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Italian - 1000 Hours | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5698 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 25 of 152 05 December 2010 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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191 hours
I'm quickly approaching my 200 hours milestone and have begun thinking about some simple tests I can do to gauge my progress at this point. If any of you have some ideas for things I could do to test my Italian after 200 hours, please post! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5690 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 26 of 152 05 December 2010 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You can do this test:
http://www.raffaellosanzio.eu/index.php?lang=ENG&page=59 And you can begin to write: to traduce jokes, to tell us an event happened during your daily life or a description on some marvel you've seen. This writing in the Italian thread of course. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5586 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 27 of 152 05 December 2010 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the link staf, I just took the test myself and to my surprise I scored in the
C1-C2 range. Unfortunately this is nowhere near my speaking ability but it maybe is a good indication of one's knowledge of grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5123 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 28 of 152 05 December 2010 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't know if they still have it but www.italicon.it used to have a fairly comprehensive test too, about double the length of the Raffaello Sanzio test.
R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andy E Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 7096 days ago 1651 posts - 1939 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 29 of 152 06 December 2010 at 10:18am | IP Logged | |||||
I believe it is actually a replacement for the Lei form rather than tu - hence the exercise in Lesson 47, for example. The first time I noticed this was in Lesson 33: Giacomo, è quella la madre dei maialini che mi avete fatto vedere una quindicina di giorni fa? I initially assumed someone else was present (hence the plural) but as context seemed to indicate otherwise, I decided to check on its usage. Wikipedia has some interesting information on this including a short-lived attempt by the Fascist government to ban the use of lei and replace it with voi - with the latter being considered "more Italian": T-V Distinction (Italian)
Well, as others have pointed out, it is certainly old-fashioned but the plural usage is still current so learning the verbs forms is essential - I'm simply ignoring the fact that only one person is being addressed. Using Italian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage has the following to say about it: Voi, used to one person, is disappearing but still survives especially in the Center and the mainland South. It is used as a mark of respect to persons with whom one is, nevertheless, on familiar or intimate terms, e.g. older relatives, priests, shopkeepers in one’s village or suburb. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5698 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 30 of 152 06 December 2010 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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194 hours
Very informative -- thank you Andy. It's funny you should mention your feelings about that particular lesson (lesson 33), because I felt exactly the same way. I began to justify it by picturing more than one person but after a few too many examples of where the speaker was quite obviously addressing just a single person, I began to become confused. The clears it up. I'm also glad that it is still in usage (albeit, a little) and not completely archaic. For a few days I was uncomfortable with continuing with the old Assimil for this reason and a few others, even though I am I finding it very instructive. However, you've helped to reinvigorate myself again - thanks. Plus, I'd miss the old Assimil jokes too much. Here is one of my favourites recently: In in scuola elementare: Che cosa sono i quadrupedi? Gli animali con quattro gambe. Per esempio? La sedia, il tavolino, due galline... I'm beginning to really enjoy the jibes towards the Italian education system, army, particular provinces/cities, etc -- all in good humour. Some of the cartoon are priceless, too. Thank you to others for recommendations for tests. I'll be sure to check those out. Edited by Oasis88 on 06 December 2010 at 1:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5200 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 152 06 December 2010 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
I just did the test and I also got C1-C2, and trust me I've not studied any more Italian since my original post in this thread so sorry to say that the results can't be very accurate in terms of "useful" knowledge :P. Seems like it's purely a test of grammar, basic vocab, and verb conjugation, which are the only things I know to any decent level in Italian. As far as real life speaking ability I'm probably about an A1 because of my tiny vocabulary, haha. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5698 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 32 of 152 07 December 2010 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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200 Hour Milestone
Well I'm happy to say that I've now reached my first mini-milestone -- 200 hours completed! I was looking around the forum to see what people had to say about what is possible after studying for 200 hours. I found this interesting passage which summarises nicely how I feel right now with my Italian abilities.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=15339&PN=22 The reason why I started to record my hours was mostly because it motivates me. However, I also decided to record my hours because I wanted to use myself as an experiment to answer the question "how long does it really take to learn a language?". While it is hard to gauge progress -- I've tried. Firstly, here is a breakdown of how I spent my first 200 hours. The second graph shows a break down of what I called "didactic" learning tasks. 
And now for some indicators of how I'm doing. Test 1 Scored 27/30 - Advanced B2 http://www.esl-languages.com/en/study-abroad/online-tests/it alian-test/index.htm Test 2 Scored 31/45 - C1-C2 http://www.raffaellosanzio.eu/index.php?lang=ENG&page=59 These tests are of course ridiculous and have no wider bearing on my language abilities. I do think they indicate nuanced grammatical understanding which these scores indicate pretty accurately. Most of my time was spent with the kinds of materials which explicitly teach to these kinds of test so it's no surprise that I did okay. Reading Tests Reading is a little easier to gauge. What I did was read 3 different articles of about 300-600 words in length. All three articles I chose more or less randomly from the "cultura" section on the Corriere Della Sera website. I read the articles and highlighted each word that I couldn't deduce from the context. Article 1 Piccolo Principe, un ritorno in versione manga 9.48% unknown words - Medium/High comprehension http://www.corriere.it/cultura/10_novembre_29/montefiori-pic colo-principe_620350ea- fb96-11df-bfbe-00144f02aabc.shtml (remember to remove the space when pasting the link) Article 2 Article on Picasso 6.48% unknown words - Low comprehension http://www.corriere.it/cultura/10_novembre_29/montefiori-pic colo-principe_620350ea- fb96-11df-bfbe-00144f02aabc.shtml Article 3 Cristoforo Colombo? Era polacco 5.27% unknown words - High comprehension http://www.corriere.it/cultura/10_novembre_29/tortora-colomb o-polacco_bf5d9ebc-fbb4- 11df-bfbe-00144f02aabc.shtml Reading: So my reading seems to be progressing along nicely. I plan to just continue reading with the goal of increasing my passive vocabulary and handle on syntax. Listening: Anything beyond Assimil style lessons is still quite difficult. I'll be focusing on my reading comprehension as a way to indirectly influence my listening abilities. Speaking: I've only muttered a number of a Italian phrases in the presence of other people so this is obviously my least developed skill. I'm still very much focusing on input for the time being. Writing: Same as above, this will come with time. For now I just want to expose myself to as much Italian as I can. Well there we have it... 200 hours down. Time to keep moving -- I've got a bit to go yet to reach my goal of 1,000. For my next few hundred hours I think the goal will be to really work on my reading fluency with a slow abandonment of the didactic materials. Any ideas on how to proceed from here? 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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