Lingua's 2019 Italian, Sicilian, Latin, German, Portuguese Log

[lingua]

Book #25: Dire, fare, brasare by Carlo Cracco. This is part cooking lessons and part recipes. The lessons cover various techniques: roasting, steaming, baking, grilling, braising, frying, boiling, stewing, marinating, etc. The recipes include the techniques used and instructions along with extra suggestions by the chef for variations in some instances. As an active cook I didn't learn much here but I read it primarily to increase my cooking vocabulary. I've read other books by Cracco. He has a restaurant in Milano and was (and may still be) one of the judges on Italian MasterChef. Most of his recipes are appealing to me so I might make a few dishes from this book. This was a relatively easy read as I hardly had to look up any words.

If you like to cook I would recommend it.

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25 actual books = 87 SC books.

[lavengro]

Grazie per la menzione di Italian Masterchef. I have watched the Canadian, American and Australia versions of Masterchef, but had not thought to track down an Italian version, and I now see there are a lot of Masterchef italia episodes available on YouTube that look like a lot of fun, and that Joe Bastianich is a common judge between (at least some of) the American and Italian shows.

[lingua]

Book #26: vino: femminile, plurale by Cinzia Benzi. The author says that if wine (as in il vino) is masculine and singular then the world of wine is feminine and plural. The short book is about women working in the wine world. The field has traditionally not been welcoming to women though that is changing. There are 11 stories of women the author interviewed that are working in the wine field. Two in France and the rest in Italy. Some of them started many years ago (prior to the 70s) and other into the 90s. In some cases they work in the families vineyards. They have different roles such as winemaker, wine marketer, seller/exporter, etc. It was easy to read and somewhat interesting to me but I would only recommend if you like the world of wine.

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26 books = 90 SC books

I've started two new books:
Pista Nera by Antonio Manzini
Venezia in Cucina by Carla Coco

I am enjoying Pista Nera though I had a slow start as it takes place in Aosta (NE Italy) and there are many new terms I've not encountered before relating to skiing. I've read the first chapter which is about 18% of the book and now I'm getting a feel for the authors style. I will be continuing on with this series.

[lingua]

Reading:
Io non ho paura by Niccolò Ammaniti <-- 49%
Pista Nera by Antonio Manzini <-- 53%
Venezia in Cucina by Carla Coco <-- 10%

I continue to enjoy Pista Nera in spite of the fact I think Vicequestore Rocco Schiavone is a bit of a jerk as well as being corrupt as a cop. But the writing itself I like. And after the first chapter I've adapted to the author's style and am looking up fewer words. I also thought this would probably make a good tv series and as it turns out there were two seasons made. I've not been able to find the first season at a reasonable price though the second is readily available but I'll keep searching.

Writing:
Since my reading seems to be taking over I've done very little writing lately.

Talking/Recording:
I've had two 60 minute italki sessions since my last update. I also recorded 28 minutes of reading Io non ho paura but I don't enjoy this book at all. I will finish it only because I'm about half way done and I am committed to hitting the 100 book mark by the end of the year. It is forcing me to finish books whereas last year I was more prone to giving up on them.

Listening:
Film 104 minutes
MHz Choice: MHz Choice i bastardi di Pizzofalcone s1e1

I bastardi di Pizzofalcone is new on MHz Choice this month and I like it. As it turns out this is also based off a book series by Maurizio de Giovanni about Ispettore Lojacono. The author also has another series about Commissario Ricciardi so when I've completed the Vicequestore Rocco Schiavone series I intend to start these two series one after the other assuming I like the first book in each series.

Grammar/Vocabulary
I've been doing far less Memrise, Quizlet and Clozemaster the last couple of weeks preferring to concentrate on reading. Some of the feedback I've received from my newer italki teacher indicates that I am sometimes using the wrong preposition so I started doing some exercises from Le preposizioni italiane which is a book from Alma. I also continue to work on the two GP books that are geared towards the exam.

365 Challenge: I've still managed to do at least 30 minutes a day.

[lingua]

Book #27: Pista nera by Antonio Manzini was one of the most enjoyable Italian reads I've encountered in a while. As much as I liked the BarLume series the dialect sometimes slowed me down and caused confusion. After the first chapter I found this book easy to read and I was able to follow the plot without problems. In spite of Rocco Schiavone's sometimes corrupt behavior he is still a quality cop and is committed to finding the murderer as well as having a general sense of justice. There is a twist that I didn't originally pick up on but it does make his behavior more understandable. I don't want to give away any plot lines in case anyone is interested in reading it so that's all I'll say.

The author is an actor, screenwriter and director so I am going to search out some of his films. I literally couldn't put this book down and stayed up way too late reading it the last two nights so I could finish. I've already bought the second book in the series. This is a five star book for me.

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27 books = 96 SC books

[lingua]

Book #28: La costola di Adamo by Antonio Manzini was as enjoyable to read as the first book in the series. It seems we will learn more about Rocco and his past in each new book. I'll start the third book later today. I also found the two DVD seasons reasonably priced on IBS.it and ordered them today. I plan to watch each episode after I complete the book assuming it follows the book format like Montalbano. BarLume unfortunately didn't.

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28 actual books = 101 SC books.

For the SuperChallenge I'm currently at 118 film and 101 books so I'm halfway towards my goal of doing a double.

[lingua]

Book #29: Non è stagione by Antonio Manizni. I continue to enjoy reading this series and it's taken over my Italian activities. My reading speed is increasing with this series. The writing style seems easier for me than other authors and the vocabulary doesn't change a lot. The DVDs I ordered for this series arrived today and i'm looking forward to watching the first couple of episodes this weekend.

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29 actual books = 108 SC

[lingua]

Reading:
Io non ho paura by Niccolò Ammaniti <-- 49%
Era di maggio by Antonio Manzini <-- 5%
Venezia in Cucina by Carla Coco <-- 23%

My other books have been relegated to the back burner since I can't put the Rocco Schiavone books down. I have a large book and film order coming from Mondadori that includes L'ombra del vento (April forum book club choice) which I hope arrives before next weekend. Unfortunately, I couldn't find an Italian ebook version available in the US so I'm stuck with the physical. Some delusional seller on Amazon US wanted to sell the physical book for $47. Even buying a single book and paying shipping from Amazon IT would have been cheaper than that.

I've been buying from Mondadori (which was previously bol.it) for about 15 years and in all that time the shipping was a flat rate of 29€ but they recently upped it to 59€ which means my orders have to be enormous to make it reasonable. As a comparison I purchased a two season series of 4 DVDs each from amazon.it and it cost 8€ to ship. From ibs.it the two season series of 3 DVDs each was 16€ to ship. I was surprised by the amazon cost because they stated there was a 10€ minimum to ship to the US.

I noticed that the amazon shipping label showed it coming from New Jersey and it didn't have the usual excessive shipping paperwork. So either I got screwed on shipping because it wasn't available on the US site or they ship everything here in bulk for a lesser rate and repackage to ship locally. I am not particularly knowledgeable about international shipping outside of knowing it is costly.

Writing: Nope.

Talking/Recording:
I've had two 60 minute italki sessions since my last update. My fluidity is continuing to improve. The primary teacher I am currently working with is the best one I've ever had. I am thinking it's time to try out one of the conversation exchange sites and try to get a little more conversation in.

Listening:
Podcasts 75 minutes
Split between Veneto & Sapori and Best Video Feltrinelli

Film 97 minutes
MHz Choice: i bastardi di Pizzofalcone s1e2

I also ordered the first book in the Ispettore Lojacono and Commissario Ricciardi series. They are older books and have no electronic versions so it might be a while before I get to them. It seems like Sellerio the publisher of Montalbano, Schiavone and BarLume is completely committed to the ebook market while the other publishers are hit and miss on Amazon. Will they ever enter the 21st century and make all books available electronically worldwide?


Grammar/Vocabulary: Nope. I'd rather read now.

365 Challenge: I've still managed to do at least 30 minutes a day though I almost missed yesterday as we were out rather late after work. Thankfully I remembered and just barely got in 30 minutes of reading.

[lingua]

Book #30: Io non ho paura by Niccolò Ammaniti. I was recording my reading of this book for the output challenge over the last couple of months but I dislike the book so much I got fed up and finished reading it yesterday in record speed. While the writing was fine I found the book so unenjoyable that if it weren't for my 100 book goal I wouldn't have even bothered to finish it.

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30 actual books = 112 SC books

[lingua]

Reading:
L'ombra del vento arrived this week so I started it today and it seems to be an easy read although I've just barely started. Since I'm reading a hard copy and using it for my recorded output I'm not planning to look up words unless I'm completely stumped. I finished the fourth Rocco Schiavone book and will start reading the fifth one tonight.

Writing:
No writing this week and I really need to remedy this.

Talking/Recording:
I've had two 60 minute italki sessions since my last update. I also had a language exchange of which about 30 minutes was Italian. I recorded 76 minutes over three different sessions.

Listening:
Film 518 minutes
MHz Choice: i bastardi di Pizzofalcone s1 e3-5
DVD: Rocco Schiavone: Pista nera & La costola di Adamo

The Schiavone series is not that great compared to the books. It lacks a lot of detail. The quality of the DVD was not very good either and I was forced to use subtitles because the voices were garbled. I'll still watch the rest of them.

Grammar/Vocabulary:
I did Decks and some grammar this weekend. I am trying to use the Decks instead of Memrise but it renders poorly. I don't understand why they didn't just copy the existing Memrise and maybe change a few colors. The levels are weird as both directions are to the left of the words. When I tried to add to one of my personal courses the page rendering kept jumping around. Not a smooth experience. I hope they'll fix this.

365 Challenge: With all my reading I went from averaging about two hours a day the first two months osf the year to just over 2.5 hours a day for March.

Completed book #31: Era di maggio by Antonio Manzini. Schiavone has adopted a dog that goes nearly everywhere with him which explains the cover. I'm curious to see what the dog looks like in the TV series because it's a Saint Rhémy en Ardennes and I can't find a photo of one. It's supposed to be rare.

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