Postby garyb » Mon Jan 04, 2016 12:42 pm
I had a break from the forum over the holidays, and now that I'm back it's time to tie things up for my 2015 log.
To be honest it's ending on a bit of a negative note. I feel like I'm losing interest in Italian and in languages in general. I'm pouring in all this time and effort and then not getting much out of it and not having much to show for it. I'm not a language nerd at heart, the study in itself isn't enough to keep me motivated, I need real-life reasons to learn. I don't have many Italian friends any more, and those I do have speak great English.
Perhaps the "final straw" experience is that one of my flatmate's friends, another Italian, is staying with us for a few weeks. Whenever I walk into the room they switch to English, and justifiably so: my B2 Italian is no match for their C2 English. Past the initial annoyance of "but I wanted to practise Italian!" I realise that I'm actually happy with this, because I can express myself so much better in my native language. Why deliberately hold myself back socially? I'd love to speak Italian well enough to be able to express myself fully without hesitation, but if I can already achieve exactly the same thing with the same people in English then what's the point?
Last night I was hanging out with them and another of their friends, bringing it up to three Italians, which as I've noted before is the "magic number" so we were speaking Italian. Once the "I'm getting language practice" novelty wore off I just felt frustrated at the limit the language was placing on my ability to contribue to conversations, make jokes, and express my personality.
On top of that there's the whole receptive versus productive frustration: I can understand this language so well, I watch films without subtitles and I follow group conversations effortlessly, so why do I struggle so much to use it? And finding opportunities to speak can almost become an obsession and stress me out; I'm not happy with the way I've put the cart before the horse in that respect and gone to meetup events to basically use people for language practice. I started learning Italian because I hung around with Italians, but at some point that became reversed and I was hanging around with Italians just because I was learning Italian.
This is also making me reluctant to get serious about Spanish. I'm worried it'll go the same way as French and Italian: I'll invest a few years into studying it, become almost fluent, then I'll realise that I don't actually have much use or need for it and lose motivation. In the last couple of weeks I've been spending less and less time on languages and more and more on my real passion, music, which I'm finding to be a more rewarding hobby.
Of course this is simply perfectionism and unrealistic expectations. These people have been studying English since they were kids, and living here for several years. One works in a hotel and the other in a shop, speaking to customers in English all day, five or six days a week. One is studying at university here. They have English-speaking friends and partners. And even with their level I think their personality shines through just a little more fully when they speak their native language. I've been learning Italian in my limited spare time for a few years and spent a grand total of around four weeks in Italy. Comparing my level to theirs is ridiculous, and what I've achieved given my situation is impressive really. What I'm trying to do, converse with groups of native speakers, is hard and even being able to do it in a limited capacity is an achievement.
So I'm not sure whether to continue or to take a break from the whole languages thing. My plan for now is to just do what I feel like when I feel like it and take it easy. If that's music or languages or something else then so be it. Anyway...
End-of-year summary
My goal for the year was to increase my active (i.e., productive) ability in French and Italian. What actually happened was that I quit French (again) and I saw improvements in my Italian but not quite as much as I had hoped for, and I'm considering quitting that too. I don't see this is a failure, I just see it as evidence of the absurdity of trying to make plans and goals for a period as long as a year. It's a positive outcome: instead of sticking stubbornly to plans, I've let my situation and my feelings guide me.
I'm not the biggest fan of Benny Lewis any more, but one point he makes that I still agree with is that many learners claim that their goal is to speak, yet their activities are not geared towards speaking. I fell into this trap at times. I read lots of books in Italian, including quite literary ones. This was enjoyable but it didn't help my speaking much. As Benny says, nothing wrong with enjoying the non-spoken aspects of the language, just don't kid yourself about it. I generally do reading during times when working on speaking or listening isn't practical, like lunch break at work, but I still could have done more writing or chosen books that had more conversational language. This isn't a regret, reading great books is a joy, but I accept that it's been to the detriment of goal number one.
I'm still unsure about the great dilemma of the right balance between input and output: whether I should be consuming lots of TV and films, or focusing more on conversations, lessons, writing, and self-talk. But what is perhaps more important is to be present and focused in whatever activity I do. I've half-watched too many films while messing around online, done too much uncommitted through-the-motions output work, and been quite unassertive and lazy about taking advantage of opportunities like living with a native Italian speaker.
However it's worth mentioning that it's not been a great year for sleep and mental health. That's been a big part of the lack of focus, and another reason to not be disappointed and to be happy with the not-insignificant progress I have made.
Overall I've had a great year, in spite of the negative things I've mentioned. I've learnt a lot about myself as a language learner and a person, and begun to overcome some obstacles to speaking like perfectionism and lack of confidence. I had some great experiences when travelling in France, Italy, and Spain, thanks to my languages. In fact, writing this has made me more optimistic about my future studies. I have a more realistic perspective on goals and some good ideas about how to continue, should I choose to do so. I'll probably be back soon enough with a 2016 log...
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