Neurotip's log: Italian and Icelandic, i.a.

[MrsStarez]

A language log-themed dessert. Yum!

[Neurotip]

Log post 8: October 2018

Italian. Have very nearly finished the Veleno podcasts. I got used to the narrator's voice quite quickly, but some of the interviewees use regional varieties, which is much harder (one in the final episode sounds very much like the characters in Suburra which I find frankly incomprehensible...). Reading-wise, I've got through two-thirds of A ciascuno il suo and ground to a bit of a halt, not sure why (I've never been a big fiction reader and have a low boredom threshold), but have picked up Venere privata and I'm finding this a lot more gripping. Also while I was out in London the other day I picked up an Italian magazine from a newsagent, read a few articles, no problem. Both in listening and reading, entirely extensive work this month, no explicit grammar or vocab learning at all.

I think my Italian accent has improved slightly. I always think it's relatively simple to learn to produce a fair approximation of the typical sound of each phoneme (for most languages anyway), but things get a lot harder with the transitions from one phoneme to the next, because then the approximation you've learned to do can often be exposed as profoundly non-native. I mention this because this is where I think I'm taking some steps forward. For example, in a word like 'vidi', I'm learning to keep the front of my tongue up in the 'i' position during the 'd' and it sounds 100% better like that. However feel free to tell me if you think I'm getting better on the drums...

Italian recordings: Beginning of Venere privata spoken, and corresponding text. In each case I read the text silently once beforehand, then recorded it in one take without further preparation. The sound files from earlier this year (see log posts passim) are still up in the unlikely event that you wish to spend your valuable time comparing then

Icelandic. Last month was more extensive with less 'work' work; this month has been almost solely analysing sentences from r/iceland, making sure I've properly grokked the syntax (what case is that verb/preposition taking? is that what I'd expect? would I have used this particular word order, and if not, why not? etc.), made a note of each new vocabulary item, and so on. One trick I've hit on which is really useful, if I find a sequence of say 2-4 words which strikes me for some reason then I'll google it (in quotes, to find the literal word string) and look at the contexts it comes up in. I often do this where the syntax looks odd (the first time, for example, was with 'eftir smá stund', which I couldn't work out at all until I realised 'smá stund' is a fixed phrase and sometimes appears in writing as 'smástund').

A strange observation: I've always had minor intrusions from Swedish when I've been thinking about/in Icelandic, but if anything this seems to have got worse recently, insofar as if I can't remember an Icelandic phrase immediately, the Swedish one will often pop up in its place. This occurs even when I swear the Swedish one hasn't crossed my mind for twenty years. It's a real nuisance as it's often similar enough to phonetically block the one I'm trying to retrieve and makes it more difficult. Maybe it's just Swedish trying to persuade me to give up Icelandic...

I've abandoned Anki. (Sorry, Anki. It's not you, it's me. I just didn't have the time to make our relationship what it should have been.) Instead I've bought a notebook, made of paper, in which I write with a pen. I remember doing this years ago and it recently occurred to me that they still make paper so I could try doing it again now. I really enjoy the act of writing, as in making marks on paper (especially with a nice pen), and I fondly imagine that the tiny bit of extra cognitive effort in doing so will help somehow.

I still feel the 'real' Icelandic is some way out of reach. Even the intermediate plateau feels a long way off when I can only understand a small proportion of even quite basic sentences without looking words up (and that's in reading, never mind in listening). I suspect I'll never achieve a level of Icelandic that would be of any actual use in Iceland. Still I'm pleased with the progress I've made - and I've certainly come on a fair bit in speaking... (rules of engagement same as for the Italian excerpts: one silent read through, record a single take):

Icelandic recordings: random reddit post spoken, corresponding text

Thoughts on my 2019 goals to follow.

[Neurotip]

I'm getting some serious Greek wanderlust: searching forum posts, visiting bookshops... I've always wanted to learn Greek and am seriously thinking about a family holiday to Greece in 2020 (I'm fed up of always going to Spanish-speaking places and feeling guilty that I can't be bothered to learn better Spanish) so next year is going to be Greek year.

The question is, what else for 2019?

1. Italian and I go way back, it won't be a problem to leave and come back some other time.
2. But can I really just drop Icelandic and walk away? After all this effort?
3. And what about German? If I put in as much work as I have done this year on Italian I'm sure my German would achieve an actually-useful level. (Also I've been nurturing the idea of entitling next year's log 'Neurotip says it in German and Greek' - Snark allusion, natch, and also preserves the alliteration from this year. These things matter.)
4. Russian. Persian. (That's enough now - Ed.)

Looking back on this year I feel I've spread myself just a bit too thin. The idea of improving one language while learning another from a much lower level worked well, but I haven't been able to do either frequently enough so it's been two steps forward, one step back. I think I'll probably say Greek is my only goal, but not feeling guilty about playing with Icelandic if it happens. Doing that I think an A2 goal for Greek by end 2019 will be realistic - if I have a significant secondary goal then I'd have to drop that to A1 I think.

The other question is how to learn Greek. There are some very helpful posts by Expugnator and garyb with pointers to a lot of material. I've noticed that I wolf down audio-only material without any extra persuasion, but written output practice I need more external motivation for. I'm thinking therefore about Living Language / Spoken World Greek, possibly supplemented by one of the Michel Thomas-style courses.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[BalancingAct]

[Neurotip]

Langenscheidt: Griechisch mit System

Nice thought BalancingAct, thanks. Indeed I've been enjoying a grammar of Icelandic written in Italian, so this would be the equivalent for next year; but in honesty I don't think my German is good enough that I'd be comfortable using it as my main medium of instruction. Thanks anyway though!

[zjones]

The other question is how to learn Greek. There are some very helpful posts by Expugnator and garyb with pointers to a lot of material. I've noticed that I wolf down audio-only material without any extra persuasion, but written output practice I need more external motivation for. I'm thinking therefore about Living Language / Spoken World Greek, possibly supplemented by one of the Michel Thomas-style courses.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Hi! I'm so excited you're starting Modern Greek, because I just started it last week!

So far I like the Language Transfer Complete Greek course, since it is free and places a lot of importance on the actual structure of the language. It's audio-only, but does provide a transcript. To supplement my grammar, reading and writing, I am utilizing Greek grammar PDF which is available for download (free and legal, I believe): https://repository.kallipos.gr/handle/1 ... ?locale=en. I like it, because it's straightforward but also conversational in tone.

If you're interested, I'm trying to get a Modern Greek Study Group started, because I know it can be tough to find information and reviews about Modern Greek courses and what they're like.

[zjones]

I proposed starting a Modern Greek Study Group, so if you're interested just let me know by posting on the proposal thread for the group: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =17&t=9307. Thanks!

Edit: Greek not Green.

[Neurotip]

I'm trying to get a Modern Greek Study Group started, because I know it can be tough to find information and reviews about Modern Greek courses and what they're like.

Excellent, I'll post in your linked thread. Thanks!

[Neurotip]

Log post 9: November 2018

Italian. Not a great deal of 'active' activity here tbh, really just Venere privata which I'm really enjoying and devouring in large chunks - it's actually a long time since I enjoyed a novel this much (as I mentioned I've never been a big reader of fiction). If I was diligently trying to improve my Italian, I should actually look up the unfamiliar words... but that wouldn't be so much fun and I do feel that the sheer exposure to the language from just motoring through pages of text is helping to a degree. Anyway, I have to keep reminding myself, this is supposed to be fun and it isn't all about drilling!

Oh, I still also browse the Italian-language web, typically Wikipedia but also cucchiaio.it for example where there is a lot of vocab that I don't yet know and am keen to learn (I love cooking, Italian food, and cooking Italian food). I've posted a little bit in Italian on this site too.

Icelandic. I'm reaching the last few VLÍs now, and for the last couple I've tried listening to the audio alone without even knowing the title to see whether and how much I could follow it. Well, on each occasion I've managed to work out the context and follow basically what's going on, and with the restaurant one I got the gist of pretty much every sentence and actually got most of the words. OK the vocab is pretty basic stuff but I'm sure this is an improvement from a few months ago.

Let's not get too excited though: on the couple of occasions when I've listened to RÚV radio, it's mostly been (I think) unscripted panel discussions but very clearly spoken (by Icelandic standards ... no offence ), and what I hear is this: 'Yada yada yada from America, yada yada when they went yada yada yada unfortunately, and so yada yada yada Iceland.' Crossing from this into actually understanding anything useful is I think a B1 criterion so it isn't surprising I'm not there yet.

Reading-wise I'm still on random bits and bobs from the web, not particularly systematically. I haven't had the courage to approach Krabbaveislan again yet... keep this as a long-term ambition

In my last post I mentioned that I'm getting intrusions from Swedish into Icelandic. Well, this month believe it or not I've been getting occasional interference between Italian and Icelandic; while writing this very post, there was a moment when magari and margir were competing in my head. That was a very odd feeling.

Ég vildi skrifa eitthvað á íslensku hérna í dag, því að ég geri það næstan aldrei og líka því ég veit ekki hvert ég sé búinn að bæta mig á að skrifa rétt. Eins og ég gerði áður, ég ætla að skrifa þetta án þess að nota neina orðabók, vefsíðu eða svona. Þegar ég er að labba til sjúkrahússins á morgun (eins og þið kannski vitið, ég vinna á sjúkrahúsi) ég hlusta á eitthvað íslenskt, og stundum ég tala hljótt (eða ekki svo hljótt...) við sjálfan mig. Á kvöldin les ég kannski reddit eða fréttir - það er svolítið erfitt og tekur tíma, vegna þess að ég á ennþá að nota orðabók fyrir mörgum orðum. En ég skrifa ekki neitt - aðeins núna. Það væri betri ef ég gæti ákveðið að skrifa meira, en það er erfitt ef maður fylgir ekki neinu námskeið og þarf svo ekki að spyrja spurning og æfa sig að skrifa.

Úff that was a lot of Icelandic. Managed it without looking anything up or checking anything though! Woop.

[Neurotip]

Log post 10: December 2018

Well, it's nearly the end of my first year on LL.org and time to face unafraid the plans that I made...

Italian. My Jan 2018 goal was '...to be able to understand a standard non-fiction broadcast with little effort and getting the point of pretty much every sentence ... with 100 hours of study.' Well, I've learned a lot about assessing my own competence and setting goals this year, and in this case I underbid myself and hit both goals by mid-year or a little later. Over the year I reckon I've averaged 2-3 hours a week, about 75% listening and the rest largely reading, so maybe 100 hours listening and 30 hours reading. Actual study, grammar drills and the like, maybe 5-10 hours max. I don't feel a massive sense of achievement, largely because I significantly underestimated the ability I already had. Still, my listening ability has definitely improved - I was having real difficulty understanding native audio at the beginning of the year, much less difficulty now. I'm not going to Dialang this, as I already scored C1 in January and no way am I C2 now, so achieving the goal will have to do!

PS I wrote this post this morning and am actually posting it this evening - and between the two, by a nice coincidence, an Italian-speaking friend came over and I had my second reasonably long conversation in Italian this year!

Icelandic. Jan 2018 goal: 'get Icelandic up to a solid A1, perhaps even A2, with 100 hours of study.' So I've managed to keep up the momentum without any long inactive periods; I feel I could have worked more systematically, but it's always been fun. I gave up Anki mid-year as I just couldn't motivate myself to use it regularly, so vocab acquisition has had to rely on encountering words often enough. I think I've consistently had 2-3 hours of exposure each week, occasionally more, most of which has counted as work, so certainly 100 hours in the year and perhaps 150. This week I've done nearly the full set of Dialang tests (bless you Dialang for having Icelandic!) and: A2 reading and vocab, B1 writing and structures (listening remains to be done, will let you know!). I did feel I was getting a few extra marks using exam-taking skills rather than language skills, but I'm really pleased with this.

Language-learning in general. I won't say 'what I've learned this year', as that would imply that I'm always right , but some things I'll be taking forward to next year:
- in reading and listening, the more attention I pay, the more useful it is. Sounds obvious, but it's tempting to feel that just having the radio on, or skipping over sentences I don't understand, is still useful; it really isn't very useful.
- ...and it's particularly useful if I can work some language production into it, e.g. shadowing, or especially trying to reproduce a sentence or two after a short delay and checking against the original.
- you can get by with a good vocabulary and rubbish accent and grammar, but accent and grammar are useless without vocabulary. ( this makes me sad )
- on the other hand, 'vocabulary' doesn't have to mean isolated words - short phrases or even sentences are also well worth learning (and much less painful, for me at least).

Over the festive period I'll post again with concrete plans and goals for 2019. (Spoilers: it's pretty much what I wrote here in my October post.)

Did I remember to say THANK YOU to the forum and the lovely people here for the help and motivation? And merry Christmas (gleðileg jól, buon Natale) to you all.