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Gary’s TAC 2013 - PAX | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 137 of 160 30 September 2013 at 10:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I went to an Italian guy's party at the weekend. I expected it to be full of Italians; in fact it turned out to be a fairly small affair, but there certainly were a few of them. There were also a few other Italian learners there so we all got to practise a bit, and of course there was one Italian guy who took the opportunity to remind all of us about how "useless" his language is and how we shouldn't be "wasting our time" studying it, all while the language was proving its utility by enabling us to understand and join his friends' conversations, and for me it was the third time in the week that the language had come in useful.
I should've just told him about the other, far more useless language that I study, French. After that, Italian is a breath of fresh air with all the opportunities I get to use it. One could of course argue that I deliberately seek out opportunities to speak Italian, which is accurate, but at the same time one of my main reasons for learning it in the first place was that I already knew a fair few Italians and hearing the language was quite a normal part of my life. Also, a party isn't a party if there aren't Spanish people there. At one point I was hearing Italian from one side and Spanish from the other, which made my head hurt slightly, and I found it quite hard to focus on one conversation and block out the other. Anyway September's been an insane month and I'm getting quite burnt out and starting to feel ill, sore throat in particular, so I'll try to take it easy this week and focus more on study and passive work rather than stressing myself out more with conversations and meetups. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4691 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 138 of 160 30 September 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | ||
Sounds wonderful! I just got back yesterday from my 4 days in Rome, and I'll try to write about it in my log sometime this week. Good luck with the preparations! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 139 of 160 30 September 2013 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Cool, I'll certainly be interested to hear about your experiences! The preparations are getting a bit stressful, with AirBnB hosts messing me around a bit, but hopefully it'll all work out and be worth it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 140 of 160 04 October 2013 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Questa settimana finora non è stata calma e rilassante come avevo previsto, la vita sociale non si ferma mai e inoltre stavo male fino a ieri. Però ho preso molto "input": radio, musica, leggere Insegreto e il mio libro, e pezzi di film e di video Youtube. Lunedì sera sono uscito con alcuni amici, compresi un paio d'italiani che ripartono per l'Italia... se avessi voluto avrei potuto parlare un po' d'italiano ma ero così stanco e non credevo di farcela. Ieri sera invece ho incontrato un'italiana e abbiamo fatto due chiacchiere... non avevo nessuna difficoltà ma la conversazione non era così profonda, diciamo.
I've done almost no French recently. Maybe a break is good for allowing things to sink in; that would be the optimistic perspective! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 141 of 160 10 October 2013 at 11:44am | IP Logged | ||
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Yet again the fabled quiet week where I catch up on sleep and do some studying never happened, so I don't have much to report. I've missed a few French events, but these days my motivation for French isn't very high, mostly for the obvious reason of the impending Italy trip but I'm also once again getting a bit sick of the people and the attitudes. I did go to the University meetup in the hope of some Italian, but I settled for half an hour of French before I started to feel too tired to converse in any language. Fortunately, despite the tiredness and lack of practice, my French level doesn't seem to be declining, although I felt a bit less "sharp" in the language than I often have recently. I'm still not sure if I'm going to put a whole lot more work into French, but I'm keen to keep what I've achieved so far. And like I said, a break is probably a good thing for me right now. Overall this year I've worked pretty hard on French and seen a ton of improvement, so I've earned it.
I'm supposed to be having a Skype call with an Italian tonight, and meeting up with a couple of them in the next few days. So that should get back on track at least. And... Italian Super Challenge Films: 99 done, 1 to go. Conversation hours: 100 done. After the rest of La solitudine dei numeri primi and a couple of episodes of something or Youtube videos, I'll be done. Couple of other points: - I've finally decided to join the smartphone generation. I figure it would be useful to have some sort of Internet access while travelling, plus being able to do Anki reviews anywhere would be quite useful. Hell, the thought of Anki reviews piling up for the two and a half weeks that I'm away was giving me nightmares. Now I'm just hoping it actually arrives before I leave on holiday. - I'm considering just doing my travel a bit more spontaneously rather than planning every detail in advance. Might just arrive in Rome with my five days in a room there hopefully sorted out and figure the rest out from there. It would be more of an adventure and allow me to do what I feel like at the time... Edited by garyb on 10 October 2013 at 12:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 142 of 160 12 October 2013 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finally!
Italian Super Challenge Films: 100 done. Conversation hours: 100 done. Been watching some stuff on the RAI and Mediaset sites. I've finally made a start on MT Greek, and I'm remembering that the whole beginner stage isn't much fun at all. So far it seems a bit harder than French and Italian, but easier than Russian. The pronunciation appears quite simple, and in terms of basic word order it actually seems pretty similar to Italian, but the basic vocabulary is quite alien. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 143 of 160 14 October 2013 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I chatted with an Italian guy yesterday, and he said my level was good but not quite fluent. It's nice to meet someone honest for once - as much as the usual exaggerated praise about my level can be a pleasant ego-stroke, I prefer realistic feedback.
Another MT Greek lesson, and everything I'm learning seems to be going in one ear and out the other, and I'm struggling to remember anything. And unlike the "real" MT courses, the students in this one seem to be pretty good and have incredible memories, which is a bit demotivating. I'll try to make it to the end of the course (if I can fit it in before I go away!) and see if things start to stick any better after all the repetition. I suppose it's good to take a break from the comfort zone of Romance languages and remember how much work it actually takes to establish a base in a language; I remember working through MT Italian with the audio at double speed and not having any problem keeping up. I've also been trying to find some interesting Italian TV series, but I'm not having much luck yet. Soap operas just don't hold my attention, and short things like Camera Café are fun but I wouldn't mind something with longer episodes that I can get more into. Might have to resort to dubbed series. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 144 of 160 16 October 2013 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Lunedì sera dovevo incontrare un'italiana per fare uno scambio ma lei non mi ha
risposto quando ho provato a confermare... ormai sono così abituato a questo tipo di comportamento che so di avere sempre un piano B. Avrei fatto bene a rimanere a casa visto che ero ancora stanco e stavo ancora male, ma c'era il Meetup Italiano e non volevo trascurare un'occasione di parlare la lingua, quindi ci sono andato per un'oretta. Nonostante avessi mal di gola sono riuscito a parlare abbastanza bene, più correntemente rispetto al giorno prima. Come dico sempre, l'essere circondato dagli italiani fa bene; spero che esserlo per quasi due settimane in Italia mi aiuti un bel po'! A questo proposito, sto ancora aspettando il confermo per l'appartamento a Roma... e infatti sì, anche in questo caso ho un piano B per premunire contro l'inaffidabilità italiana, cioè un elenco di ostelli e alberghi. Come non vado in alta stagione ci saranno sicuramente posti. Del resto il mio nuovo smartphone non è ancora arrivato e non so quanta probabilità c'è che arrivi prima della mia partenza. Senza questo, l'organizzare la vacanza sul posto sarà un po' più difficoltoso. Alla peggio arriverò a Roma senza casa e senza accesso a internet... in ogni caso sarà un'avventura! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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