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

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

Postby StringerBell » Mon Oct 28, 2019 4:20 pm

And I thought the Stoics were all about denying oneself the pleasures that make life bearable! (At least that was one of my main takeaways from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, but that is admittedly the only Stoic I've read so that could be an unfair generalization).

***********

LATIN:

I have just one final chapter left in my Cambridge Unit 1 book. I flipped through Lingua Latina and realized that I won't have any problem with this since it starts out super easy. I've heard great things about Lingua Latina, so I am eager to start it, but I'm not crazy about the typeface and layout of it. I'm sure I'll get used to it. I really like the structure and format of the Cambridge book, so part of me wants to do Cambridge Unit 2 before jumping into Lingua Latina. I found a used copy of Cambridge Unit 2 for $6, which is really tempting.

my options are:
1) Finish Cambridge Unit 1, then switch to Lingua Latina (forget about Cambridge Unit 2)
2) Order Cambridge Unit 2 and do that before switching to Lingua Latina
3) Do Linga Latina, then maybe do Cambridge Unit 2 afterward
4) Order Cambridge Unit 2 and do it simultaneously with Lingua Latina (as in one day with one book, the next day with the other book).

Does anyone want to vote on what I should do?

I finally had my first experiences where knowing Latin words helped me to figure out 2 words; one English and one Italian. This was quite exciting!

I was reading Antifragile the other night and came across the English word "mendacious" which I had never seen before. I immediately thought, "wow, that looks just like the Latin word mendax, which means liar. The context fit and when I looked up the definition it was "deceitful, dishonest, not worthy of trust". Very exciting!

While listening to an interview with a native Italian speaker on Podcast Italiano, he described a style of teaching as being "vituperata". I was unfamiliar with this Italian word but I immediately thought of the Latin word vituperat (tells off, insults) and it turns out that the Italian word has a similar (though not exactly the same) meaning, "defamed, berated, often-criticized".
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Oct 28, 2019 7:45 pm

StringerBell wrote:And I thought the Stoics were all about denying oneself the pleasures that make life bearable! (At least that was one of my main takeaways from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, but that is admittedly the only Stoic I've read so that could be an unfair generalization).
Mr Dearman mentioned Epictetus once or twice, so I started with him. (Italian_wikipedia | English_text)
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby rdearman » Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:10 pm

You can boil most of the stoic philosophy down to a simple sentence which is "don't worry about things you have no control over".
:lol:

You might want to look into a modern stoic such as vice-admiral
James Stockdale. You can still get some of the articles and things he wrote online. He was Ross Perot running mate back in the day.

He did not however write in Latin you'll have to read it in English.
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby Elsa Maria » Wed Oct 30, 2019 6:00 pm

StringerBell wrote:my options are:
1) Finish Cambridge Unit 1, then switch to Lingua Latina (forget about Cambridge Unit 2)
2) Order Cambridge Unit 2 and do that before switching to Lingua Latina
3) Do Linga Latina, then maybe do Cambridge Unit 2 afterward
4) Order Cambridge Unit 2 and do it simultaneously with Lingua Latina (as in one day with one book, the next day with the other book).

Does anyone want to vote on what I should do?


And here is yet another option:

Since you really like Cambridge, you could buy the $6 copy of Cambridge 2 now and pull it out when you hit a wall in Lingua Latina and need a break from it. It looks like the Cambridge series has five books.
https://www.cambridge.org/rs/education/ ... th-edition
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby StringerBell » Sat Nov 02, 2019 11:21 pm

LATIN:

I decided to go with Elsa Maria's suggestion. I ordered the $6 Cambridge Unit 2, but I plan to start in on Linga Latina once I'm done with the last chapter in Cambridge Unit 1 and probably do Unit 2 afterward.

I came across another English word that I was able to figure out due to my (tiny) Latin knowledge: impecunious. As soon as I saw the word, I immediately though of the Latin word for money (pecunia), and I know that the "im" prefix in English basically means "not" so I guessed "not having money". The dictionary said it was "having little or no money, usually habitually". Score!

ITALIAN:

I've not been doing any transcription since I finished episode 6 a few weeks ago. Partly because I've been focusing on beefing up my grammar and vocabulary with Anki, and partly because I just haven't thought to do it. Finally today I did 1/3 of episode 7, and I'm hoping to finish it up in the next few days. I'm still waiting to get episode 6 corrected.

I noticed that spending time to finally learn how to spell certain verb tenses has paid off during my transcribing (like potremo vs. potremmo, which I can't hear the difference between, but at least now I know which one is the future tense so I can use context to spell it right, whereas before I was just randomly guessing which one it was).

StringerBell's plans to overextend herself: :D
I'm thinking that I'm going to also commit to doing the Output Challenge in January. This time, I will focus on recording myself speaking off the cuff on various topics, rather that just reading aloud. This is something I really need to do more of, and I think it's reasonable to aim for 10 minutes per day, which is about what the requirement works out to. I'd also like to focus on my writing challenges, and I think at this point I'll benefit more from doing my own writing rather than scriptorium. Committing to the Output Challenge will hopefully help me stay motivated as time goes on.

Doing the Output Challenge will be in addition to doing a SC for both Italian and Polish. I think all this is doable mainly because I'm planning to do a R-L overload with parallel texts and audiobooks in the beginning to give me a jumpstart. It's very possible I'll be overextending myself, but I'm also excited by the idea of really challenging myself like this. Even if I can't reach the goal of pages read/words/written/minutes of speaking recording, I think it's still worth trying to do as much as I can in these areas, because they need improvement.

In the meantime, I'm really hoping to get through the Practice Makes Perfect book and my Transcription Challenge by December... but if I had a Magic Eightball, it would say, "Outlook not so good".
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby StringerBell » Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:25 pm

Episode 7 of Lucifer done! Wow, that took up a huge chunk of the weekend, but I'm glad it's done. Even though I procrastinate when it comes to getting started on transcribing, once I manage to get going it's hard to stop. There were one or two tricky spots where I couldn't figure out parts of a sentence, but for the most part it feels easier than it did during the first episodes.

Still reviewing grammar and vocab with Anki. I have a feeling I will reach my frustration threshold with it soon, so not sure how long this flashcard review routine will last. I hope to hold out at least until I can be done with the Practice Makes Perfect book.

I'm just about finished getting my Italian (and Polish) materials prepped for the start of my SC in Jan; For Italian I've got 15 books lined up (English counterparts will be from the library) and I plan to get the audiobooks from audible taking advantage of their "3 months for $7" deal. The rest I'll buy during those 3 months, since the prices will be 30% discounted if I buy them while being a member. I think 15 books worth of R-L should be enough to get me to where reading extensively is actually enjoyable... and if not, then I will just have to face that I'm not cut out for reading in Italian. I don't expect that to be the result, but you never know.
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby dampingwire » Mon Nov 04, 2019 10:45 pm

StringerBell wrote:I noticed that spending time to finally learn how to spell certain verb tenses has paid off during my transcribing (like potremo vs. potremmo, which I can't hear the difference between, but at least now I know which one is the future tense so I can use context to spell it right, whereas before I was just randomly guessing which one it was).


I was going to suggest forvo but the first few I listened to were sooo full of echo (and one seemed to have a randon ping too).

But this one sounds nice and clear (to me): https://forvo.com/phrase/magari_potremm ... sieme./#it

That one would work nicely with the future tense too. Recordings of those two in anki might help sort out your ears (since there's no context to help you). All you need is a mike and a willing SO ...
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby StringerBell » Thu Nov 07, 2019 12:23 am

Thanks for the suggestion, Dampingwire. Early on I tried to train myself with minimal pairs, but I still couldn't hear differences. Your post made me decide to try it again, so I recorded my husband saying these two sentences:

Domani faremo visitare i nostri amici.
Faremmo meglio andare al poligono domani.

I listened to them repeatedly and I still can't hear a difference. Every once in a blue moon when someone says a word with double consonants I can hear it, but I'd say it's probably less than 25% of the time. I know how to pronounce them differently, but I can't hear the difference when other people are speaking. So I think I just have to just stick to using context to figure out the spelling.

************************

ITALIAN:

I did some more work making Anki cards for some Practice Makes Perfect grammar points, and I realized that I actually only have 2 1/4 chapters left to do - I read through a bunch of the chapters at the end of the book this evening and realized that I already knew what was in some of them and therefore didn't need to spend time on them, or there were just a few little points here and there that I needed to learn out of a whole chapter - like instead of saying "la donna che..." (the woman who...) I could also say "la donna la quale...".

I read through the chapter on numbers but didn't make any cards, because I know these fairly well. Even though I do still sometimes make mistakes with numbers, I don't care to devote my mental bandwidth toward this topic at the moment. 2 1/4 chapters feels doable. This doesn't account for the Anki cards waiting to be reviewed, but I discovered a little trick, which is to make a ton of different decks for each topic so that there aren't more than 10 or 15 cards in any one deck. Somehow seeing lots of small numbers like 2 or 3 reviews waiting for me feels really doable (even though I've made quite a lot of decks at this point) as opposed to seeing just a few decks with 30+ or 70+ reviews waiting.

I feel my will to deal with flashcard reviews draining away; it's a matter of time before I give up on it all together. I'm just hoping to get through the PMP book before I decide to delete everything.

Magic Eightball, will I complete the Practice Makes Perfect grammar book and transcribing the last 3 episodes of Lucifer by the end of the year? Outlook Good

LATIN:

Last chapter: Tension is mounting. The characters (who live in Pompei) are hearing tremors from the nearby volcano and there's smoke and ash... but they made some sacrifices to their household gods, so they're not worried.
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby rdearman » Thu Nov 07, 2019 11:30 am

StringerBell wrote:I feel my will to deal with flashcard reviews draining away; it's a matter of time before I give up on it all together. I'm just hoping to get through the PMP book before I decide to delete everything.

Having a lot of decks is a false economy because anki doesn't calculate frequency across decks. You might want to look into Morphman. As far as running out of will to do the decks I have some advice.

"Eat the frog first". If you have something you are reluctant to do, then to that first thing! It means your day can only get better and the worst thing is out of the way.
"Make it a habit". My dog walking trick (e.g. do anki when walking the dog) made it a habit and habits do not require will power.
"Reward yourself". After you have eaten the frog, break of a small piece of chocolate and eat it, (assuming you like chocolate) this reward system will help make it a habit.
"Punish yourself". The carrot and the stick. The carrot was the chocolate reward, the punishment might be you don't allow yourself to eat, play a game, watch TV, other pleasant experience until the anki is done.
"Challenge yourself". Sign-up for the 10,000 SRS challenge on the forum to get through 10k cards in one year. (I did it in 7 months just walking the dog.)
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Re: Polski & Italiano (+ Latin) Episode II: StringerBell Strikes Back

Postby StringerBell » Mon Nov 11, 2019 12:20 am

Morgana wrote:Hopefully you're not approaching "several dozen" :lol: But just in case, I thought I'd give you a head's up.


As of now, I'm up to 18 and not noticing any problems. I probably will only make one more deck before I start deleting the ones that I feel satisfied I've practiced enough.

rdearman wrote:"Eat the frog first"
"Make it a habit"
"Reward yourself"
"Punish yourself"
"Challenge yourself"


Very good advice. So far, I've been trying to knock off a bunch every morning as soon as I wake up, but even making a habit of eating the frog first is becoming harder and harder to maintain. The punish myself thing doesn't work for me - I respond well to carrot, but never stick! :lol: As for challenge, I think my current transcription challenge is using up all my challenge capabilities at the moment. Ultimately, this flashcard review isn't something I have to do, so even if I give up on it soon, I think it's already served its purpose. I can always revisit particularly difficult grammar points in the future when I feel the need.

*********

ITALIAN:

I've got just 1 full chapter (on reflexive verbs) and a little bit of the end of Ch 14 left to go in the Practice Makes Perfect book. I'm tantalizingly close to being done with this book - it's been a hair shirt for the whole freaking year and I can not wait to be done with it!

I decided to only do Anki reviews for the decks I made specifically from PMP or a few other various grammar topics. I'm completely ignoring the decks of vocabulary I've made from various sources like books, articles, or TV shows. It's just too much to do it all right now. So my plan is to practice with the grammar decks I made, and once I feel like I have some kind of grip on them, delete them and maybe resume the vocabulary decks I made.

I finally got episode 6 of Lucifer corrected and posted. Episode 7 is still awaiting correction. I probably should have started on transcribing episode 8 this weekend since I had some time, but I really couldn't get started on it. I'm hoping to make some headway on it this week.

LATIN:

I'm halfway through the last chapter of Cambridge Unit 1. Unit 2 arrived in the mail the other day, but I'm going to hold off on it until after I've at least given Lingua Latina a fighting chance to steal my heart. I was thinking of revisiting Memrise Decks or doing a little Clozemaster for Latin (which I think exists) now that I have at least a little bit of a base in the language. This would just be a few minutes here and there, nothing serious. Not sure if this is a good use of time or not.
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