives.

These tactics are based on the idea that if natives just know that you're learning their language, they'll happily speak to you in it. In my experience this is usually untrue, especially if you're not in the country. For example, my current and previous Italian flatmates knew from the start that I was learning Italian and spoke it quite well, yet it still took a lot of effort and assertiveness over a long period to convince them to speak it with me. My current flatmates are very aware of my Spanish studies and have even joked about my "soap operas" because I'm always watching things with shouting and arguing in Spanish (usually actually crime or comedy, but there's always drama involved!). This particular guest even spoke Spanish with me the last time we met. My conclusion is that awareness isn't enough and people need convincing, often repeatedly. If you just tell someone you're learning their language, the best you can usually expect is a reply like "oh, that's nice"

I think the tactics is not based on the idea that the natives will happily speak the language, if they know I am learning it. We know this is not true, otherwise the switching natives wouldn't be such a huge subject of discussion. The tactics is based on the idea of clear signals, that I am good enough to not cause any complications or discomfort to the native. Of course I don't expect more than "oh, that's nice", natives of the popular languages automatically imagine a learner=a beginner butchering the language and knowing nothing useful. But I'd be counting more on the combination of factors, on the sum of these impressions getting over the native's treshold.

Like the "external symptoms of an advanced enough level" lowering the required level of assertiveness.

But you are more experienced in this area than me, so I definitely believe you.

Overall, assertiveness is perhaps the most important skill for a language learner, and like in every other area of life, being too nice will hold you back. And I should do something to break that vicious circle, maybe some self-talk or some occasional lessons with a tutor if talking with a real person is part of the problem.


Yep, it is all about assertiveness. Which puts all the more shy learners at a disadvantage, or people who care more about everyone in the group feeling comfortable in the situation. The social interests can often be in direct conflict with the learning interests.

I find this sad. Not just because of the missed opportunities of people, who are still learning to be assertive about this. But I think the current popular "speaking to natives asap is the priority" trend in the language learning community shows just one type of personality to be the "good learner". From those blogs, and youtube, and discussions, it basically boils down to a too clear line between the assertive and slightly self-centered learners who get a lot of practice, and the "bad learners" who may just be reluctant to bother others with their wishes and goals too much.


Assertiveness is a value that is very important in life in general. It's something you have to learn.
1 x
I hope your world is kind.

Is a girl.

Online
garyb
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1572
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: Native: English
Advanced: Italian, French
Intermediate: Spanish
Beginner: German, Japanese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1855
x 5992
Contact:

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

Postby garyb » Tue Mar 13, 2018 2:51 pm

Cavesa wrote:Sometimes I wonder about those people, who so ardently preach the "just keep speaking in their language and everything will turn fine" strategy. Whether they are really perceived as positively as they think or at least as they present it on the internet. I don't doubt there are many people with much better social skills than mine, more outgoing, more positively presenting themselves, better at making a good impression and making people like them and want to be liked.

But I simply cannot believe all those situations described in language blogs or on youtube are just naturally laid back with everyone happy to accept the learner's stubborness. A part of them must be power struggles lost by the natives. And I don't think such a victory should automatically be perceived just as another successful practice opportunity and proof that it is all just about attitude. Perhaps the most successful "just speak and speak" learners just lack the bad feeling you describe.
...
I find this sad. Not just because of the missed opportunities of people, who are still learning to be assertive about this. But I think the current popular "speaking to natives asap is the priority" trend in the language learning community shows just one type of personality to be the "good learner". From those blogs, and youtube, and discussions, it basically boils down to a too clear line between the assertive and slightly self-centered learners who get a lot of practice, and the "bad learners" who may just be reluctant to bother others with their wishes and goals too much.

I wonder as well. My social skills are probably below-average, and that's part of it, but I still find these accounts hard to believe. They do often come from bloggers and forum posters whose claims I now doubt in general. Of course assertiveness and persistence are key, but I don't think it's as simple as "just keep insisting".

I was the poster-child of the "speak as much as possible" approach for years, even though it didn't really fit with my personality (and if Benny's advice to "stop being shy" were that easy I'd have done it as a child and never looked back) and it did work: I got quite conversational quite quickly in Italian, while it's taking much longer in Spanish. But it came at a cost of stress and frustration that wore me out: being messed around for language exchanges, spending time with people who didn't like me or I didn't like just to practise their language, becoming a bit weird in social situations as you describe, constant battles against switching, too much time outside my comfort zone, sacrificing time on other hobbies for all this, and the constant background thought of "I just need to do more of this and it'll all work out".

I don't want to go back to that, but I do still want to speak when the opportunity comes up, and to be able to do that I need to practise sometimes. For me the input-only method isn't enough and it goes against my reason for learning in the first place. For Italian I've found a balance - I speak a few times per week with my flatmate or friends - but for Spanish it's again the vicious circle idea: I don't have people to speak with and that makes it harder to find people to speak with.

However, being able to win such a power struggle and do well on the other person's own ground feels great in certain situations. Such as the moments, when someone tries to be patronising and put me in the position of a stupid foreigner who needs the wise native to graciously dumb stuff down for me.

I agree about the satisfaction of that! I suppose we're talking about different situations. If someone's being particularly insulting then I'm all for putting them in their place, but most of the time it's not worth getting into it. I see it as like fights: I wouldn't start one, but if someone attacked me I'd hit back.

The tactics is based on the idea of clear signals, that I am good enough to not cause any complications or discomfort to the native. ... Like the "external symptoms of an advanced enough level" lowering the required level of assertiveness.


I agree about the need to show that you're not just another beginner, and you're right that that's more important than just showing that you're learning the language. I still don't think it's enough in itself, but as you say it probably makes the rest of the work to convince them easier. With people like these flatmates I had to be very clear and assertive that I wanted to practise and they'd be doing me a big favour, but by that point they already knew that I was serious. Again that's a different situation: somebody I see regularly and am on friendly terms with. It's a bit harder to go through all this when meeting someone in a bar or dealing with an employee.
7 x

Cavesa
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4960
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 9:46 am
Languages: Czech (N), French (C2) English (C1), Italian (C1), Spanish, German (C1)
x 17566

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

Postby Cavesa » Wed Mar 14, 2018 1:34 pm

tarvos wrote:Assertiveness is a value that is very important in life in general. It's something you have to learn.


No I don't. I have already learnt it (perhaps too well) and I have paid for it at times. It is extremely important to learn the wisdom of how much assertiveness you can use in each situation. Sometimes, a pleasant atmosphere is the only thing at stake, but sometimes it is an important thing to strive for. Sometimes you risk developing long term relationships, because people remember the most how you made them feel the last time, that's what matters. Sometimes assertiveness, no matter how much needed and how right you are and what you gain, brings horrible consequences (such as the situations, where assertiveness means someone you love would suffer for the way you have made your opponent feel, despite the fact you were right and were assertive only to protect that person. This is a real life example of assertiveness not being a popular trait always bringing positive outcomes.) It is about balance between assertiveness and failure.

Yes, there are almost never situations of life and death in language learning. But still, social interactions have a lot of aspects. And the power struggle, which you have to win in order to get your practice, is not always that great from the other points of view. And that is almost never discussed.

There is the stereotype of the good learners being the ones who are assertive enough to with all the language power struggle situations, those get the practice they need, and those are the ones learning the language for the right reason to communicate, and the ones progressing. This is taken for the only right way.

The other side of the stereotype are people, who are more reluctant to assertively go for the victory at all costs, who are a bit more shy, or who simply think more about the atmosphere or feelings of other people. Or too tired for more power struggles. Those don't get their practice, those get switched on more often. And they are portrayed as the bad learners, too lazy to speak, and going just for the inferior goals like reading books, instead of the only noble one which is talking. They get just the advice to change their personality and to care much less about others, which is not acceptable to some types of people.

That is the problem. The struggle for the opportunity to use one's knowledge is being described in one dimension only, and with too clear line between the good and bad. The real examples and solutions taking into account various kinds of situations and people are not numerous enough. That's why I value so highly all of garyb's examples, I am learning a lot from them.

And don't forget we are usually learning a foreign language to use it as freely as we use the native one. We need to gain the skills and adapt them to our personalities and the situations we get into. Instead, we are being told all the time to change our personalities and change the spectrum of situations we encounter in order to fit into the ideal language learner profile.

garyb wrote:I wonder as well. My social skills are probably below-average, and that's part of it, but I still find these accounts hard to believe. They do often come from bloggers and forum posters whose claims I now doubt in general. Of course assertiveness and persistence are key, but I don't think it's as simple as "just keep insisting".

I was the poster-child of the "speak as much as possible" approach for years, even though it didn't really fit with my personality (and if Benny's advice to "stop being shy" were that easy I'd have done it as a child and never looked back) and it did work: I got quite conversational quite quickly in Italian, while it's taking much longer in Spanish. But it came at a cost of stress and frustration that wore me out: being messed around for language exchanges, spending time with people who didn't like me or I didn't like just to practise their language, becoming a bit weird in social situations as you describe, constant battles against switching, too much time outside my comfort zone, sacrificing time on other hobbies for all this, and the constant background thought of "I just need to do more of this and it'll all work out".

I don't want to go back to that, but I do still want to speak when the opportunity comes up, and to be able to do that I need to practise sometimes. For me the input-only method isn't enough and it goes against my reason for learning in the first place. For Italian I've found a balance - I speak a few times per week with my flatmate or friends - but for Spanish it's again the vicious circle idea: I don't have people to speak with and that makes it harder to find people to speak with.

Yes, it is rather simplistic to look at it just the "be more assertive and less shy" way. And I totally believe the side effects of improving at these qualities that you describe.

We usually want one thing from a new language: to make us proficient and comfortable in more situations, compared to now. But a part of the stress and frustration is a direct opposite of this.

Being treated like "how cute you are learning the language, but you are too stupid to ever be good at it, so let's switch to English for you" is demeaning and fighting against it means wasting a lot of energy. A lot of energy being used on constantly proving people you are better than they expect you to be. It's like being underestimated all the time at work or at school. It's a bit like facing the prejudices of incompetence based on sex, age, ethnicity, hair colour (blonde girls), and so on. Yes, it is important and it can be done. But it is so much easier, when you don't have to do it and are treated like equal and offered help only should you need it.

You give me more and more motivation to work on my Italian more intensively :-D


However, being able to win such a power struggle and do well on the other person's own ground feels great in certain situations. Such as the moments, when someone tries to be patronising and put me in the position of a stupid foreigner who needs the wise native to graciously dumb stuff down for me.

I agree about the satisfaction of that! I suppose we're talking about different situations. If someone's being particularly insulting then I'm all for putting them in their place, but most of the time it's not worth getting into it. I see it as like fights: I wouldn't start one, but if someone attacked me I'd hit back.

I see it more like mansplaining. Just this time, it is not a man unnecessarily explaining stuff to me to show their superiority. In this case, it is based on the language and nationality. People who make a show of dumbing stuff down or directly switching, expecting me to be absolutely incompetent, and just fueling their prejudice. It is like a fight. But it is a constant one that you either choose to fight, or you become as incompetent as you are expected to be. Both in the eyes of the other person, and later in your own too.

A real life example: it was tiresome in France, when I got among new people sometimes. Many expecting me to be dumb, because of prejudices towards my country (undeserved, our medicine is in general just as good as theirs), towards being an Erasmus (partially deserved, many Erasmus are definitely not using the study opportunity right), towards my faculty (fault of my faculty, selling easier degrees in English and ruining our reputation). Once I got through this wall, there was never a problem. When people hadn't known these things about me, there was no problem. But having to be assertive every time I was introduced to someone and proving I was not dumb, that was costing energy.

This is a general prejudice towards learners, expecting us not to reach any good level and be able to be normal, interesting people to talk to.

The tactics is based on the idea of clear signals, that I am good enough to not cause any complications or discomfort to the native. ... Like the "external symptoms of an advanced enough level" lowering the required level of assertiveness.


I agree about the need to show that you're not just another beginner, and you're right that that's more important than just showing that you're learning the language. I still don't think it's enough in itself, but as you say it probably makes the rest of the work to convince them easier. With people like these flatmates I had to be very clear and assertive that I wanted to practise and they'd be doing me a big favour, but by that point they already knew that I was serious. Again that's a different situation: somebody I see regularly and am on friendly terms with. It's a bit harder to go through all this when meeting someone in a bar or dealing with an employee.


It must be very hard, when dealing with an employee. Or even a colleague.

Did it take you long to convince those flatmates? In France, I had it easy. My flatmate was awesome and I had to ask just once (she initially switched, because I was introduced as an Erasmus). How assertive did you have to be? Did they have repeated tendencies to switch, even after you spoke in Spanish without problems?
6 x

Online
garyb
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1572
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: Native: English
Advanced: Italian, French
Intermediate: Spanish
Beginner: German, Japanese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1855
x 5992
Contact:

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

Postby garyb » Thu Mar 15, 2018 12:04 pm

Cavesa wrote:No I don't. I have already learnt it (perhaps too well) and I have paid for it at times. It is extremely important to learn the wisdom of how much assertiveness you can use in each situation. Sometimes, a pleasant atmosphere is the only thing at stake, but sometimes it is an important thing to strive for.
...
Yes, there are almost never situations of life and death in language learning. But still, social interactions have a lot of aspects. And the power struggle, which you have to win in order to get your practice, is not always that great from the other points of view. And that is almost never discussed.

Your experience might be different from mine, as I am often unassertive and Tarvos's comment was more directed at people like me, but I agree and believe that assertiveness is just one part of the puzzle. Social skills come down to not only having the tools but also having a sense for when to use them. If you consider Benny's old language missions, where he spent three months in a country and went out to bars etc. to speak the language with people, he had little to lose by being overly assertive since he wasn't going to see most of these people again, at least not regularly. In my situation where the people involved are often in my longer-term social circle or friends of people in it, or your Erasmus where you were studying or living with the people, social faux-pas can have worse consequences.

We usually want one thing from a new language: to make us proficient and comfortable in more situations, compared to now. But a part of the stress and frustration is a direct opposite of this.

Being treated like "how cute you are learning the language, but you are too stupid to ever be good at it, so let's switch to English for you" is demeaning and fighting against it means wasting a lot of energy. A lot of energy being used on constantly proving people you are better than they expect you to be.
...
In this case, it is based on the language and nationality. People who make a show of dumbing stuff down or directly switching, expecting me to be absolutely incompetent, and just fueling their prejudice. It is like a fight. But it is a constant one that you either choose to fight, or you become as incompetent as you are expected to be. Both in the eyes of the other person, and later in your own too.

I totally feel you. As I wrote at the time, my few months in Italy last year almost killed my motivation and it took me another couple of months to find it again. I dislike playing the prejudice victim card but I do believe there's a lot of it towards learners, at least for the languages and countries I have experience with, and especially towards native English speakers (but not only, as in your example; from what I've seen, only other Romance speakers are exempt). And indeed if people keep treating you like you're incompetent you do begin to believe it.

An example I'm sure I wrote about a few years ago was when I was at a French meetup and an intermediate learner made a minor adjective gender agreement mistake, the kind that even very advanced speakers make from time to time. A Frenchwoman there launched into a whole patronising explanation, in English of course, about how "in French, there are two genders, some words are masculine and some are feminine...", just in case the poor learner had missed the memo on day 1. Or the old "Oh, you're learning French, what things do you know how to say? Bonjour, bonsoir?" (happened to me 4 or 5 years into my French journey).

You give me more and more motivation to work on my Italian more intensively :-D


I'm happy to see that this is motivating and not discouraging you! As I also said after my trip, I've realised that this problem is quite universal and not unique to certain languages, even if it is worse in some. Again I can only really speak for the languages I have experience with and anecdotal evidence from learners of others. I had been wrong to think that the grass would be greener on the Spanish side after my French and Italian experiences. I hope I'm not putting anybody off Italian in particular.

Did it take you long to convince those flatmates? In France, I had it easy. My flatmate was awesome and I had to ask just once (she initially switched, because I was introduced as an Erasmus). How assertive did you have to be? Did they have repeated tendencies to switch, even after you spoke in Spanish without problems?


This is for Italian; I've sadly never had a Spanish flatmate! The Spanish guests I've mentioned were just friends of flatmates coming for dinner or staying a night or two. I've had quite a few Italian flatmates, some short-term and some longer-term. My experiences:
- Two short-term ones, who had from Italy for a couple of weeks or months and weren't that confident in English. Happy to speak Italian.
- Two longer-term ones (my current one and the one in my previous place), reluctant at first but once I had made them aware that I was passionate about the language and spoke it well, and asked nicely but assertively several times (and made a few comments about how I wish I could practise my languages more - a little passive-aggressive I know), they finally agreed. My current one has however mostly gone back to English in the last couple of weeks, and I always get the impression that she prefers English but doesn't mind doing me a favour sometimes because she's a kind person. It's also just a question of habit: her non-Italian-speaking boyfriend lives with us too so when we're all together we obviously speak English, stopping us from really getting used to using Italian.
- One interesting case who stayed in my old flat for a couple of months, again with a non-Italian-speaking boyfriend. Absolutely refused to use Italian with me, apart from one time when I made a minor mistake with a technical term that caused a permanent return to English. Interesting because she studied languages at university and spoke 7 of them, so I had expected a little more sympathy towards fellow learners... Although to be fair her English was near-perfect.

I don't know what to conclude except that we just have to accept and deal with the prejudices, grow a thick skin, and remember that there are also plenty great people out there who're happy to speak with learners!
10 x

User avatar
Expugnator
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1728
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 9:45 pm
Location: Belo Horizonte
Languages: Native Brazilian Portuguese#advanced fluency English, French, Papiamento#basic fluency Italian, Norwegian#intermediate Spanish, German, Georgian and Chinese (Mandarin)#basic Russian, Estonian, Greek (Modern)#just started Indonesian, Hebrew (Modern), Guarani
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=9931
x 3589

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

Postby Expugnator » Sat Mar 17, 2018 1:25 am

Always enlightening to read about real-life interaction with native speakers, garyb, much beyond the promises of motivational polyglots. I only hope that whenever I start taking Czech for real, that Cavesa be the change she expects to see in the native speakers' world :D
4 x
Corrections welcome for any language.

User avatar
BalancingAct
Orange Belt
Posts: 117
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2017 6:37 am
Languages: Mandarin, Cantonese, English (Prof.), French (Adv. - Prof.), Italian (Adv.), German (Adv. receptive), Spanish (Int. receptive)
x 182

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

Postby BalancingAct » Sat Mar 17, 2018 3:04 am

tastyonions wrote:Yeah, I am probably one of the least assertive people out there, so when I get switched on or immediately addressed in English I just submit and speak English.
I call this easy-going and flexible.

A lot of the times the locals / native speakers don't even know that you are passionate about their language and are so very keen on practising it. Some, seeing you look different, respond in English simply as a knee jerk reaction or, especially those working in the hospitality/tourism sector, out of habit (usually formed through training) and courtesy. If they know and still refuse to accommodate, what's the point of pushing?
4 x

Online
garyb
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1572
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: Native: English
Advanced: Italian, French
Intermediate: Spanish
Beginner: German, Japanese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1855
x 5992
Contact:

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

Postby garyb » Mon Mar 19, 2018 4:09 pm

Back to normal service with a "getting back into habits" edition:

Spanish: Finished Sé quién eres a few days ago! Overall it was enjoyable and fairly gripping. Nowhere near as much as La casa de papel which really kept me on the edge of my seat, but it was a good balance: enough excitement and intrigue to keep me watching, but still relaxing to watch and I didn't feel the need to immediately click play on the next episode. It would also be a good choice for someone studying or interested in law, since there's a lot of focus on the legal procedural aspect and the main characters are lawyers and judges. The drama and plot twists get absurd at times, and the writers aren't afraid of clichés, but that's all par for the course and part of the fun of Spanish series.

Next, I decided to give El ministerio del tiempo another chance since it's now on Netflix. I could already watch it on RTVE, but Netflix is far more convenient. I watched the first couple of episodes a few years ago and just didn't get into it, dismissing it as overrated and not my genre as well as too challenging for my level, but this time round I'm enjoying it more. It's not a very accessible or useful series for beginners in my opinion: difficult to understand and follow, assumes historical knowledge that many non-Spanish viewers won't have, and much of the dialogue uses the "vos" form which is no longer used in Spain. At my level now it's a bit more approachable and even educational. Maybe re-reading Harry Potter has opened my mind to other stories based on the real world with added fantasy or sci-fi elements. I also want to watch Mar de plástico, but a little break from crime series isn't a bad thing.

Italian: Again trying to push myself back into the writing habit, and the speaking one since it's not happening at home any more. Struggling a bit to find interesting things to watch but there are always some films and videos out there.
4 x

Online
garyb
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1572
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: Native: English
Advanced: Italian, French
Intermediate: Spanish
Beginner: German, Japanese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1855
x 5992
Contact:

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

Postby garyb » Mon Mar 26, 2018 12:57 pm

I spoke some Spanish! Only a few sentences though; not enough to make any conclusions about my level. Some phrases came to me quickly, some didn't, and there was an overall feeling of rustiness. I was at a Catalan onion barbecue ("calçotada") so of course there were many Spanish speakers there (some but certainly not all Catalan), but as usual there were also non-Spanish speakers around which stopped too much Spanish from being used. I also got to hear some Catalan, which I understood most of but not all.

I had one conversation that started in Spanish, with one Spaniard and one Italian who spoke passable Spanish, but it turned out that the former had lived in Italy and spoke good Italian so it quickly switched to that. It was a bit hard to change gear in an environment where Spanish was everywhere, but after a shaky first sentence with a "del todo" instead of "di tutto" I got going smoothly.

I did hear plenty Spanish and it was clear that my listening comprehension still isn't great: conversations between natives can still be hard to follow. It's a little disappointing to still be having significant problems with this, and I'm not sure if it means that Spanish listening comprehension is simply harder than Italian or it's because with Italian I was hanging about with natives right from the start whereas most of my Spanish exposure is from clearer-pronounced TV, film and radio. I'm quite sure it's some of both: Spanish speakers do tend to eat their words much more than Italians, and that takes more getting used to. In Italian I only really have problems when trying to follow a group of people who're all from the same area; the variety of accents and dialects means that Italians usually speak more clearly and "standard" when interacting with others from different areas.
7 x

Online
garyb
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1572
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm
Location: Scotland
Languages: Native: English
Advanced: Italian, French
Intermediate: Spanish
Beginner: German, Japanese
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1855
x 5992
Contact:

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

Postby garyb » Mon Apr 02, 2018 9:48 am

In Spanish I've started reading La resistencia, the first of a series Memorias de Idhún by Laura Gallego García, an author I've seen mentioned a few times in discussions about books for learners. It's a young-adult fantasy type book, not my usual genre at all but I'm actually enjoying it so far! It's native Spanish but the language isn't too difficult: similar level to the Harry Potter translations. The story, while nothing particularly original for the genre, is good enough to keep me reading. It's based on a magical world that's parallel to real life rather than separate, which as I said is something I like about HP and El ministerio del tiempo.

Still thinking how to "activate" my learning a bit. I replied to a thread in the Spanish forum recently that made me realise that my writing level, while far from great, is at a point where doing more of it could help with my general production so doing some of that like I do for Italian might be helpful. Sooner or later I should also open the copy of Breaking out of beginner's Spanish that's been gathering dust on my desk for the last few months. From today I'll try to read it for at least a few minutes most days.

I've managed to speak Italian a bit more at home recently, but it's starting to feel rusty too. Sometimes on a Monday morning I wake up and think it would be a nice idea to go back to the local language meetup that happens on that day, but then as the day goes on I consider it more, remember why I stopped going years ago, and abandon the idea again.
4 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: garyb and 2 guests