Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Sun Nov 19, 2017 5:02 am

DCDC wrote:
LinguaPony wrote:She says I'm good.... I wish my second teacher from the local linguistic school could hear that. According to her I was hopeless.

As a language teacher myself, I gotta say that's a horribly unprofessional and untrue thing for her to say. Nobody is hopeless when it comes to language learning. Some people are lazy or don't study for other reasons (although just by looking at your language log I don't think it applies to you) but even they are not hopeless, if one day they start studying they can and will get good at the language eventually. A person who studies is never hopeless.


Thanks. As a matter of fact I didn't believe her, but wrote to the school and asked for a replacement, and they obliged.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Mon Nov 20, 2017 3:07 pm

Time to go back to Italiano Automatico. I've been taking a break from listening to their lessons, but it's been too long. No good.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Sun Nov 26, 2017 9:44 am

The break is over, so tomorrow another Chinese lesson will take place, and so it's time to do more homework.

For Italian, another Skype lesson over, two more booked, and I have almost lost my fear. I guess we've established perfect rapport by now. Wonder why Skype can't maintain decent quality of video when the call is between Russia and Italy. It's always fine when I call someone locally.

Trying to watch videos from Italiano Automatico daily and to read daily as well, but circumstances interfere. Okay, I know I shouldn't be looking for excuses. Devoutly hope that nothing will interfere with my plans in regard to German.
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tarvos
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby tarvos » Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:32 am

LinguaPony wrote:The break is over, so tomorrow another Chinese lesson will take place, and so it's time to do more homework.

For Italian, another Skype lesson over, two more booked, and I have almost lost my fear. I guess we've established perfect rapport by now. Wonder why Skype can't maintain decent quality of video when the call is between Russia and Italy. It's always fine when I call someone locally.

Trying to watch videos from Italiano Automatico daily and to read daily as well, but circumstances interfere. Okay, I know I shouldn't be looking for excuses. Devoutly hope that nothing will interfere with my plans in regard to German.


Skype often has issues with long-distance calls. I often have problems too.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Mon Nov 27, 2017 12:06 pm

Thanks :) Good to know I'm not alone. Might try Hangouts instead, but that one has issues too.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Wed Nov 29, 2017 9:14 am

I'm developing a bad habit of dropping personal pronouns while writing in Chinese. I have Italian to thank for this, no doubt.

Learning three languages at the same time is going to be even more fun, I expect.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Fri Dec 01, 2017 7:00 pm

Andrea Bocelli's "Quante volte ti ho cercata" is better than any textbook - I believe it contains at least 50% of Italian grammar if not all of it. And it's so beautiful that I will probably never get tired of listening to it.

Blessed are those who learn Italian, for the pain of their heart will be cured by the most beautiful music in the world.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Fri Dec 08, 2017 12:36 pm

Phoned the linguistic school for German. Just as expected, only the individual option is available at the moment. They promise to come back to me next week. Hope they do it before my birthday (14th), since I want it as a gift for myself.

It is a completely new school for me. I have already disturbed the peace in three others (just kidding, I'm a very reliable customer and a model student). Before I complete my wish list, I hope to get known to all of them, but it's a challenge - I suspect we have more linguistics schools now than bakeries.
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LinguaPony
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Sun Jan 14, 2018 3:26 pm

Okay, hiatus over. I missed you, guys and gals :)

Let's see what's new.

Italian: Still reading that enormous yellow book. Now half-way through Alfred E.W. Mason's novel. Finding it a bit boring. Hope to resume lessons with my tutor next week. While exploring what YouTube has in terms of songs, I came across "I' Te Vurria Vasa" and was completely stunned by the beauty of the Neapolitan dialect. Now I want it too. :mrgreen:

Chinese: Our group is down to two people, so we have been merged with the other group (from which only one girl attended the last lesson). We also received a completely unexpected visit from a native speaker. Too early... but at least I have a new polyglot friend now (the Chinese guy speaks almost flawless English, very decent Russian and studies Spanish and Polish).

German: Have had five lessons so far. Compared to Chinese, it seems a little too easy, but we haven't started learning any real grammar yet. As I mentioned above, it's a one-to-one with the teacher. No group.
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LinguaPony
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Joined: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:50 am
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Re: Italian, Mandarin Chinese, and more or How Polyglots are Born

Postby LinguaPony » Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:15 pm

Just back from another German lesson. So tired. It's not just today - I feel tired most of the time. I knew that it will be tough to do three language at once, but I didn't expect this. And it's not that the languages are hard to learn - they aren't. Not to this extent anyway.

Hopefully I'll be able to adapt, since I don't want to give it all up.

If you guys share your own experiences on how you re-energise yourselves when you feel the way I do now, I'll be grateful.
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