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Gary’s 2015 TACtivation: FR, IT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 81 of 187 17 March 2015 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
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I've also heard these statements about the pronunciation, like claims that you need to live in France to learn it correctly. I agree that it's difficult - like I say, I still struggle - but it's just one of many aspects of the language. The differences between the written and spoken language are also overstated; the writing system is strange at first but really it's quite regular, once you know it you can usually pronounce a new word just from looking at its spelling. I suppose people just judge languages' difficulty by the superficial and obvious aspects, like how they say Russian is difficult just because of the alphabet when in reality that's the least of the difficulties that learners face...
More news: I've volunteered to help out with an Italian theatre play in the next couple of days. Could be interesting! And the guests arrive tomorrow, so it might be an intense week. Media update: - Started reading L'appel de l'ange. I'm not convinced by the plot just yet, but the language is exactly what I had hoped for. Modern, lots of dialogue and colloquialisms. Good difficulty level, it's not too hard to read but there are some good new words and expressions. - Still slowly reading Esche vive. At times it feels a bit like a poor man's Ammaniti, similar idea of the stories of different people in a small town whose lives cross paths but not pulled off with quite as much finesse, but it's still enjoyable and again it's very modern and colloquial. I'm not claiming Ammaniti is the original or best at that sort of thing; he's just what I'm already familiar with. To keep comparing them, Genovesi's writing is a bit more straightforward and less descriptive, so more approachable for a learner. - Watched Amici miei. Like most of the classic Italian comedies I've seen I thought it had good moments but it was long and dragged on a bit. - Watched Io sono l'amore, the only remaining Italian film on Netflix that I hadn't seen. Didn't find it engaging or memorable at all. - Onto series 2 of Fais pas ci, fais pas ça. It's a bit different from the first, more dramatic and absurd, but it's well done, it manages to find a balance between fun and cheesy. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 82 of 187 17 March 2015 at 6:25pm | IP Logged |
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Merci pour les recommandations, en particulier pour celle de L'appel de l'ange. J'ai déjà lu deux ou trois livres de Guillaume Musso, et même si je trouve ses oeuvres un peu niaises, elles m'ont beaucoup aidé avec la compréhension du français. Ça fait presque deux années, peut-être c'est le moment d'essayer un nouveau livre écrit par lui afin de comparer ce qui a changé dans ma compréhension des subtilités de la langue et de la culture. J'ai toujours besoin de lire davantage un langage plus familier, d'ordinaire j'ai de l'exposition au langage familier grâce aux séries télévisives.
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| 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 83 of 187 18 March 2015 at 10:38am | IP Logged |
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De rien ! Je suis content d'avoir enfin trouvé des livres qui sont écrits dans un français familier et moderne, même s'ils ne sont pas forcément des chefs-d'œuvre. D'autant plus que je n'ai pas beaucoup d'occasions sociales pour entendre du langage familier. Effectivement les séries aident jusqu'à un certain point, mais c'est bien de le voir aussi à l'écrit, et en plus je crois que les livres permettent de connaitre la culture à un niveau plus profond.
Jusqu'ici ça me plait assez. L'intrigue, bien qu'un peu niaise comme tu l'as dit, est assez captivante pour que j'aie envie de continuer et de savoir ce qui se passera, et ça c'est l'important. Edited by garyb on 19 March 2015 at 11:53am 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 84 of 187 18 March 2015 at 11:51am | IP Logged |
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Ieri sera sono andato alla prova dello spettacolo Italiano. Mentre il mio compito principale è di spostare i mobili della scena tra gli atti, devo anche dare l'imbeccata, cioè, seguo il copione e quando un attore dimentica le battute io gliele ricordo. A giudicare dalla prova, ciò succederà abbastanza spesso. Per questo, sarà importante pronunciare bene e in modo chiaro.
Yesterday evening I went to the rehearsal of the Italian play. While my main job is to move the furniture for the scenery between the acts, I also have to prompt, that is, I'll follow the script and when an actor forgets the lines I'll remind them. Judging by the rehearsal, this will happen quite often. For this, it will be important to pronunce well and clearly. Lo spettacolo è ambientato a Napoli; la metà degli attori sono napoletani e parlano con un accento abbastanza forte. Per fortuna ho già visto alcuni film napoletani e ho un paio di amici della regione, così riesco a capire! Mentre non parlano dialetto stretto, la pronuncia e certe parole non sono "standard". L'altra metà non sono Italiani, ma studiano la lingua all'università e francamente i suoi accenti sono impressionanti. Si sente che non sono Italiani, a volte l'intonazione non sembra del tutto naturale e sbagliano qualche suono, ma tutto sommato sono bravissimi e io sono un po' invidioso! Mi domando se abbiano fatto qualche addestramento d'accento (la parola "addestramento" va bene in quel contesto o andrebbe meglio un altro modo di dire?). The play is set in Naples; half of the actors are Neapolitan and speak with quite a strong accent. Fortunately I've seen a few Neapolitan films and I have a couple of friends from the region, so I manage to understand! While they don't speak in proper dialect, the pronunciation and certain words aren't "standard". The other half aren't Italian, but they study the language at university and frankly their accents are impressive. You can tell that they're not Italian, at times the intonation doesn't seem completely natural and they get some sounds wrong, but all things considered they're great and I'm a little envious! I wonder if they've done some sort of accent training (would the word "addestramento" for "training" work in this context, or would another expression be better?). Mi meraviglio ancora che nella mia città ci sia un gruppo teatrale che fa spettacoli in lingua Italiana! E tra qualche settimana ce n'è anche uno in francese, che spero di riuscire a vedere. E pure uno tedesco, però di quello me ne farò a meno visto che non capirei niente. I'm still surprised that in my city there's a theatre group that does Italian-language shows! And in a few weeks there's also one in French, that I hope to make it to. And even a German one, although I'll give that one a miss seeing as I wouldn't understand anything. Edited by garyb on 18 March 2015 at 12:04pm 2 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 85 of 187 20 March 2015 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
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The last few days have been fun, practically Italian semi-immersion. On Wednesday I was at the play, then went to a Couchsurfing meeting where I spoke with some more Italians, then went home and spoke more Italian. Then yesterday I chatted a bit with my guests: it was a trilingual conversation as everyone could understand every language but at times each person found it easier to explain something in their own. Maybe not efficient for learning if you can always fall back to your native language when things get tricky, but good fun and a nice challenge for practising switching between languages which is a skill in itself.
Speaking Italian is feeling more and more natural to me, in a way that French never has. Even if my speech is still far from correct or fluent, words and expressions are feeling more at the tip of the tongue and coming to me more subconsciously. I don't know whether this means that Italian has finally overtaken French, or it's just a short-term effect from all the exposure in the last couple of weeks and I'd feel similar with French after a couple of weeks of socialising in it. Too many variables to draw any sort of conclusion, but whatever it is, I'm happy with the Italian progress. I'm going on holiday tomorrow, and won't be on the forum much or at all for a week. I'm tired out and need a break, including taking it easy with the net and social media. I've still not looked at any German phrases. Could do a Benny Lewis and read a phrasebook on the plane, although I've not even had time to get a phrasebook. I could print out phrase lists from Omniglot or something. When I come back I'm going to attempt to do a two-week French burst before my trip there. There are possibilities: I've contacted a few French people I know through meetups/couchsurfing, my French guest will be around for a few more days, I've had a message from a Belgian on Conversation Exchange who seems quite keen to talk to me (but as usual I'll wait and see!), I've made a list of some potential informal tutors in iTalki, and I have no shortage of series, films, and books. Some pronunciation work, and re-watching some key parts of La prononciation français pour de vrai, would also be nice. No way I'll have time for all of that, but I'll see what I can do. I want to see just how much I can "activate" French with a couple of weeks of work followed by a trip to the country. It should be an interesting experiment and, as I might have already said, help me decide whether I want to continue with French, and if so, how. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 86 of 187 21 March 2015 at 6:07am | IP Logged |
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I love how Italians use "in modo chiaro" - in Romanian you use exactly the same
construction (pronounced somewhat differently though). A Romanian would say "în mod clar", but they could also say "limpede" (like French limpide). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sarnek Diglot Senior Member Italy Joined 4207 days ago 308 posts - 414 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: German, Swedish | Message 87 of 187 21 March 2015 at 7:53am | IP Logged |
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@garyb: Io direi "corso di dizione" quando si tratta di acquisire (o migliorare) la
pronuncia Italiana "standard". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 88 of 187 23 March 2015 at 9:42pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Gary, you've mentioned a couple of Houellebecq's books. Have you heard the album Aubert chante Houellebecq: Les parages du vide? Interesting collaboration between musician and poet. Here's a video clip: Isolement. Some of the other clips are just Aubert and Houellebecq discussing the songs and poems (and these discussions are pretty much beyond my comprehension). Anyway, you might enjoy the album.
(Here's an alternate version of Isolement, with additional vocals by some other dude. I can't figure out what language that other guy is singing in. Is it Spanish or Italian?) (EDIT: I spoke with an Italian-speaking student, and it's definitely not Italian. He thinks it may be Greek.) Edited by Jeffers on 25 March 2015 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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