Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

[StringerBell]

This makes a lot of sense! In this passage, the character was exhausted from overworking and unintentionally fell asleep (you could say that he passed out) then he woke up a few hours later; it wasn't a planned nap, it was an unexpected one. Your explanation makes a lot of sense with how the word was used. Thanks, again!

[StringerBell]

TECHNOLOGY UPDATE:

After trying in vain to download the program Arnaud linked, I was able to convince my husband to help. He's pretty tech savvy and he is an amazing problem solver, so I knew that if he got involved, my issue with the tracks of two of my audiobooks being out of order on my MP3 player would get fixed. After spending hours troubleshooting issue after issue, and downloading app after app that wouldn't work for one reason or another even after going into the terminal of my Mac to change settings...he finally realized that the problem was not related to ordering by tags.

Apparently, some MP3 players are programmed to randomly sort tracks based on the order in which they were imported to the device. It is unknown why they choose to do this with some files and not others. The way to get around this is to manually import the tracks in the order you want them to appear in the folder. So if anyone else is having the same problem, hopefully this helps.

POLISH:

I'll start off with some questions: What is the difference between odwieźć and zawieźć? When I look them up the the dictionary, I get the same definition (to drive / to take), and they appear to mean the same thing when I look at example sentences:

1) chodź, odwiozę cię do szkoły.
2) chodź, zawiozę cię do szkoły.

(Both seem to mean: Come on, I'll drive you to school.)

3) odwiozę cię do domu.
4) zawiozę cię do domu.

(Both seem to mean: I'll take you home.)

Next question:
Does "jeszcze dziś po południu" mean the same thing as "dziś po południu"? I'm not sure what the "jeszcze" adds in meaning.

Podrucę ją jeszcze dziś po południu. (I think this means: I'll drop it off this afternoon.)
Would it mean the same thing if it were written: Podrucę ją dziś po południu.

Lastly:
I think this is an idiom: dałam się oszukać
Does it mean something like: I was fooling myself

Now for my quick update:
I took this online grammar test to get a sense of my grammar level in Polish. (they have online grammar tests for many languages). There were 40 questions, and I raced through them. I was convinced that I would do very poorly because I really haven't studied grammar rules, I haven't practiced with conjugation tables, I haven't really done what I consider grammar study. The only grammatical stuff I have done was my grammar treasure hunts way back when. And when I take a look at things like this, I start panicking because I have no idea what any of it is about. However, as I was answering the questions, I noticed that almost immediately most of the right answers were really obvious because I just knew what sounded right.

There were a few questions (though not too many) where I had no idea and I just guessed an answer and moved on. I got 35/40 correct (88%) which placed me at a B2 level for grammar. While I think this is much higher than my actual grammar level knowledge, it did make me realize that I think my grasp of grammar is much better than I had been giving myself credit for. I still have much to learn, but this result was very encouraging.

Polish.png

ITALIAN:
Through the same website (Cactus) I took an Italian grammar exam and actually scored lower than I did on the Polish one (29/40 correct, 73%). I did rush through it, so it's possible I made some stupid mistakes, but I think it's more likely that it captured the legitimate black holes I have. In any event, I think it's not a bad score considering I haven't really done any actual grammar study (though obviously I need to a bit). I don't know what to make of this upset; I can without a doubt understand and speak at a much higher level in Italian than Polish. So while Italian grammar is no walk in the park I tend to therefore assume that my grammar knowledge in Italian is better than in Polish. Perhaps that's a mistaken assumption?

Italian.png

Anyhow, I watched a few episodes of Money Heist in Italian the other day when I realized I hadn't watched any Italian TV in a few weeks, and I've been continuing to practice writing out masculine articles every other day. I always listen to ~15 minutes of the Podcast Italiano advanced episodes while I'm in the bathroom brushing my teeth in the evening. There was a really funny episode recently where Davide and Erika played "Preferiresti?" (Would you rather). One of the questions was: Would you rather have 100 eyes on your head like an insect, or forever be swarmed by 100 flies no matter what?

I'm starting to tire of the articles practice now that I can pretty much do them in my sleep, so I think I will soon start focusing on a new grammar concept and try to weave in some occasional article practice to prevent myself from forgetting it entirely. It feels great to have finally mastered this article business.

[cjareck]

I'll start off with some questions: What is the difference between odwieźć and zawieźć? When I look them up the the dictionary, I get the same definition (to drive / to take), and they appear to mean the same thing when I look at example sentences:
1) chodź, odwiozę cię do szkoły.
2) chodź, zawiozę cię do szkoły.

(Both seem to mean: Come on, I'll drive you to school.)

3) odwiozę cię do domu.
4) zawiozę cię do domu.

(Both seem to mean: I'll take you home.)

Yes, in these cases they mean the same, but there is a little difference. The meaning is for "zawieźć", while "odwieźć" suggest that you take somebody back to a place where he came from. According to the above rule, you should say:
2) chodź, zawiozę cię do szkoły.
3) odwiozę cię do domu.
Because someone "belongs" to his home and he just visits the school. It is, however, my interpretation, probably correct, but not all native speakers are aware of it.

Next question:
Does "jeszcze dziś po południu" mean the same thing as "dziś po południu"? I'm not sure what the "jeszcze" adds in meaning.

Podrucę ją jeszcze dziś po południu. (I think this means: I'll drop it off this afternoon.)
Would it mean the same thing if it were written: Podrucę ją dziś po południu.

It just put more stress that it will happen today. To assure someone that she will be dropped this afternoon, even if the circumstances are showing that it is not that obvious (for example it is becoming late).

Lastly:
I think this is an idiom: dałam się oszukać
Does it mean something like: I was fooling myself

No, it is not an idiom. It means "I allowed myself to be fooled". I am not sure if my translation is correct, but it means "I was not cautious enough, so I let them fool me."

There were a few questions (though not too many) where I had no idea and I just guessed an answer and moved on. I got 35/40 correct (88%) which placed me at a B2 level for grammar. While I think this is much higher than my actual grammar level knowledge, it did make me realize that I think my grasp of grammar is much better than I had been giving myself credit for. I still have much to learn, but this result was very encouraging.

Congratulations! I think that your guesses were not "pure" guesses but you just started "feeling" the language and you felt what is correct without knowing the corresponding grammar rule. That is how native speakers speak.

[Wurstmann]

I wouldn't give those test results to much thought. It's not a good test. I did it for fun and got 40/40 for English and 39/40 for Chinese. And my Chinese is much worse

[cjareck]

Perhaps it does not measure the results above a certain level accordingly? I scored 34 in Hebrew, which placed me at "B2" also. I wouldn't consider myself that advanced because I do not fulfil the criteria which are described below the test results.

[StringerBell]

POLISH:

Since the speakers on my laptop kicked the can, I've been spending almost all of my time with intensive reading and some audiobook listening. I will easily fill up an entire notebook just with the notes from this one novel. Part of me kind of wants to do something with those notes like make flashcards (probably not) because I'm sure that would be super useful, but I just don't want to. So, I'll probably do either (1) nothing with them, or (2) flip through the notebook occasionally to remind myself of all the really useful things I wrote down but don't remember. An even better option is (3) to pick out one or two phrases/words ahead of time and try to incorporate them into my LE, which I did do last time. Seriously, I don't know why I'm not doing this more often, it kind of seems like a no-brainer.

I've read and listened to another few chapters in Dzieci z Bullerbyn...I'm up to Chapter 40, so I think I have 7 left. The last one was hysterical. The book is about a group of kids living in middle of deep countryside, Sweden, in 1939. In the last chapter, a kid gets a loose tooth and is terrified of trying to pull it out, so the other kid's amazing idea is to tie the tooth to a fence, then heat up a piece of iron in a fire and put it so close to his nose that he jumps back in terror, ripping out the tooth in the process. Needless to say, the loose-tooth kid did not go for the plan. They all go to the grandfather, who tells them about how it was in his time...growing up in a village with no dentist, so he when he had tooth pain he had to go to the blacksmith, who ripped out his tooth with blacksmithing pliers. The kids were amazed that grandpa was ever so young that he was afraid to have a tooth pulled, and he answers, "yeah, hard to imagine, now my teeth fall out all by themselves!" I almost bust a gut laughing at that.

ITALIAN:

I read through the entirety of Chapters 2 and 3 in my Complete Italian Grammar book. There are so many nit-picky little rules...my first inclination is to say, "Nah, I don't need to worry about these, this is way too detailed...and then I remember that I can't be in that mind-set anymore, it's time to start actually learning those nit-picky rules. After a while, I realized that those nit-picky rules are actually quite useful to me now, because many of them explain things I've been frustrated with.

I'm not writing these rules down, just reading through the explanations and examples. I decided to go back and reread these two chapters every day for a week before moving on. I'm noticing that many things are starting to take up residence in my mind; when I reread them, it's like, "Oh yeah, I remember this!" and they don't seem weird anymore. I think if I keep reminding myself with the explanations and examples, eventually it will become second nature. These are definitely things that would not have made sense to bother with in the beginning.

Some examples:
la foto, la moto, la radio are feminine even though they end in "o" (a traditional masculine ending) because they are shortened forms of "la fotographia, la motocicletta, la radiofonia" and il cinema is the shortened form of "il cinematografo". I love it when there's reason.

Chapter 3 was especially useful for explanations about when to use definite articles:

You use the definite article with geographical names (continents, countries, states, rivers, islands, mountains, etc...)
Le Alpi > The Alps
Il Belgio > Belgium
La California > California
L'Italia > Italy
Il Mediterraneo > The Mediterranean
Il Piemonte > Piemonte
La Sicilia > Sicily
Gli Stati Uniti > The U.S.

BUT not with cities:
Firenze > Florence
Napoli > Naples
Roma > Rome
Venezia > Venice

And you drop the definite article after the preposition "in" plus an unmodified geographical noun:
Vado in Italia.
Vivo in Francia.

But if that geographical noun is modified, then you have to use the definite article:
Vado nell'Italia centrale.
Vivo nella Francia meridionale.

Even though I've picked up a lot by listening and reading, I still was never really sure why sometimes you need a definite article and other times not (when it seemed like the meaning of the sentence was the same). Having rules like this now feel really refreshing.

I finished the Diario di una Schiappa book I'd been reading, and I'm now reading Noi Siamo Infinito (The Perks of Being a Wallflower). Compared to how much reading I've been doing in Polish, my Italian reading feels practically nonexistent. I need to step it up a notch, but my issue is finding appropriate material that's not too difficult, so I don't have to be glued to Reverso Context the whole time (which really turns it into a task I avoid).

So, I spent about 3 hours yesterday trying to generate a list of books that don't use passato remoto and are available in Italian (and don't cost $875 on Amazon, or some bizarrely inflated price). Not because I don't understand passato remoto, but because the only reason I'm reading in Italian is to strengthen my grammar and sentence structure. There is really no modern literature in Italian that I have even the slightest interest in reading, reading in Italian is purely a means to an end. I'm trying to choose books that will expose me to the right verb tenses (the ones I need when speaking). I also really like reading diary-entry style books in Italian (I could take them or leave them in English), because the language is mostly colloquial, so they're written in the way that people talk, which makes them especially useful (and easy to understand).

I couldn't find too many options, though I did come across one thing that's originally in Italian and from the earlier part of the 20th century: Il Giornalino di Gian Burrasca. I think it's a collection of short stories written as diary entries that had been individually published in newspapers or magazines way back when. It's supposed to be really funny, and since it's out of copywrite, it's pretty easy to find it cheaply.

I just discovered that I may be able to borrow ebooks via the library in Brescia, but they will only be available on smartphones/tablets (unlike my U.S. library which has an option to read loans on a kindle or computer). The idea of reading on my phone is pretty appalling, but I might suck it up and do it if I can avoid wasting hundreds of dollars on books I'm only reading to improve my language, and not because I actually want to read them.

If at some point I can get to a place where I'm really happy with my speaking and writing ability, then I will focus on reading what I would really love to read in Italian: D'Annunzio. But that's a long, long way off.

[cjareck]

An even better option is (3) to pick out one or two phrases/words ahead of time and try to incorporate them into my LE, which I did do last time. Seriously, I don't know why I'm not doing this more often, it kind of seems like a no-brainer.

I also plan something like that for Hebrew, but actually, I never did that. At least not consciously. Does it help to remember the phrases?

[StringerBell]

Yes, it does help, but I sometimes need to use it a few times before I can remember it without trouble (unless I come across those words/phrases again in reading shortly afterward). This is a good reminder to try to use the phrases that I used last time during my next LE because I think I've already forgotten them!

[StringerBell]

POLISH:

Is there a difference between "daj mi znać" and "daj mi znak"? (let me know)

I used "daj mi znać" in a message I sent, but later started thinking that I should have written "daj mi znak". I was worried that I'd written some kind of nonsense, so I looked them both up, and they seem to mean the same thing. Are they interchangeable?

ITALIAN:

I was messaging with my MIL in Italian this morning, and I was surprised by the complexity of what I was writing, and how freely I seemed to be able to write it. I did make a few minor mistakes, but compared to how I was writing a while ago, there's a big improvement. I wrote without even thinking about it: Sai da dove viene questa parola? (Do you know where this word comes from?). I remember being really tripped up on how to ask this kind of sentence last year. I even pulled out a congiuntivo correctly in another sentence where I wrote: Mi chiedevo se sapessi l'origine de la parola. (I was wondering if you knew the origin of the word.)

Another thing I'm proud of writing is "Ogni tanto si vede..." (Once in a while you see...or technically "one sees") because the English format of using "you" to mean "one" is such a tough one for me to override that I have to always remind myself not to use the 2nd person conjugation in these kind of situations. Somehow, today, it just felt really obvious that it was supposed to be written like that.

I'm not even sure what to credit for this improvement...I haven't started studying congiuntivo, so this must have lodged in my brain from something I read or heard. Seeing that I was capable of pulling out some sentences like this quite easily really made me feel good.

[hedgehog.chess]

Is there a difference between "daj mi znać" and "daj mi znak"? (let me know)
I used "daj mi znać" in a message I sent, but later started thinking that I should have written "daj mi znak". I was worried that I'd written some kind of nonsense, so I looked them both up, and they seem to mean the same thing. Are they interchangeable?

Daj mi znać=let me know
Daj mi znak=give me a sign
You could think of some specific situations when they could be interchangeable but their meaning isn’t exactly the same (just like in English). You used the correct one I would say in case of a doubt go with with “daj mi znać”.