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Italian - 1000 Hours | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 57 of 152 09 January 2011 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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You are pretty badass, Oasis, your regularity is impressive.
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| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5704 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 58 of 152 10 January 2011 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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298 hours
Thanks for the support. Exciting times - next update will be my 300 hour write-up. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5704 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 59 of 152 11 January 2011 at 10:06am | IP Logged | ||
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300 Hours
Okay folks well it's that time again for another write-up. So... 300 hours of Italian - it's crept up pretty quickly. Let's have a look at what I've been up to. Firstly, let's have a look at the graphs. Overall Summary - 300 Hours Didactic - 159 hours = materials made specifically for language learning Vocabulary - 46 hours = Anki time and time spent trawling through the dictionary to create word lists Input 93.6 hours = native materials (listening and reading) Output - 1.6 hours = speaking, writing, conversing 
Didactic Breakdown 
Input Breakdown 
Notes: LR - This isn't really true LR. I read in L2 and listen in L2. Intensive Reading - More or less reading with a dictionary and taking my time to make sure that I understand everything. Extensive Reading - Reading without a dictionary and not worrying about the unknown words. This doesn't really suit my personality because I find it too frustrating. I just want to know everything! I feel as though if I can get my reading comprehension to 98% I'd lose the dictionary. My Spreadsheet And here is a look at my Excel Spreadsheet for those that are interested. I get a green square if I clock more than 3 hours that day, a yellow square for anything less than 3 and a red square for nothing. 
Analysis I thought it would be interesting to have a look what I wrote a little while ago. Here is what I wrote in my 200 hour milestone write-up:
It definitely seems as though I've achieved this. At that time 63% of my time was spent with didactic materials, while I am now down to 53%. That certainly appears to be a "slow abandonment". My reading comprehension has definitely increased as well. I have taken tests for reading comprehension after each Harry Potter chapter and I've gone down from 9.6% to 5.12% in 7 chapters. I'll post more about this once I finish the book. A word on Assimil My use of Assimil has come to a complete standstill at lesson 83. About 3 weeks ago I became completely disenchanted with the course and stopped using it. Over the next few days it dwindled down to a complete stop. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why this is the case but I believe the main reason is due to the fact that I find myself trying to decipher each lesson as though it were an enigma. Honestly, some of the jokes and proverbs would be difficult for me to understand even in English, given that Italian without Toil was produced in the 50s. I feel I'm making sufficient progress without it especially since I'm beginning to understand fluid spoken speech from audio books. To me, using Assimil at this point feels redundant and frustrating. What can I "do" after 300 hours? I've learnt a lot but I still can't produce a lot of Italian (even though I haven't really tried or at all made this the focus of my studies as you can see by my non- existent output numbers). Here are some tangible things that I can do. Of course, it's very hard to gauge progress but we can at least try. - I can read chapters of Harry Potter with around 94% inaccuracy (percentage of total words that I can immediately attach meaning to). This looks like a high number but it translates to about 10-20 unknown words each page and can be slow going. - I can understand slow speech about every day topics - I can understand Pororo, a children's cartoon. - I could get around Italy if I had to without problems. - I have a good knowledge of all the main grammar rules. - I can make meaning of almost any written text What can't I do Well... a lot really. - Express myself fluently - Understand fast speech - Understand spoken speech about abstract topics - Read without a dictionary The Plan Well... my overall goal has always been really simple. Just keep going. That would be my language learning philosophy in general as well. So, in light of this, there really isn't a specific plan. I feel as though I'll be successful if I just find interesting things that I have faith in and play around with them for another 700 hours. In saying that, I think I'll be focusing more and more on building my vocabulary by reading and listening to more native Italian. I can't see myself using many more didactic materials. From time to time I do revise my grammar book or seek grammar explanations on the internet but they don't make up the bulk of my time. So that's it. 300 down, 700 to go. After 300 hours I can definitely say that I've built a strong foundation to now get stuck into this language. I'd be really interested to see what everyone would recommend at this stage. I hope you enjoyed the post. They don't come around that often! Edited by Oasis88 on 11 January 2011 at 10:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 60 of 152 11 January 2011 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
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It's interesting that you like intensive reading but not extensive. I'm the opposite.
In my study of Dutch I used Anki to learn vocabulary and expressions from Assimil, but once I got done with Assimil I haven't used it. And I don't miss it. When I read I almost never look anything up, I feel that I'm happier when I let the words come to me themselves, when I've seen them enough that I can appreciate their use. Back when I was reading my first books in Italian I would sometimes look up an awful lot of words, find myself unable to recall the meaning, and end up with a whole series of flashcards that I hated because they kept coming back with words that I had no real interest in, they were just there in the book. I mean sure, they seemed like "useful words to know", but just didn't enter into my thinking about the language. If you're getting ready to start writing I can recommend http://lang-8.com/ in case you don't know it already. You get your text snippets corrected by volunteers and usually within hours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5704 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 61 of 152 11 January 2011 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hmmm... interesting. To be honest I am still a bit conflicted with how I feel about the
issue. Regarding the intensive/extensive or dictionary/non-dictionary argument I really don't know where I stand. I do like to use a dictionary to attach some kind of meaning to the things that I am reading. After time, seeing that word in a number of other contexts will refine the meaning of that word. The reason why I like a quick dictionary check (and I must admit it is VERY quick. I read from a word document in one window with WordRef open in a second window) is because it gives this process a kick start. I don't see what can be harmful about this and I equally don't completely understand what angle people are taking who advocate more extensive work. But then again, I really don't know. Also another word regarding my reading in terms of flash cards. It's been some time now since I've made flashcards as I've come across new words while reading. Instead of doing this I fish words out of the dictionary that I like the look of. I've got a small dictionary and flick to a random page and write down all the words that are in my L1 active vocabulary and turn these in Anki cards. After that I cross out the page and move onto the next. For the words I come across when reading I quickly look them up using WordRef and spend a moment to simply acknowledge it. Over time, I'm finding that a lot of earlier words I looked up are now well entrenched in my passive vocabulary. I couldn't say that this would be the case if I hadn't initially looked up their meaning. But even if it did, I doubt my passive vocabulary would have increased as quickly. So my biggest question is, what's the harm of looking up words? Numerodix, I'd be interested to see at what point you started to adopt the extensive technique. Was that already at a point where your reading ability was already developed? I'm starting to think that the whole "now I don't look up words any more" argument is a simple progression one unconsciously takes when they are at a point where they really no longer need the dictionary. I.e. their passive reading comprehension is at a point where the few unknown words are either obviously unimportant or can be deciphered easily from the context. Before this point (where I feel I am now) I can see strong arguments for working closely with dictionaries to stoke the fire. I may be completely mistaken and for some watching unknown words fly by might be fine. But to me when I read a text above my level without a dictionary it doesn't even feel like reading. Maybe I am getting more out of this than I think? At the moment I'm just playing it safe and spending more time looking up words solely because I am seeing progress. There are some jumbled thoughts there, but that is generally how I feel about reading at the moment. P.S. Thank you for the link! I hadn't heard of that. Maybe that will convince me to get a little more active with my studies... P.P.S. I've already received 2 comments on my first post! Impressive. I don't how I've gone this long without hearing about it. Edited by Oasis88 on 11 January 2011 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5206 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 62 of 152 11 January 2011 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good progress, nice to see you're keeping it up! My recommendation would be to speak more and have conversations if you can. In my experience with French, no matter how good a knowledge of the language you have from reading, courses, etc., conversation (and in particular, expressing yourself) is a separate skill and the only way to improve it is by doing it. Some people think that if they just study the language loads they'll eventually be able to speak it well, but that just isn't the case in my experience. I also find that when I learn something in a conversation, for example when being corrected or when asking how to express something, I remember it very well because my mind has the whole experience of the conversation and the associated emotions (be it the bad ones from making a mistake or the good ones from successfully expressing yourself) to attach it to.
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| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 63 of 152 11 January 2011 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'll try to explain what the process is like to me. I started reading a book in Italian
after some 2-3 months (halfway into La lingua Italiana per stranieri), largely because a forum member here recommended it. It makes a huge difference how much you prepare for this. Some advocate reading almost from day one. I say start whenever you feel curious, but the more you prepare the better it will go. I started reading in Dutch much sooner than in Italian, and it was much harder. When you start off, it's really hard. It's hard enough that you begin to question whether it makes any sense to do this. I try to pick something that will help me along with clues, a novel by an author I already know well, something that's easy to read in a strong language. That way I can think to myself "in the English version the character would have said..." and so on. I think it helps. It's hard because everything is against you. You don't know the vocabulary, you don't know the grammar (and even if you did know it all, you still need to practice it a lot), you don't have the skill to flow with the language (if it's your first book), there's lots of reasons why it seems like a bad idea. It is very much like a code cracking exercise, you understand a certain amount of the message, and you have to try your best to infer what it might mean. This is pretty fun once you understand enough of it, but at first it's just hard. But even so, you do get better at it. You actually improve by trying to understand and failing. And after 100 pages it feels like a whole different book. You're still hazy on lots of things, but you've gotten used to the process, it doesn't seem hard anymore. The biggest progression happens right there on your first book. It's almost a historical event. No book after that is going to be as big a difference after that, it's far more gradual. Now back to the dictionary issue. I wouldn't say that it's harmful to look things up. It's that you don't get the benefit that you would like (ie. from now on I know the word). A lot of words are elusive, you can't seem to nail them down and the dictionary doesn't explain it well. And I suppose it also depends on how pedantic you are. For instance, I don't feel like I must need to know every word in a book to enjoy the book. There are words I don't really care about. My approach is heuristic (if you will), I think I "get" to what extent I understand what I'm reading, unknown words or not, and that's good enough. I almost want to say that narrowing down the meaning of a word from a general impression I already have to the specific meaning it has often doesn't seem worth it. Because I won't remember the nuance. And if it's a word I see a lot I will refine my intuition about it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6782 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 64 of 152 11 January 2011 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oasis, here's a post I have archived on the subject:
rea ding novels First post on the page, by Cainntear. Edited by numerodix on 11 January 2011 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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