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Gary’s TAC 2014: Spanish, Italian, French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| suzukaze Triglot Senior Member Italy bit.ly/1bGm459 Joined 4594 days ago 186 posts - 254 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, Spanish Studies: German, French, Swedish, Japanese | Message 57 of 138 02 April 2014 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
My bad, I should have been more precise...now you’ll get a nice grammar-filled post ;) The definite article is optional with language names (italiano, francese…) after the following verbs: <insegnare>, <parlare>, <studiare> and the following prepositions: <in>, <di>. For example: • La mia amica tedesca parla Italiano. • Lei non sa scrivere in francese. • Studio francese da un anno e mi piace molto. • Mia cugina insegna Italiano agli stranieri. If referring to language knowledge instead, that is how well/bad you know a certain language, you must use the article with the following verbs: <conoscere>, <leggere>, <sapere>, <studiare>. • Conosco bene l’italiano, ma non il russo. With parlare there is a slight difference in meaning: <parlare Italiano> means to speak in Italian, whereas <parlare l’italiano> means to be able to communicate in Italian. Finally, if you add an adjective before the language name you must use the indefinite article: • Loro sanno parlare un ottimo Italiano.
Pisa is lovely, actually all Tuscany is. I used to go there on holiday when I was younger. Rome is obviously a great choice, but with only one day available you should plan your trip carefully. When I went to London’s Natural History Museum for the first time my group only had three hours to visit it…so we ended up running from one room to the other without really being able to see anything -.- EDIT: sometimes the word <italiano> has been capitalised, that's due to a bug as language names are never capitalised in Italian. Edited by suzukaze on 02 April 2014 at 11:33pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 58 of 138 07 April 2014 at 6:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the clarifications! I'm actually familiar with the "parlare" distinctions because French has much the same thing, although in any case they're quite subtle.
I was looking at flights and a new one the day after the one I was looking at from Rome has recently appeared on Ryanair's site, so it looks like I'll be able to spend two days in Rome! Maybe even three, if I go down a day earlier, which I'm tempted to as I know of a party happening, although I'm sure there'll be partying in Bologna too so it's just a choice of which party to go to. It's a hard life. I did the tourist thing last year so this year I'm more going just to see friends and relax a bit. Talking about partying, I did lots of it in the last few days, I've been getting insomnia yet again so I figured if I'm going to be up until the early hours anyway then I might as well enjoy it instead of just lying in bed. And some of that partying has of course been with Italians: I went to a house party where there were a lot of them, and the next day I ended up at a club that was also full of them. The party was good for practising, the club wasn't so much as it was hard to get talking to people and most of them seemed to be good friends with each other so it was quite cliquey. But I heard a lot of terrible, terrible European pop music from the last few decades, much of it Italian, so I suppose that's listening practice? It did feel like being in the country for a few hours which was cool. Other than that I'm getting back into the accent work and I'm still trying to refine my methods. I've done a few "sessions" that involve some phonetic analysis and some accent addition chorusing to practise the prosody followed by some reading from a page and then some self-talk to practise applying it to other phrases. This is still very much all trial-and-error of course but the whole point is to eventually be able to say everything with a good accent, not just the particular phrases used for analysis and chorusing, so I think there need to be some steps to go from specific to general. I'm also trying to pay more attention to prosody when listening and watching. Right now I'm finding it easier to say short phrases with good prosody but it's less clear on how it applies to longer sentences, in particular pitch. But the general pattern is relatively simple: almost all of the phrases in the example on Luca's site follow the pattern of a constant pitch until the accented syllable of the final word of the phrase which has a downwards "tone". Sometimes other factors like stress can fool the ear into thinking that there's a change of pitch but if you listen carefully it's often only the volume that's actually changing. Although from listening to longer phrases, it seems that when a longer sentence is divided into several parts, the non-final parts sometimes end on a downwards tone, sometimes a neutral one, and sometimes an upwards one. In the word "spuntino" in Luca's example, it's marked as a downwards tone, but to me it sounds more like upwards when he reads it near the end of the video. Which seems to be common for a phrase divided into two groups (in un leggero spuntino / consumato fuori casa). And then there are questions and exclamations and all the rest. I'm glad I'm just learning some Romance languages and not something like Chinese; I'd have a hell of a time trying to pronounce that correctly. I suppose the whole point of the phonetic analysis is to start noticing these things. Pure chorusing seems to be based on the idea that with enough listens and repeats you'll figure it out from the feedback loop, while phonetic analysis tries to be a bit smarter by making you listen for the prosody and work it out more systematically, from which you can then apply it to general phrases. I think both are worthwhile: the analysis to work out how you should be saying the phrases and how it applies to general speech, and lots of chorusing repeats to practise saying them and fine-tune. As always, the comparison to music is obvious, especially since I've been working on ear training recently. Knowing the scale shapes on the guitar gets you quite far, but you really want to understand where they come from and how to "build" them dynamically as you play based on the positions of the notes and intervals. Like the difference between being able to parrot a set of phrases the same way they're said on a recording and actually applying the same principle that their prosody is based on to your own phrases. Like I keep saying... this accent stuff is all a work in progress and it's a long-term project. I'm hoping to eventually figure out a method that works well for me, but there aren't going to be quick results. All this stuff is quite interesting, which I suppose is some consolation for not being able to pick it up "naturally" like some people can. Edited by garyb on 07 April 2014 at 6:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 59 of 138 10 April 2014 at 11:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ok, that last update was a big one, but I was keen to share these thoughts on accent. I'm starting to feel ill yet again, including the usual sore throat, so that might interfere with pronunciation efforts. I managed a few weeks of being healthy which is something I suppose. So a mini update this time:
I've finished watching Engrenages and Boris. Started on Profilages, which a few people on the forum have mentioned; so far it doesn't seem to be quite on the same level as Engrenages in terms of acting and writing, but so far it's well shot, interesting enough, and decidedly easier to understand (perhaps a good or a bad thing). For Italian I'll probably get a hold of the second series of Boris, there's still loads of episodes of I Cesaroni, and I've re-watched a couple of my old favourite films like Notte prima degli esami for like the 3rd or 4th time and I'm still spotting nice little bits of language that I hadn't noticed before. I'm sure Italian people would laugh at some of my film and TV choices, and I'd never watch half that sort of stuff in English, but at the end of the day they're good light-hearted fun and packed with everyday language and everyday situations. The Italians do the "everyday drama" thing pretty well, which is something I've found a bit lacking in French cinema. On the reading front, I've been doing it a bit more recently. I've been finding French Harry Potter to be good bedtime reading as it's not too heavy or challenging, and reading before bed is more relaxing than watching films or doing anything on the computer. At least in a language you know well; reading in Italian isn't quite as relaxing because it takes a lot more mental effort. I'm enjoying Ti prendo e ti porto via a lot. It's like a collection of different interlinked stories of different people from the same small town. Decidedly more "adult" than Io non ho paura, with no shortage of sex, drugs and violence. It's a fairly long book as well: I feel like I've been reading it loads but I'm still not even halfway through. As for Spanish, it's... going. Not a priority but I'm still getting through Assimil, one lesson every two days or so. I mostly just want to focus on Italian for the time being. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 60 of 138 14 April 2014 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I didn't have many plans for the weekend and I was wanting to take it easy anyway, so I had a lot of time. Still a bit of a sore throat so I wasn't really up for conversation or pronunciation work, so I just sat on my arse and watched a bunch of films and TV.
Some episodes of Destinos, Profilage, and Commissario Montalbano. I watched a couple of episodes of the latter early on in my Italian journey but between the length of them (almost two hours long, so one for quiet weekends only!) and my low language level I didn't continue. But at the weekend I strangely felt like returning to it; perhaps watching Profilage got me in the mood for more murder mystery. The stories are good and it's also interesting linguistically. We were discussing passato remoto recently in my log, and some of the characters indeed use it very frequently, even for discussing recent events. There are also quite a few words and expressions that I'm not used to hearing in most of the stuff I watch that is set in Rome and northwards. I finished it off by finally getting round to watching Romanzo criminale. I was just expecting some sort of gangster flick but actually it's one of these wonderful films about young people's lives intertwined with famous political events in Italy's post-war history, along the lines of La meglio gioventù and Mio fratello è figlio unico. I recommend it. Also a good one for getting used to Roman dialect. I also discovered by chance an Italian sketch series on Youtube, The Pills, as an Italian friend posted a link to it. I've watched a bit and it seems good so far. I think I've found something new to watch during lunch hour. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 61 of 138 22 April 2014 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice to see the forum back. Anyway I'm currently on holiday, in Budapest and heading
to Prague tomorrow, will catch up when I'm back. The hotel TV has French, Italian and Spanish channels so I'm getting a few minutes of practice per day. Can't say I've made much effort with the languages here since I'm only around for a few days... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5383 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 62 of 138 22 April 2014 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just a quick question on the accent stuff: have you been recording your progress? I
always wonder if it's worth it to invest the time in accent work and it would help a lot if I had examples of the progress that's possible (especially from someone who's already intermediate/advanced in the language). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 63 of 138 28 April 2014 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm back!
I've been thinking a lot about priorities and so on, and I've decided to quit learning French for the moment. I have a pretty good level now, even if nowhere near as high as I'd like, so I'm keen to at least maintain it and I plan to keep watching films and reading books and going to meetups, although not as frequently as before. But at this point I don't want to lose any more time trying to improve. My reasons aren't anything I haven't already written about at length, and anyone who follows my log will know that I've been considering it for a while: feeling like I'm learning it for all the wrong reasons, like I'm trying to prove something to the French and make them take me seriously after all my bad experiences with them, just to please my ego, and more pragmatically it just isn't a very useful language to me because of my apparent incompatibility with the French culture and people. And trying to reach a higher level when I don't have much possibility to use the language socially just feels like swimming against the current. I'll probably come back to it in the future but for now I'd rather spend my time on other things. Particularly music, my great love that I've neglected more and more since languages took over my free time. And generally I think I try to do too many things in too little time and there's a lot to be said for focusing on one thing. I'm also taking a break from Spanish because I want to focus on Italian before my trip. I'm quite sure I'll pick it up again afterwards, although I don't know how seriously. So for the next two weeks it's all about the Italian, particularly pronunciation and conversation. I also need to organise accommodation, which will most likely involve exchanging some messages in Italian.
To be honest I haven't really been recording progress beyond what I've already written here which is fairly subjective since it's hard to measure. I'm not sure how to go about recording progress. I probably should've made a recording of myself reading from a text before I started the work that I could compare against. I'll try to do one soon then another in a few weeks for Italian, since as I say I'm planning on doing a lot of accent work now. It won't be the same as a proper before/after comparison since I've obviously already done a lot, and reading from a text isn't the same thing as spontaneous speech (maybe I should do one of these as well, even if it's harder to compare), but it'll be something. I did a lot of reading on planes and trains while I was away, and I finished Ti prendo e ti porto via. Very well written book, perfect for modern language, but the story gets pretty dark and sad towards the end. Not exactly a light summer read. I'm keen to read more Ammaniti so I've started Io e te. I also made some highlights from the book as I was reading; I figure there must be some way to get these onto my computer and into Anki although I've not tried yet. I spoke a bit of Italian at the weekend, and someone told me I speak like someone from the North, perhaps Piemonte. I can't say it's my favourite accent or what I've been aiming for, but sounding like someone from anywhere in Italy is a great compliment and I must be doing something right with the accent work. And that was my first time speaking Italian for a couple of weeks so I was quite rusty. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 64 of 138 29 April 2014 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Went to the language café last night, and it just confirmed my decision regarding French. It's nice when you can look past all the ego-driven nonsense and see things for how they are. I made some half-hearted attempts at practising Spanish but the Spanish people just wanted to speak English, and I think the fact that I'm not focusing on it right now and I'm a bit rusty stopped me from wanting to be more assertive. I probably won't go back there for a little while since I'm not in the mood for French or Spanish and there are quieter and friendlier and more productive meetups for practising those anyway, and few Italians go. Plus there's a bit of friction between me and some of the other regulars there: it's clear that several of them don't like talking to me for whatever reason, and I get annoyed at the ones who're not serious and switch every conversation to English.
I realise that it's a social event rather than a language class and nobody's obliged to be serious and "work" all the time, but at the same time the people who come purely to socialise in English but sit at the Spanish/French table because they happen know a few phrases is unfair on those who're actually keen to improve their language. I'll be happy to have my Monday nights free and it'll probably be good for my health. I'm usually already tired by that time, and dealing with all the languages and people and noise makes it hard to switch off and get to sleep afterwards. I also made it to the Italian meetup which was much quieter and better, very pleasant overall. I managed to talk about quite a lot of things without too much difficulty, although there were some stupid mistakes that I know by now were mostly due to tiredness. I've started reading Io e te. Definitely an easier and much shorter read than the last book, and having been a bit of a strange kid myself I can relate to the story a bit. I should be able to knock it down in a few days. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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