Italian + Polish with comprehensible input

[zjones]

This is kind of off-topic, pardon me!

Something I really like about your log is the way you address emotions in regard to language-learning. I've found that my mental and emotional state can affect my language-learning in profound ways. If I'm feeling confident about my languages, then I am more willing to put time into them, but if I am self-doubting myself then I just can't find the energy to practice. It's nice to see someone else who struggles with the same feelings. The fact that you work with your languages despite the way you personally feel about them, is inspiring. I wish people would talk about this more often, because it's an important part of maintaining motivation and making progress.

[StringerBell]

Something I really like about your log is the way you address emotions in regard to language-learning.

Thank you! Learning how to deal with frustration and negative mental energy surrounding language learning has been a huge part of the challenge of learning a language for me. Previously, as soon as I felt like I wasn't making enough progress (whatever that means) I'd get really depressed and give up.

It's taken me way longer than it should have to figure out how to redirect my thoughts when they start turning sour and I start trying to convince myself that I'm no good, I should just give up, etc... I was always an overachiever in school, but the minute something is difficult with learning a language my first instinct was always to convince myself I couldn't do it and run away. I think because I can't just learn some rules and memorize some words and then bam - I know the language.

The one and only time I ever threw a tantrum as a kid was when I was trying to do my French HW in 3rd grade and I had this overwhelming feeling that none of it made sense so I threw the book across the room! I even got great grades in French, but my frustration came from the fact that doing exercises in the textbook still left me feeling like I didn't understand what the hell was going on with that language, and I'd never had that feeling with any other subject.

I have this very strong need to quantify my progress, but language learning doesn't work that way. But I can quantify time spent on task, so focusing myself on accumulating hours instead of trying to reach some immeasurable level of proficiency is really just a sleight of hand trick to get myself to focus on something that is measurable.

[StringerBell]

POLISH:

Today I watched a new video on YT on the channel Nieprzeciętne Życie. I used the auto-generated subs and paused after each line so that I could write down all of the sentences in my notebook. I had done this for 4 videos on this channel awhile ago (maybe a month or two?). It was challenging, but doable. I noticed today a few interesting things:

1) It felt noticeably easier. Still a bit challenging, but I definitely didn’t have to look up as many words.
2) I recognized a few words from the two books I’m currently reading. Some of those words I recently practiced on Anki and I recognized them.
3) There were one or two words in the video that I specifically remembered having gotten right on Anki but I couldn’t remember the meaning, even in context. #2 and #3 seem to be mixed results as far as Anki goes.

I also rewatched the 4 videos I’d done already, reading through my handwritten transcript while listening to the narrator. There were a few words that I’d had to look up originally that I knew well this time around because I’ve since come across them elsewhere.

I realized that I really like the strategy of working with a resource that is a little too challenging, putting it on the back burner, and then returning to it a little later - it's always a bit easier. It can be a good way to show myself that I am making steady progress, even when it doesn’t feel like it.

I still haven’t decided about continuing with Anki or not. So far, I’m not hating it, but still not sure how effective it is. I'll admit that I am having to fight the compulsion to save every potentionally useful thing that I might want to practice saying; it feels like it's wasting mental energy fighting against this compulsion.

ITALIAN:
So far I’ve been able to meet my 5 hours of speaking per week. I’m still reading 2 or 3 articles per day, and I’m also doing a small amount of targeted grammar study. I started with avrei dovuto + infinitive. I have filled 4 pages with sentences using this construction including all the conjugations (me, you he/she, we, y’all, they). I feel very confident using it, and I probably could have moved on to something new sooner, but I want to avoid flooding myself with too much at once and getting confused, so I guess I'm deliberately frustrating myself in a different way.

My husband suggested that instead of moving on to a different verb tense/construction, I should practice some different kinds of things, like verbs that take articles when followed by an infinitive. I’ve learned a few, but there’s plenty that I don’t know. So I wrote a page full of sentences today with continuare a + infinitive.

So far, I’m really liking this new routine. I’m focusing on one thing at a time, and I’m generating a ton of sentences on my own, trying to prioritize useful sentences that I might actually want to use in a conversation. I also used a few fun sentences that I collected from the articles I’ve been reading, like:

Continua a frignare e la tua vita continuerà a fare schifo.
Continue to whine and your life will continue to suck.

Italian expression for the day (that I seem to come across repeatedly and recently used in conversation):
giù di corda = down in the dumps, feeling blue
-Pensaci per un solo istante: quando sei demotivato, ansioso e giù di corda tendi a focalizzarti su ciò che non va.
-Think about it for just a minute: when you’re demotivated, anxious, and down in the dumps, you tend to focus on what’s no good/not working.

[StringerBell]

POLISH:

Not much new to report. I had this epiphany today but then realized that it wasn't particularly interesting and didn't deserve to be called an epiphany. It came after finishing today's Anki work. Today's session was only 20 minutes since I haven't been adding much in the past few days. It was so much more pleasant than the previous days where Anki was taking 45-60 minutes to get through. Granted, I'm also using it as pronunciation practice, but even still, 45+ minutes is too much, man.

Just as I was finishing, I realized that rather than seeing it as a memorization activity, it's really just about making me notice and pay attention to small details that are easy for me to gloss over. If I have to come up with how say a phrase/sentence in Polish, I have to pay close attention to the prepositions, the case endings, the verb choice, etc... When viewed through this lens, I have less irritation at flash carding.

So, I think I need to keep Anki short and sweet and think of it as a "noticing" activity rather than a "memorization" activity, even if it actually is a memorization activity.

I told you it wasn't worth being called an epiphany. It probably wasn't even worth reading about!

Also, I came across a verb that seems to be a synonym for a phrase that I'd recently learned:
1) uwzględnić <-boy, was that was that fun to practice saying!
2) wziąć pod uwagę

*Are they interchangeable and does it make sense to think of these as meaning the same thing, "to take into/under consideration"?

ITALIAN:

Ok, I have to admit I'm starting to get a little bit lazy here, probably because I know I've got that in-law "immersion" next month, which is not a good excuse. This week I only managed 4 hours of speaking instead of 5. Maybe I can make up that missed hour next week.

Part of the problem is that it's really difficult to speak for 30 or 60 minute blocks with my husband in Italian when he already knows everything I could say...so it often feels forced. I tried recapping a show we'd just watched, but that's good for about 10 minutes. So, I decided to try something different. Instead of having "Italian speaking session" I just keep my Casiotone watch on, and when I want to say something to him, even something quick, I start the stopwatch, speak for 1 or 2 (or however many) minutes and when we're done, I stop the stopwatch. In this way, I was able to rack up 1 hour this evening pretty effortlessly. So, I think I'm going to aim for more of this casual on-the-fly conversation with him, supplemented by some actual speaking sessions with my language partner and in-laws.

Today I generated a bunch of sentences with all the conjugations of "Non avrei potuto + infinitive". At this point, I feel pretty confident that should I need to say "I should have..." or "I couldn't have..." I will have no problem. These were easy constructions, I know, and I'm honestly a little worried about moving on to more complicated stuff, so I'm trying to take it nice and slow.

Here is an Italian expression that I learned awhile ago, but just recently started trying to make use of when speaking:

di lunga data = describes something that someone has done for a long time, experienced

-Il capitano Flint è un marinaio di lunga data = Captain Flint is an experienced sailor.*

*If you haven't watched Black Sails, you should!

[cjareck]

Also, I came across a verb that seems to be a synonym for a phrase that I'd recently learned:
1) uwzględnić <-boy, was that was that fun to practice saying!
2) wziąć pod uwagę

*Are they interchangeable and does it make sense to think of these as meaning the same thing, "to take into/under consideration"?

I think that, at least in most cases, they are interchangeable.

[StringerBell]

POLISH:

I am almost halfway through Dzieci z Bullerbyn, and I finished the first 2 chapters of Jak Uczyć Się Języków. I am almost done with the 365 Daily Polish Listening podcasts. Yesterday and today I watched some of the newer Easy Polish videos on YT and I've been transcribing the text from a couple of videos on the Nieprzeciętne Życie YT channel. I really like these videos.

I'm finding it exciting when I encounter words in videos that I've just come across in some of my other material. For some reason, there are certain words that I can't remember no matter how many times I test myself with an Anki card, but then when I come across them spontaneously in other sources, suddenly I remember them with no problem. I was having this problem with "spodziewać się". For the life of me, I could not remember that one, but then some guy on an Easy Polish interview used it and ever since I remember it bez problemu.

I am genuinely having fun with this language. That is something I never would have expected. I don't have any illusions that I'll become a proficient Polish speaker, but maybe that's why I'm enjoying the process so much - I have no expectations and I'm putting no pressure on myself to accomplish anything in particular besides just racking up hours with the language. I think having expectations - especially unrealistic ones - is the quickest way to get demoralized and disillusioned with language learning. Every time I've gotten majorly disappointed, it's been because I was expecting to be better than I was. To this day I'm still dealing with unrealistic expectations when it comes to Italian, but for some reason it's not an issue with Polish.

ITALIAN:

I am exactly 50% done with my 500 articles challenge! Each article varies between 1,000 and 2,000 or more words, with the majority being closer to the 2,000 end. So I think a conservative average would be 1,500 words per article. This means that by this point, I've read about 375,000 words. By the time I finish the challenge, I will have read 750,000 words. I would expect to be much better after having read 375,000 words, because that seems like a really staggering amount. And that's where I start getting into expectations - after having read x amount of words, I should have a certain level of proficiency. Well, in fact, I think my reading comprehension is decent (obviously with plenty of room to improve), it's really my speaking that I'm dissatisfied with.

Last week and this week I've been struggling to get in my 5 hours of speaking. Some days I just don't want to do it. Some days, it just feels so damn hard. But then today, I spoke to my in-laws on Skype for 45 minutes, and I think I did really well. I made some minor mistakes here and there, but I also used congiuntivo (the subjunctive) correctly a few times in ways I've never done before, which surprised even me. I have to keep reminding myself that the whole point of me learning Italian was to communicate with them, and at this point I can do that senza problemi, so I should stop being so hard on myself and stop expecting that I should be better than I am.

Also, I had this thought last night that there are so many really awesome podcasts in English that I used to love listening to (Radiolab, Freakonomics, This American Life, Car Talk) but I don’t listen to them anymore because I’m using every spare moment for Polish and Italian. Which would be fine, except that I haven’t been able to find anything even remotely as good to listen to in Italian, so I end up listening to a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t waste my time with if it were not for learning the language. This is kind of a bummer.

I genuinely do enjoy Podcast Italiano, but it’s on a temporary hiatus while Davide is doing an Erasmus semester abroad. I started listening to Scientificast, which is OK, but doesn’t have the same level of in-depth storytelling that the English podcasts do. It feels like they cover topics more superficially and episodes just somehow feel a little dull. So I’ve been listening less and less and reading more, but I really wish I could find podcasts that are as engaging as the ones I like in English.

And speaking of reading, I also noticed that I’m reading a lot of stuff that I also would have no interest reading in English. I really like Andrea’s writing style in the EfficaceMente articles, but “personal growth” is not a topic I would ever pursue in English. I also kind of enjoyed reading the Jack Reacher novel in Italian, and have been considering getting a few others in the series in Italian - again, not something I would touch with a ten foot pole in English. Somehow in Italian the writing style and formulaic storytelling doesn’t bother me because I think of it as language practice.

On a more positive note (since it feels like I’m compaining a little too much), my in-laws are bringing me hard copies of 2 books; the Italian translations of the first Freakonomics book (which I read in the original English and loved) and Dolores Claiborne, which I have never read and have been curious about. I’m pretty sure I don’t have to deal with passato remoto with DC, which is awesome. I decided that I’d like to collect the hard copies of books that I really like and might want to read multiple times, and would also feel good about seeing on my bookshelf, but I’ll just buy the kindle version of books that I consider junk (like Jack Reacher).

*Oh, and I finally figured out how to use Anki with Italian. For some reason I wasn't able to make myself review any cards in Italian. I was super blocked. So I deleted everything and decided to start from scratch. Instead of making a ton of cards that I dreaded, I decided to input no more than 3-5 per day (or every other day). So far, this is working great! With so few to review, it takes very little time and I'm remembering them much more easily. For me, when it comes to flashcarding, less is definitely more.

Fun Italian expression:
avere culo = to have luck
una botta di culo = a stroke of luck

*Literally “avere culo” means “to have ass” but it colloquially means “to have luck”.

[StringerBell]

I don't really know how to take advantage of all the things I can do with Anki (like making cloze sentences) mainly because I don't care enough to spend the time to figure it out. I do make extensive use of color-coding, though (surprise, surprise!). I thought I'd share a few screen shot examples of the different ways I use colors. Hopefully there are no mistakes, but if anyone notices something wrong, please let me know!

I sometimes color code a specific word to emphasize its position in a sentence, since word order can be really different compared to English:

word order.png

Sometimes I color code segments of a sentence to help me remember it. For some reason, I often find it easier to remember in segments:

segments.png

I often color code for gender. Pink = feminine word, Blue = masculine word, Purple = plural word, Green = neuter word:

genders.png

genders3.png

And sometime I color code a word to emphasize how it changes when the sentence becomes negative, or the case ending changes in some way:

negs1.png

[cjareck]

I often color code for gender. Pink = feminine word, Blue = masculine word, Purple = plural word, Green = neuter word:

In the case of the plural, it is not the same for masculine plural and for the feminine plural:
oni byli/są/będą pijani
one były/są/będą pijane

[StringerBell]

Believe it or not, I did know that at some point, but for some reason I often choose to ignore that fact, so I sometimes forget - thank you for the reminder! I think I decided to focus only on the masculine plural because it also works for a mix of women + men (right?) so there is a 2/3 chance I will use it. That might not be a good strategy long term, but there are only so many variations of a conjugation I can handle! In the future I will have to pay more attention to this.

*I just now placed an order with Bookdepository.com for Nowe Przygody Mikołajka and Akademia pana Kleksa. I've never used this website before, but they have free worldwide shipping and a nice selection of foreign language books. I am very much looking forward to their arrival! Hopefully they won't be too challenging for me.

Question for anyone who is familiar with the Jeżycjada series: Is it important to read these books in any particular order? If I read a book that was published recently, would I be confused since I wouldn't know what happened to the characters in earlier books, or is each book more of a stand-alone story?

[cjareck]

I think I decided to focus only on the masculine plural because it also works for a mix of women + men (right?) so there is a 2/3 chance I will use it. That might not be a good strategy long term, but there are only so many variations of a conjugation I can handle! In the future, I will have to pay more attention to this.

Yes, masculine form is also used in this matter, so your strategy is a very good example of the economy of force (a term from military history which I just have learned in English it is ekonomia sił in Polish)

*I just now placed an order with Bookdepository.com for Nowe Przygody Mikołajka and Akademia pana Kleksa. I've never used this website before, but they have free worldwide shipping and a nice selection of foreign language books. I am very much looking forward to their arrival! Hopefully they won't be too challenging for me.

You will have a lot of fun with Mikołajek, I will assure you! Academia... didn't impress me, however. If you look for it on youtube, you will find as well a movie as an audiobook.

Question for anyone who is familiar with the Jeżycjada series: Is it important to read these books in any particular order? If I read a book that was published recently, would I be confused since I wouldn't know what happened to the characters in earlier books, or is each book more of a stand-alone story?

My wife fell asleep together with my boys so I can't give 100% sure answer now, but as far as I remember this is a story of one big family. So in the next books, you have nex generations and the family grows bigger. To understand it well, probably you should start from the first volume. I think my wife read one of the later volumes and then decided to start from the beginning. As soon as she wakes up I will ask her about it.