Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sat Aug 18, 2018 7:15 pm

So I think I need to make some decisions about Italian. I initially started watching and listening with the intent to just not lose what little improvement I'd made on my last trip to Italy. But now that I've finished a full year of daily Italian exposure, and I'm not in danger of giving up on it, I'm not sure exactly what my current goal should be.

Do I turn Italian into a serious thing, with the goal of speaking proficiently, and all the things that go along with that (actually doing some boring work on grammar, which I hate) and writing (which I'm avoiding, though it would probably really help) and making a bigger effort to speak more...or just keep doing the easy and fun thing - watching TV and listening to podcasts to maintain my already strong listening comprehension but not really progress much in the areas where I need it?

I think I'm leaning toward making some serious goals, but I feel a little resistant. I don't want to turn Italian into something annoying, I want to continue enjoying it, but I also think I could enjoy it more if the speaking part came a little easier.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:43 pm

So, during this first year of Italian, what I’ve done is:

A LOT of youtube videos.
I started out with the videos from Italy Made Easy, then I moved onto the Italiano Automatico channel; Alberto has 300 videos with duel subtitles (Eng+Italian) which were a really big help. I eventually started watching a lot of other random videos (cooking, science) using the CC autogenerated subitles.

Podcasts
(1) Veleno podcast series (7 episodes, ~30 minutes each) multiple times. It's free on iTunes and also the website. The website has a complete transcription for all 7 episodes. This is a really fascinating piece of investigative journalism about something that happened in a small town in Italy 20 years ago...basically a case of mass hysteria where a bunch of kids were manipulated into accusing people of being Satan worshippers who were sacrificing children and animals. Many people's lives were destroyed. Has a feel similar to Making a Murderer. I recommended this serial to Olly Richards just before he started his Italian Project and was asking for recommendations.
(2) All the Italiano Automatico podcasts. I think there are hundreds since he releases one every single Monday and has been making them for years.
(3) All the Podcast Italiano podcasts. This is a fairly new podcast series/youtube channel, but it's one of the highest quality I've ever listened to. Davide and Erika have some great banter, and he always stops to explain in Italian what a challenging word or expression means. They discuss a lot of different topics like social media, being short vs. tall, things they miss and don't miss when they're abroad, etc...
(3) MoneySurfers, a podcast series that's more or less about financial stuff - it's not totally dry, there are topics like: low cost airlines and why buying cheap stuff made abroad makes everyone poorer.
(4) A Film Review podcast series that I can't seem to find anymore.
(5) Storia in Cucina (Alle Otto Della Sera) 20 part series. I found it easy to understand but a bit boring since it felt very general.
(6) Dylan Dog: The main character is a Noir/Anti-Hero who investigates supernatural things. (in progress)
(7) Equilibrio Digitale: Only 4 episodes, worth a listen.

TV series on Netflix with Italian audio. So far I've watched:
(1) The Punisher (1 season) intensively with English subs
(2) That ‘70s Show (8 seasons) every episode 3x: first in Italian w/ English subs, then in Italian with no subs, then again for 3rd time
(3) Stranger Things in Italian with no subs
(4) The Staircase in Italian with no subs
(5) Lost in Space in Italian with no subs
(6) How it Ends (movie) in Italian with no subs

Books.
(1) Some silly children's books that were free in the Kindle store. I don't remember the titles, but one was about a magic toothbrush.
(2) Audiobook + ebook: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. INTENSIVE READING
(3) Audiobook + ebook: Zona Pericolosa, aka The Killing Floor, first in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child. INTENSIVE READING

Articles and Blogs.
(1) EfficaceMente is a personal favorite, topic is personal growth. Lots of great articles written in an informal conversational way.
(2) Mindcheats is a new one I've recently started
(3) Various travel blogs like: https://www.miprendoemiportovia.it and https://spinningtheglobe.it
(4) WikiHow articles on random things, like How to Survive in a Forest, How to Train a Puppy, etc...
*Have read well over 100 articles (with an average of 1,000 words per article)

Conversations
(1) Once a week with a language exchange partner for 1 hour. Initially we started out doing 1/2 hour English, 1/2 hour Italian. His English is definitely better than my Italian, but I can hold my own, which feels nice. At some point he said that since my listening comprehension is pretty good and I don't need to practice it, he suggested an experiment. For the whole hour he'd speak English while I'd speak Italian. At first I thought this couldn't work, that hearing English would make it impossible for me to speak in Italian, but I discovered that it wasn't difficult at all, so this has become our new routine. This way we each get more practice speaking the other language.
(2) Speaking with spouse and in-laws

***Typing out all that stuff made me realize that I've done A LOT this year!
Last edited by StringerBell on Mon Sep 24, 2018 4:09 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sat Aug 18, 2018 8:44 pm

What have I learned so far?

Comprehensible input is a really enjoyable and low-stress way to learn a language. I really like it and I'm glad that I didn't attempt to do a bunch of lessons in a textbook first. I may at some point do some textbook/grammar lessons (but only on specific areas that I'm struggling with)

I get better at doing the things that I practice. I’m sure this seems really obvious, but it was something I was not acknowledging fully. For example, at one point I was a little frustrated that after hundreds of hours of listening, my speaking wasn’t better. Then I realized that I wasn’t praticing speaking much. All those hours of listening practice made me really good at understanding what I listened to. The more I listened, the better I got at listening. This has especially helpful in conversations. Though I may not say things error-free, I can pretty much understand anything that people say to me, which allows for more interesting conversations. And while I do make plenty of mistakes, I can always get my point across.

Likewise, even though I have a strength in listening comprehension, I'm not yet a strong reader. Now that I'm in the habit of reading every day, I can tell that my reading ability is increasing. The more I read, the better I'll be at reading.

In addition to getting better at what I actually do, the type of material I'm consuming matters, too. Reading novels made me better at reading novels, but surprisingly didn't really make me much better at reading articles because a different kind of language is used. Reading articles is making me better at reading articles. Watching TV shows with a lot of informal dialogue makes me better at understanding...informal dialogue. So now when I'm choosing material to watch, listen to, read, I put thought into what it will specifically help me to improve.
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Elenia
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby Elenia » Sat Aug 18, 2018 11:34 pm

Very cool log! I vote that you continue doing what you find fun. But maybe you can find a middle ground between simply having fun and reaching the goal of speaking more proficiently? Maybe make a point of noticing the grammar and structures used in the content you are enjoying (maybe even using them yourself?) and then using them in your language exchanges?

Something that helped me even more than I thought it would, was regular text-chatting in my TL (Swedish). Now, I joke all the time that Swedish has basically no grammar, so my case is slightly different to yours, but text chats gave me a LOT of confidence to speak more freely with actual people. When I moved to Sweden, I hadn't actually spoken that much in Swedish, but getting used to text chatting got me used to that mode of communication. I also wrote a fair amount - I tried to complete NaNoWriMo in Swedish* - but it's a different type of production. It was still very useful, but of a different use than on-the-fly text chatting. This might be something to consider when if you want to work on your production. You can view it as a more fun, easier alternative to writing longer form texts, or as a way to ease yourself into that kind of writing.

*Failed, but I fail every year in English too, so I don't mind :D
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indeclinable
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby indeclinable » Sat Aug 18, 2018 11:54 pm

One of the most interesting logs I've seen. I don't usually comment on other's logs, specially if they're about languages I'm not interested in. But your testimonial is a blessing, you're not the first one to have experienced similar troubles with languages only to discover that in the end it was CI and not grammar instruction (or explicit grammar instruction) what gave you fluency. All the latest second language acquisition research supports that statement and in general recommends an approach almost identical to your learning methodology.

If you had time and I'd love if you could make a video about you experience through the years, my students love to hear testimonies like yours.

Since you already seem to have progressed a lot in Italian then the L'italiano secondo il metodo natura will not be of much use to you now (a friend is now recording it into YouTube videos), but perhaps you have acquaintances that would like to learn Italian, this method is based on the premise that a language is leaned by CI and provides lots of it.
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Omnis lingua usu potius discitur quam praeceptis, id est audiendo, legendo, relegendo, imitationem manu et lingua temptando quam creberrime. – Iohannes Amos Comenius

StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sun Aug 19, 2018 6:57 pm

Elenia wrote: Very cool log! I vote that you continue doing what you find fun. But maybe you can find a middle ground between simply having fun and reaching the goal of speaking more proficiently?


Me and middle ground don't get along too well :D It's one of my character flaws that I am always trying to improve.

Seriously, though, I agree. I know that if I start taking Italian seriously (which would be the more efficient approach) I will end up feeling disillusioned and miserable because I'll start creating a lot of expectations for myself that I inevitably won't live up to.

With Italian, I often find myself thinking, "this is an easy Romance language, I should be much better than I am by now" while with Polish it's more like, "damn this language is confusing and complex, guess I'll just keeping working at it." It's really a double standard that isn't doing me any favors. I think the worst thing that I do to sabotage myself is to have expectations about where my level should be with Italian.

So I think I do need to figure out what a "middle ground" would look like for me and try to do focus on little improvements over time while not falling into the trap of having expectations for myself. I think I can handle short tasks that might be slightly boring but I just do them for a little bit once in a while, so I can mainly focus on the fun, easy stuff.

Elenia wrote:Something that helped me even more than I thought it would, was regular text-chatting in my TL (Swedish).


This is a really good idea. Maybe I can start off by texting my MIL once per day as a way to ease myself into writing more. She's very sweet and helpful and won't care if I write a bunch of wacky stuff that's full of mistakes.
Last edited by StringerBell on Sun Aug 19, 2018 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sun Aug 19, 2018 7:05 pm

indeclinable wrote:
Since you already seem to have progressed a lot in Italian then the L'italiano secondo il metodo natura will not be of much use to you now (a friend is now recording it into YouTube videos), but perhaps you have acquaintances that would like to learn Italian, this method is based on the premise that a language is leaned by CI and provides lots of it.


Thank you - I tried to check out that link but it seems like it's down until Aug 30. I'll check it out when it's back online.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Sun Aug 19, 2018 10:17 pm

dupe
Last edited by StringerBell on Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Mon Aug 20, 2018 11:06 pm

I just started the online self-paced edX course: AP® Italian Language and Culture (2018-2019). It has so far surpassed my expectations; I'm really impressed with it. Originally I was a little worried that it would involve a lot of boring grammar or textbook-style exercises. Instead, it is actually a fantastic source of CI. There is a description with suggestions for how to go through the resources, but you can really do whatever you want.

Here is a little description of the part I’ve done so far. The first part 1.1. that I completed has several subsections; each subsection has some type of native material (readings, video interviews with native speakers, commercials, etc...)

-Before the video or reading is presented, first there's a list of vocabulary that is potentially new with English definitions. There's a quizlet imbedded in the course which allows you to play games or do flashcards with some of these new words. I actually found this part to be fun.

-The first subsection had a short reading about the history of the various "communi" and a brief snapshot of two in particular (Bologna and Alba). Every reading is followed by version of the same reading but with the ability to hover over some of the new vocabulary for an instant definition.

-There are several videos. There were a few videos that were sort of “interview style” with some university students from Bologna, talking about life in Bologna, life as a university student, etc… The videos are about 4-5 minutes long, and there is a complete transcript to the right of the video, and also the option to have subtitles.

-After each reading or video, there are a few comprehension questions and a few writing prompts to write a few sentences about what was just watched/read. As an example, after one of the Bologna videos, the writing prompt asked you to explain why you’d like/not like to live in/study in Bologna.

Before starting this course, I was a little nervous that it would be really difficult since I don’t really know what my level is and I’ve never done any actual “lessons”. However, after doing the first section, I realized that my Italian is not too shabby; I watched all the videos without subtitles or using the transcript and then answered almost all of the comprehension questions correctly. I also did all the reading without using the hover/definition option with no problem. That being said, there were definitely some new words, so it’s not like it’s below my level. I think it’s just right for where I am now. I enjoyed the first part so much that I can’t wait to continue with the course.
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StringerBell
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Re: Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

Postby StringerBell » Wed Aug 22, 2018 8:22 pm

I did some more of the edX Italian course today. I have to say that now that I'm used to the format, it's going much quicker, and I'd dare say that I'm even finding it a bit easy. I still think it is very worthwhile and I've made some slight changes to try to get the most benefit out of it.

Since my listening comprehension seems to be fairly decent and it's not what I need to improve, I've decided that instead of just listening to the people speaking in interviews, I will instead focus on reading the transcript of what they are saying. This changes it into a L+R activity, I guess. I'm trying to pay special attention to the prepositions and articles as they come up, which is something I just don't really hear when I'm listening.

I will also say that I think it's really good that I'm doing this course after having already spent a year consuming native materials. I'm someone who easily gives up when I get frustrated (at least when it comes to languages) so that fact that I'm not having any difficulty understanding the material is making me feel really relaxed and positive, and able to pick up the few new words that pop up.

As a side note, I've noticed that I seem to be consistently getting headaches after reading articles in Italian. I'm trying to pinpoint what the problem is, but so far it's a bit of a mystery since I can spend 3-4 hours straight reading other things on my computer, with or without glasses and not get a headache. Maybe there's something about the EfficaceMente website font that's bothering me? Between the headaches and my new Italian course, I think I may need to make some adjustments to my 150 Italian articles challenge.
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