Paulista's Log

[Paulista]

Hello everyone,

I'm a long-time member of HTAL (2008, I guess?), but never really posted much. I've been learning several languages on and off throughout these years, but the only one I can say that actually improved is my English, which should be around C1 now. My biggest problems have always been motivation and lack of a study routine. I'm a very busy university student, so it's kinda hard to find time to study languages, specially considering I should be working on my thesis right now (instead of posting here ). This log is an attempt to make me feel bad if I neglect language-learning this year.

Anyway, my main goal this year is reaching ~C1 in Italian. I've been living in Italy since September/15, but will go back to Brazil by the end of February, so I still have ~1 month to enjoy a huge load of native content all the time. Before coming to Italy I would say my Italian was around A2 in active skills and maybe B1 passive.

I've played - can't say I've actually studied - a lot with Italian before 2013, but it was pretty much buried in my brain, as I started learning Spanish in 2014, which totally killed my Italian - I had a hard time separating the languages, so I dropped Italian completely because it "was not as useful". I never really liked Spanish very much, but kept going to the uni's course and reached an acceptable level.

By mid-2015 I had the opportunity to apply to study here in Italy for a while, and of course took my chance. When I arrived, I could only speak a mix of Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. Now I'd say my Italian passive skills are around B2, and active around B1~2 (except for my writing - it's really bad), and my Spanish active skills were totally murdered. My roommate is Italian, as most of my friends here, so I could practice a lot everyday. My only problems are lack of formal grammar study - I didn't really find time to study and have been relying on my friends' corrections - and lack of vocabulary.

I plan to study grammar more intensively while I'm still here, and to banish English from everyday life (when I can, of course). I have access to Italian TV, newspapers, music, films, etc. I plan to watch all of the Italian movies on Netflix while I'm still here cause I don't think they will be available when I go back to Brazil I'll try to write more regularly on Lang-8, since writing is definitely my worst skill.

When I go back, I'm sure I'll be overwhelmed by my thesis, work and exams, but I'll try my best to keep studying and speaking to my Italian friends. I don't want to let my Italian "die" again, and hopefully I'll reach a solid level, so I can *maybe* try to revive my Spanish without suffering with interference.

I also have a huge interest in Mandarin, German, Russian and Guarani, so maybe if I find enough time I'll also try to play a little with these languages.

Anyway, that's pretty much it. I'll try to post weekly with my progress, resources and interesting stuff related to language learning.

Arrivederci!

[Expugnator]

Welcome to the new forum! Your English is really good, by the way. Have you tried Duolingo for activating your Italian? I used Assimil then Duolingo before going to Italiy last year (I studied from January to April and went there in May) and it worked fine. Then I just kept working on the intermediate Assimil (Perfectionnement Italien) and after that only native materials. I have yet to make more formal grammar study, but I think with what I learned so far I can get by without making too many mistakes in verbs, for example.

[Rotasu]

Yay another university student. If you have any tips for finding time to study, let me know xP Good luck with your language journey!

[Paulista]

Welcome to the new forum! Your English is really good, by the way. Have you tried Duolingo for activating your Italian? I used Assimil then Duolingo before going to Italiy last year (I studied from January to April and went there in May) and it worked fine. Then I just kept working on the intermediate Assimil (Perfectionnement Italien) and after that only native materials. I have yet to make more formal grammar study, but I think with what I learned so far I can get by without making too many mistakes in verbs, for example.

Thanks! I tried Duolingo the first weeks I got here, but I thought it was pretty slow and that the vocab was not so useful, but maybe I should've sticked with it, since sometimes I struggle with stupid simple words that I forget how to say (and are often almost the same as in Portuguese, go figure) because I don't really read much in Italian.

I'm not making conjugation mistakes anymore, only sometimes using Lei-forms with close friends because we do the same in our language, right? I mean, we always use você where I'm from. Then, I quickly realize I'm being overly formal and correct myself. Other than some minor mistakes, I think I'm already speaking pretty fluidly, without having to think too much. My biggest problem is writing, those double consonants drive me crazy.

I have with me a copy of "La lingua italiana per stranieri". It says begginer-intermediary, but it has some useful grammar notes, I guess I'll try to finish the book before coming back.

Yay another university student. If you have any tips for finding time to study, let me know xP Good luck with your language journey!

Thanks! Ugh, tell me about it. I barely have time to sleep during exams, and still feel bad for not studying Italian enough...

[Paulista]

(Late) Week Update:

I didn't define any specific goals, but I mainly focused on speaking Italian with my Italian friends, listening to music (although at least 30% of what I've listened to this week was actually in Vèneto... oh well) and watching movies/series in Italian to get more comfortable with different accents. I definitely shoul've read more, and I only wrote a small text on Lang-8 as part of the output challenge.

Questa settimana ho guardato cinque film in italiano (dai, più o meno):

1. È stato il figlio - ho trovato questo su Netflix e sembrava molto interessante. Ho cominciato a guardarlo, ma non capivo niente! È quasi tutto in NAPOLETANO! Hahah. Quando parlavano in italiano riuscivo a capire qualcosa, ma in napoletano era troppo difficile - c'erano sottotitoli in italiano, ma era difficile mantenere l'attenzione, quindi ho lasciato perdere questo film, almeno adesso. Posso provare un'altra volta dopo. Il film parla di una famiglia che cerca il risarcimento economico dallo Stato dopo la figlia è stata uccisa.

2. Amiche da morire - anche su Netflix. È una commedia divertente, un po' stupida. Parla di tre donne - con personalità molto diverse - che commettono un omicidio e devono unirsi per scappare della polizia e mantenere la refurtiva, in un piccolo paese del sud. C'erano alcune parole che ho trovato un po' difficile da capire, ma non troppo.

3. Jiro e l'arte del sushi - Eh... ho guardato questo film in giapponese, con sottotitoli in italiano (non parlo niente di giapponese), quindi ho provato di leggere velocemente. Funziona. Ho capito quasi tutto, c'erano poche parole che non mi ricordavo il significato. È un bel film, sulla "vera arte del sushi" - che costa un sacco. Mi piace tantissimo la cucina giapponese, volevo provare i piatti del ristorante di Jiro, ma prima di tutto devo diventare ricco...

4. My Italian Secret - mezzo italiano, mezzo inglese. Bellissimo documentario sulla storia degli italiani che hanno aiutato gli ebrei a scappare dei nazisti nella seconda guerra, specialmente il ciclista Gino Bartali, che ha aiutato tantissimi. È una storia molto commovente.

5. Viva la libertà - commedia/dramma che parla di un politico italiano molto famoso che, stanco e stressato, decide scappare per Francia per alcuni giorni, ed è sostituito per il suo gemello - pazzo, in teoria. Divertente, facile da capire, ho imparato un po' del vocabolario politico.

Per la prossima settimana voglio finire almeno un capitolo di "La lingua italiana per stranieri", scrivere 1000-2000 parole per l'Output Challenge, continuare a guardare film (3-4) e parlare ~6 ore al giorno con i miei amici.