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The 1-year challenge: Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5689 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes  Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 65 of 244 18 August 2009 at 3:12pm | IP Logged |
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I had some difficulties to understand what you were talking about.
- Italian text ... we can't see - word counter ... using a extern computer program After reading the thread backwards I got it. Interesting and soon we want to read your novel! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 66 of 244 18 August 2009 at 3:42pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah I know, this log is getting quite big, and perhaps not the easiest to read for people who haven't been following the whole thing (or anybody really). Sorry :-) As you can all see, I can go on and on. And do, more often than not. So here's a brief overview of a couple of the things I do.
For reference, a description of my word count system can be found on page 6 (4th post from the top). I use an online word counter to give me the number of unique words based on the texts I've studied, as an estimate of my current vocabulary - it will be close to a realistic number later on, but is too low at this point, because it's based on recent texts only. My current way of studying texts using wordlists and translation goes somewhat like this: On day 1 I pick an Italian text I like and read through it, writing down words or idioms I don't know or am unsure about, looking them up as I go. In a second column I write the relevant part of the sentence in the text as an example of the word in the first column. Then I leave it for a few hours, and then go over the list and if I know the word I'll write down the translation in a third column. Then look up the ones that remain, and once I feel like I know them I write them down too. Then take a break again, and do the same thing translating back to Italian for the 4th column, until I feel reasonably sure about all of them. On day 2 I write an English translation of the text, using a literal translation where appropriate. On day 3 I go over the middle column, trying to recall the Italian word based on the translation. On day 4 I translate the English text from day 2 back into Italian. On day 5 I check my Italian text from day 4 against the original, writing corrections over what I wrote using a darker pen. It's been useful so far, but I might change this as I go along... Liz Edited by Lizzern on 18 August 2009 at 3:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 67 of 244 18 August 2009 at 4:36pm | IP Logged |
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Actually I might start 2 more texts today. I've finished text 4, going over the wordlist for text 5 took about 5 minutes, and I just did the first part of the wordlist for text 6. Two of the texts on my list were short ones, but I still definitely want to do them, so I figured why not do them both on the same day. We'll see how that works. That probably wouldn't work at all if they were longer, so why not, now that I can try it out. They probably add up to about the same amount of work as a normal-length one anyway.
Current word count: 1276 unique words, based on 6 texts. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 68 of 244 18 August 2009 at 7:15pm | IP Logged |
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Well you learn something new every day. Just finished the first part of the wordlist for the second text of the day and came across the word "idrofobo". From the context it made no sense for it to mean "hydrophobic", which would clearly have been my first guess if I'd seen the word in isolation. I looked it up of course, and the translations listed by WordReference were rabid and (fig.) furious. Never knew that there was a connection between hydrophobia and rabies, so I looked it up in English too and indeed rabies is listed as one meaning of the word hydrophobia. A couple of Wikipedia entries later, I've been duly informed that aversion to water is one characteristic symptom of advanced-stage rabies. See, I'll probably remember that now. I'll have to learn that in medical school eventually... This sort of thing should happen more often.
Moral of the story: Always look things up, things don't always mean what you think. In this case it was pretty obvious that the seemingly most likely meaning was wrong, but in other cases it might not be so obvious... In other news, I've seen some new and fun syntax in today's two texts. Actually, probably not even that new, I've probably seen similar things in Spanish or Catalan (don't remember though) but they're both pretty rusty, so I can't quite use them as a base language for Italian, unfortunately. Current word count: 1405 unique words, based on 7 texts. That's an average of about 200 per text, and it looks like things are going to continue that way - after 7 more I'll be a bit over 2800 - but I'm not putting anywhere near 200 words in my wordlist. Not even close. So I'll take that as a sign that this is doing what I wanted it to - it's clearly taking into account words that I already knew, so hopefully the total will eventually be more or less correct. When I get to the point where my word count changes by about the same amount of words as I put in my wordlist, it'll be as accurate as it's likely to ever be. Then, I guess, I'll take it from there. Ah well, that's all for today, promise. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 69 of 244 19 August 2009 at 8:20pm | IP Logged |
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Translated my 5th text into Italian today, which went better than expected. Sometimes, though, it's like I know the text so well by the time I do the translation (because I use example sentences from the text I'm using when I make my wordlist) that it can feel like I'm writing the text from memory. I might consider hunting down examples from elsewhere, but it would be too much work for too little benefit I think. And it's not like it's such an unspeakable sin to accidentally memorise whole sentences...
Anyway, things flowed pretty well and some of the problems I used to have with certain little details (minor but important ones, that wouldn't inhibit understanding but were still technically messy) are now no longer an issue. A lot of things still remain to be sorted out though, but at least I have some confidence that doing what I'm doing with texts is helping me achieve what I started doing it for in the first place. Not just in terms of vocabulary recall, which is somewhere between 90% and 100% depending on the text, but I've cleaned up some syntax problems from doing this, hopefully that will continue until I can produce it all naturally without having to think things over. Helps to have to actually have a go at it and then correct myself, instead of just studying the right way to say it - it feels like I can have more of an active outcome this way than if I just read things and move on, because I know that when I read things that I can understand without difficulty then I don't actually notice its use as much, so I don't necessarily learn it well enough to be able to effortlessly produce it myself. A couple of random things... I found some dual language books on Amazon the other day, but I'm not sure if I should order any. It might be a help, but it might be a step in the wrong direction, who knows? I'm not sure I want to start bringing in English too much at this stage, but I'm not sure, I guess it could be a faster way of doing what I'm doing with texts on my own, and I suppose I could pick up a lot of vocabulary in a shorter time as I wouldn't have to take the time to look up new words that are right there on the right-hand side (looking up one word doesn't take much time but if you add it all up...). I'm not a fan of fiction and whatnot though, I have no intention of reading random novels and the like, it's just not something I have time for in my life and I've never seen the point. There were some dual books on Dante and famous arias though, so I might try those. Anyway, I just ordered some cookbooks today - AJATT (or rather, AIATT) and all that - so I'm looking forward to learning more about the culinary delights of Italy, and I'd been meaning to learn to cook anyway (how did I make it to 23 knowing only a handful of recipes by heart? long story), so win-win. Also ordered a book on slang and, ahem, swearing - I'm not particularly proud to say that I understand an awful lot of filthy, filthy Italian (I probably know more swearwords than names of vegetables at this point). What can I say - it comes up. A lot. And I have yet to see an Italian text with a bleeped-out swearword. I ordered the book for the slang though, I don't intend to start using the swearwords (now or ever) but I do need to at least understand all this if I want to know the language to perfection (which is the obvious ultimate goal), and the slang part of the book will hopefully come in handy. Finally got some Italian music on my ipod (have been managing with Youtube and Spotify so far) but really should get a hold of some more. Recommendations are welcome. I've also noticed that I have a tendency to do that slight whistle thing on the S that they do in Spanish and (more importantly) Catalan. I'm not sure that's a local phenomenon in Spanish or if it's more widespread but now it's affecting my Italian, which is weird because first of all because it's been a long while since I spoke either of those, and perhaps most importantly because I never really did it in the first place. My Ls in Italian might be slightly affected by Catalan pronunciation, I'm not really sure yet, but that would be bizarre since I never actually spoke Catalan to any significant degree, just understood it passively (and probably a little better than I understand Spanish, which I used actively). I guess I just picked up the pronunciation thing just from listening to an awful lot of Catalan. Anywho, I do need more practice speaking, of course, and my accent isn't the worst ever, so it doesn't really matter. I'm not too worried about it because I somehow ended up with an American-sounding accent in English, so I reckon I'll just do my best and after a whole lot of talking and listening any remaining accent will go away on its own. Two more texts to translate today, Italian -> English, they're short ones so it shouldn't take too long. I'm still kinda finding it hard to believe that I'm actually enjoying this method, but I guess it's a combination of my texts being enjoyable to read, and actually seeing the results in terms of the number of words I know and syntax issues resolving themselves. If I get tired of doing it this way I'll change things around a bit and do something else, but for now, I'm enjoying it. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 70 of 244 19 August 2009 at 11:07pm | IP Logged |
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Just finished the translation of my other two texts (into English, the reverse translation is in 2 days), and I was right, it didn't take long, and felt relatively easy. At least now I know I can comfortably have my texts overlap in this way without spending too much time on any of the parts, so I'll carry on like this, starting a new text every 2 days. It means my translations always fall on the same day, but oh well, this is what currently seems most sensible in terms of time. I probably won't start 2 texts at the same time again, that only worked cause these two were short and straightforward. I made the translations quite literal this time, we'll see if that helps. It's weird to read completely butchered English but it's not like anyone's ever going to read it besides me! We'll see on Friday how I feel about it then...
Also spent some time practicing pronunciation today, I need to make sure I don't slow down too much from using texts as my main thing - doing things in writing gives me time to think about what I'm doing, but I need to be fast enough for things to flow properly (and hopefully correctly) in normal conversation. I'm going to try something somebody posted a thread about recently, that shadowing thing, or whatever it's called, where you read out loud along with the audio you're listening to. I'm not going to start doing that right this moment though, tomorrow is reserved for uni work and another semi-urgent project so I will only do the bare minimum as far as Italian goes - it's just going to have to be like that sometimes when there's a lot to do, but I'll make sure I do what I have planned for the texts I'm currently working on, and will start another one tomorrow if I have time, even if it's only a short one. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 71 of 244 20 August 2009 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
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Weird day. Kind of had a hard time getting my brain started this morning, so while waiting for the breakfast + tea + chocolate combo to kick in, I did the wordlist for the text I had planned for today, and listened to some government radio ( clicky ), which wasn't the best way to wake myself up, but linguistically interesting I suppose. It was all well-articulated and people were clear and on topic, and it was nice just to be able to follow it all with only a few vocabulary gaps getting in the way. They used quite a few words that I've recently learned from my text work, so yay. It's also fun to hear the slight differences in pronunciation, they let people speak for 5 min max so I got to listen to a lot of different people speak their piece. And now I've heard a grand total of 2 native speakers occasionally pronounce their Z with a slight lisp.
Minor change in my wordlist plan: From now on I'll do the English-Italian final part of the wordlist in writing on the 3rd day instead of on the 1st, working my way down the list and coming up with my best shot at an answer (spelling and all) before I double-check if I remembered the word correctly. If I'm wrong I won't write it down. I tried this today and I liked it better than doing the whole thing on the same day as the previous parts of the wordlist, because this way I can't just take things from short-term memory from what I've just done. I like having a bit of space between the different rounds so this seems to work. Also corrected my 5th text today and the mistakes I made were for the most part either accidental misspellings (bound to happen on occasion, but uncool because I actually knew how to write them correctly - I'm talking feminine endings here, basic stuff!), picking the wrong word out of two options (uccide vs ammazza), subjunctives (gasp! but tolerable for now, while I work stuff out) or forgetting to put certain nouns and their articles together with an apostrophe between them. ARRRRGH. Other than that, it's been a quiet day. I have an obscenely long list of vocabulary (uni-related) waiting for me to have yet another attempt at memorizing it all, so I'd better get onto that. Current word count: 1584 unique words, based on 8 texts. Still low, but increasing - and still changing by more than the number of words I put in my wordlist today, which is good. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5901 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 72 of 244 21 August 2009 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
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Well it looks like today turned into one of those days where anything Italian-related got left until the end. I blame it on a long nap - had to be done! Weekend, how I love thee.
Blah blah blah, the usual, translated two texts into Italian and one into English. I still seem to leave out some words when I do my wordlist for a new text, sometimes I don't notice this until it becomes a problem, other times I do it on purpose because I'm half-sure about a word and want to see if I could use the word as it currently stands without practicing it first. I've started leaving the untranslatables in Italian when I do my first translation of a text into English, cause I've given up on translating things like mica and (sometimes) proprio and various others, and it's not like I'm doing the translations for any other purpose than learning, so I don't see the point of spending any time trying to think of a fancy schmancy way of phrasing something in English that would encapsulate the meaning of these words. The vast majority of the times I encounter these words I can understand them anyway, so there's no real reason to give it any further thought. Leaving it in Italian seems to help me solidify their placement in a sentence too, so I guess it all works out. I'm thinking I should be less literal in my translations though, but I'm not sure. On the one hand, doing it this way helps me see issues with syntax more clearly, on the other I feel like I sometimes give too much away so that I don't have to think through those same bits of syntax that the method is supposed to help me with in the first place. Ah well, more experimenting to do I guess. In other news, I might get to go to Italy soon :-) Stay tuned... Liz Edited by Lizzern on 22 August 2009 at 9:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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