Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

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Nathan_Canada
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Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:47 pm

I have been on the forum for a few weeks now and have been enjoying the logs of others, so I guess I will start off my own log. I'm hoping this log will keep me more in line and determined to accomplish my goals. Here is some of my language background.

Italian: I have been studying Italian since November and it has been going very well, I started off with RS but have since found that too easy. I am now mainly using italki, Memrise, Lang-8 and a little Duolingo. As well I am working on the first three Harry Potter books in Italian as well I've downloaded about 100 podcasts to my iPod in Italian (I try to listen to at least 1-2 a day). I also watch minimum of one episode of friends dubbed in Italian a day.

My biggest focuses here are listening comprehension and speaking. I find it difficult to understand a lot of what is being said when people are talking really fast and find it hard to pick the right verb conjugations when talking. My reading is certainly my strongest skill.

As for my goal, I would be more than happy with a B2 by the start of June.

French: As for French, I took about 4-5 years of it in school but have forgotten most of it. I will start with French again in April.

Hard to set a goal for French right now, but hopefully Italian will make it a bit easier (when I'm not mixing them up). I would like to be B1-B2 by the end of the year but we will have to see about that...

I will post here as often as I can and will try to use my TL as much as possible as well as a summary in English. Corrections from fluent or native speakers are always welcome and will be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:21 am

IT: Oggi, stavo leggendo un articolo che riguardava i fusi orari. Questo articolo era molto interessante. Adesso, so che da Londra partono i fusi orari (UTC+0:00); quando andiamo a destra, aggiungiamo le ore e quando andiamo a sinistra, le sottraiamo. Ma cosa succede quando questi fusi orari incontrano? Sorprendentemente, non avevo mai pensato a questo prima. Quello che accade è che c'è una differenza di tempo maggiore di un giorno tra i luoghi dove questo avviene.

Questo, naturalmente, non influenza la maggior parte di noi. Non è altrettanto vero per le persone che vivono nelle piccole isole e paesi come Nuova Zelanda, Fiji e Samoa Americane. Alcuni di questi paesi/isole sono vicini geograficamente ma temporalmente differiscono per un giorno. Per esempio, Fiji e Samoa Americane sono molto vicino sulla scala globale. Ma in estate nelle Fiji abbiamo UTC+13:00, mentre nelle Samoa Americane abbiamo UTC-11:00, cioè una differenzia di un giorno.

EN: I learned my 50 words on the memrise 'Duolingo Italian' course (words 900-950) for the day as well as watering all my other words. Will hit 1000 memrise words tomorrow :D (although I already know a lot more, really use it for spelling and to nail them into my brain, so to speak). I wrote the above Italian and got it checked on lang-8. Watched the first half of the movie Amici di letto dubbed in Italian as well as an episode of friends (on season 2 in Italian, watched it all in english, love it). Listened to two al dente podcasts and will hopefully read a couple chapters of HP before I go to sleep, overall, pretty good day for studying but no speaking practice again. *sigh* I have italki lessons once a week and usually visit my Italian grandparents once a week but this is not enough. I know I need to be speaking a lot more if I want to hit B2 my June. Need to get some Italian friends to speak to haha. Stay tuned.
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Mon Mar 13, 2017 11:53 pm

IT: Questa settimana spero fare più italiano che ho fatto la settimana scorsa. Ho fatto le mie parole per Memrise solo alcune dei giorni volevo. Sono fate le parole 1050-1100. Sono alcune centinaio dietro da dove vorrei essere. Ho una lista crescendo revisionare perché il mio lavoro che era inaspettato. Ho fatto fare un lezione di Skype sulla domenica ma perché è stato fatto i giorni prima. Anche io completo una coppia di capitoli di Harry Potter e il film, Amici di letto. Sfortunatamente, il website dove ero guardo i episodi di Friends non ha Friends non più. Allora, io ho trovare una programma nuova questa settimana, magari i Griffin? Non ho guardato troppi di questi episodi in inglese, ma ho piace molto che ho visto.

EN: This week I need to do more Italian then I did last week. I did my words for memrise only a few of the days I needed to and today am only doing words 1050-1100. I am behind from where I should be and have a growing list to review due to some unexpected work this weekend. I did manage to get in my Skype lesson on Sunday only because I had it scheduled beforehand. Aside from finishing Amici di letto as well as reading a bit more of Harry Potter, not too much new, except that the website I was watching friends on took the show off, unfortunetly. I guess i need to find a new show, maybe family guy... although haven't seen to much of it in english.

I didn't get this checked on lang-8 beforehand so its probably pretty bad, hopefully the italian isn't too bad either. :D
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Mon Mar 20, 2017 6:06 pm

IT: Un'altra settimana ha finito e non sarò fare questo aggiornare troppo lungo. Ho fatto italki lezioni per lunedì e martedì (oggi e domani) questa settimana e spero fare i lezioni ogni giorno da lunedì a venerdì avere qualche pratica vera con la lingua. Sfortunatamente la lezione questa mattina non era troppo bene, l'uomo voleva fare più di meta le lezione in inglese, quando ho detto lui prima che io bisogno specificamente praticare parlando e comprensione orale. Fiduciosamente, la lezione domani sarà migliore. Bisogno fare più italki sessioni per questa settimana.

I Harry Potter libri sono andando bene. Più lentamente, ma bene. Ho circa un terzo del libro finito (Un po 'più di un centinaio di pagine). Solo ora io sono realizzando che cosi tanto del testo era passato remoto. Trovo molto interessante che questa tempo è utilizzare non quasi mai nella vita reale (eccetto il sud, sento io), ma cosi estesamente nella letteratura.

Sono pensando di comprando "Assimil New French With Ease" questa settimana online, non ho mai usato questo programma prima ma alcuni di voi ragazzi lo amano. Suppongo è troppo tardo ottenere l'italiano versione.

EN: In summary, I am trying to make an italki lesson every day from Monday to Friday this week, I'm over a third into my first Harry Potter book in Italian and I will hopefully be ordering Assimil's "French With Ease" program sometime this week although I haven't used there programs before.
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Xenops
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Xenops » Mon Mar 20, 2017 7:03 pm

Welcome to the forum! You've only started with Italian in November and you're already intermediate? :o Well done!

I've contemplated added Italian to my plate, but my concern would be mixing up the two languages. How do you plan to keep them separate?
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Mon Mar 20, 2017 8:08 pm

Hey Xenops, thanks for the response! I have thought about that a bit, I will do the Duolingo IT>FR course to highlight the main differences, but I've read that mixing things up is more so of a problem with Spanish and Italian or Portuguese and Spanish (and its one of the reasons I am learning French as a third language over Spanish). Although French and Italian are very similar from what I have read the spelling and pronunciation are different enough that I shouldn't have too hard of a time once I get Italian down. Maybe someone else can chime in though with their thoughts.
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Tue Mar 21, 2017 10:43 pm

The italki session today went better than yesterdays. Although I didn't make one for tomorrow, I did for Friday and Sunday (as well as Wednesday next week) and I will try to make one for this Thursday. I binge watched the first season (7 episodes) of family guy today in Italian (no subtitles!). Reviewed 500 memrise words. Im pooped :P . Still gotta learn my 50 words on memrise, I don't think I'll be reading any Harry Potter today.
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reineke
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby reineke » Wed Mar 22, 2017 4:24 am

Hi Nathan

Your writing appears a deliberate word-for-word translation of what you've already formulated in English.

Constructions like "sono pensando di comprando" don't exist in Italian. Look up some Italian expressions.
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Nathan_Canada
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby Nathan_Canada » Wed Mar 22, 2017 5:11 am

Hey reineke,

Ya, I am fairly new to 'producing' Italian myself so a lot of it comes from my thoughts that more often then not start off in english. The result is a lot of Italian phrases that don't really make sense I guess. I do write the Italian first though when I write up these entries then translate to the english summary but I guess since I'm usually thinking first in english the thought progress is EN>IT>EN. Probably not the best learning strategy...

I will take your advice, tomorrow I will put some work into making a list of frequently used common expressions, such as finding the real Italian equivalents of "I am thinking of buying...", "I am hoping to work...", etc, etc... I have overlooked this and it shows.
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Re: Oltre le Stelle- Italian and French

Postby reineke » Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:51 pm

Chi va piano va sano e va lontano.
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