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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends | ||
Tags: Football/Soccer | Yiddish | Hebrew | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5845 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 121 of 251 02 October 2013 at 9:39pm | IP Logged | ||
Grazie per il tuo racconto delle tue ferie con la tua moglie a Roma. Mi pare molto interessante questo viaggio. Hai anche provato a parlare un po' d'italiano? Era una buona idea di comprare libri Italiani, perché degli Stati Uniti questi libri sarebbero carissimi, davvero? Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 02 October 2013 at 9:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 122 of 251 03 October 2013 at 8:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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One thing that struck me in my visit to Rome was that EVERYONE (in the restaurant, hotel, retail and tourism
industries, at least) speaks English. The default language is generally Italian, but if someone sees you speaking English within your group, e.g., they likely will try to help you in English. IOW, it seems to be choose your own adventure. It's easy to be a tourist without any Italian skills, but everyone is happy to speak Italian if you are able. I'm not sure I was really able, but I used a bit at times. As usual, the level of comfort with English tends to be higher among the younger crowd, but everyone who does business with the mobs of tourists has been compelled to learn basic English well. Half of the signs for shops and restaurants were in English, and I never saw a menu that didn't have English translations on it. All of the tourist attractions, museums and the like have bi-lingual Italian/English signage and information (e.g., descriptions of the history of artifacts on the display). The exception is public inscriptions carved in stone that tend to be in Latin only. With almost no exceptions, every person I met was friendly and helpful, irrespective of the linguistic interaction we had (which ranged from 100% English to 100% Italian). That all said, I definitely had a better experience because of my understanding of Italian. For example, I was on a commuter train that inexplicably kept stopping, and took 3 hours to make a 1:30 trip. At one point the conductor came through to apologize/explain to everyone, which was only done in Italian. I can't say as I understood everything, or even the majority, but I could at least get a gist to know what the situation was, that there was a mechanical issue with the train ahead of us, something about a door coming open, resetting something something, etc. At times, I almost got the impression that people thought it was cute or flattering that I tried to operate in Italian. For example, on the Alitalia flight, in both directions I took the Corriere della Sera from the newspaper cart. This was met with surprise and a tone that sounded something like "oh, isn't that a nice surprise" (or possibly "how cute"). As a learning experience, I was again shocked at the effectiveness of even such a brief and partial immersion experience. I feel like my ability to read, listen, speak and write shot up about one CEFR level or so in the course of 5 days, simply as a result of being surrounded by Italian all the time. But it's clearly not automatic. While sitting at the Trevi fountain, for example, I overheard a young American woman talking to her friends about how she was going to be living there for a year, IIRC, and had been there a month already. She then made an attempt at saying "one year" which was incredibly jarring to my ears (because of the 3 or 4 grammar mistakes she managed to squeeze into two words). I guess she hadn't been studying prior to her arrival. I'd be curious how she's doing 6 months from now, though. Prior to my trip, I had expected to give up on Italian immediately after getting back. For the moment, at least, that hasn't happened. Instead, I'm continuing to focus heavily on Italian. Success is addictive, after all. But furthermore, unlike most other languages, the people I work closest with all just happen to speak Italian as a heritage language, so I have plenty of opportunity to practice! And I don't think it hurts to schmooze up my proud Italian-American boss in Italian. Maybe I can say I'm practicing for my next trip to Italy (in another 5-10 years)? But furthermore, as a non-sectarian souvenir, I picked up Assimil Latina senza sforzo at the Vatican bookstore. I tried refreshing my Latin a bit 2 years ago or so, and this seems like a good way to take that further while practicing Italian, too. Having a utilitarian purpose for Italian (i.e., understanding the course materials) really motivated me and made me feel good about using Italian. Perhaps a 6WC project? Super Challenge updates coming soon. Preview: they involve a lot of Italian and football. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 123 of 251 04 October 2013 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the interesting report, I'm all the more excited about Rome now! It's good to hear that the Italians tend to react well to people trying to speak their language; with my level I feel like I shouldn't have problems getting by in Italian but I guess I'll see when I get there! And I am tempted to try to visit some less touristy places on my trip as well.
Also I can understand coming back from the trip with unplanned motivation for the language! My original plan was to learn Spanish first and then Italian, but a trip to Italy changed that... Edited by garyb on 04 October 2013 at 2:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 124 of 251 04 October 2013 at 2:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your speaking is light years ahead of where mine was, based on your log. The only reason you should have
to use English at all should be if you want to, at least if you aren't traveling with a monoglot English speaker as I was. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 125 of 251 07 October 2013 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Italian audio entries 32-38
So this update is all about the Italian audio. The first two movies I watched with Italian dubbing on the plane to and from Italy. It was especially interesting trying to follow all the profanity in The Big Lebowski (if you've seen the movie, you'll know what I mean). It was pretty cool having such a large selection of Italian-language TV stations in the hotel room, but of course I didn't spend a ton of time in there watching TV. I also spent the whole trip listening carefully to what was going on around me, which included plenty of Italian, of course (but also a lot of French, German, and Russian). Since returning, I've picked up my reading again (actually, I started during the trip on trains and planes), but I'm mostly reading in Italian now--LoTR1. That's going pretty well (~150 pages in already), as all of a sudden I feel like I can actually understand what I'm reading. Awesome! And while I haven't done much speaking practice, I continue to do occasional email correspondence in Italian. Furthermore, I actually started doing Assimil Italian lessons again, strangely enough. Reviewing the first several lessons I managed to quickly learn a good number of smallish grammar details that had been eluding me forever. After SC-type extensive exposure, going back and reviewing grammar notes quickly makes for quick learning. So long as I can finish HP5 in Dutch by the end of the year, I'll at least finish one Half SC, and the others are a bit of a lost cause numerically. I'll have to keep it up next year. I may still be able to finish the Italian audio portion, too, without much difficulty. The one real casualty thus far seems to be French. My active skills in French were never all that great, and my weeks of neglect have made me feel utterly incapable of producing French output again. I figure diving into a new SC and working on some writing, another Assimil active wave, etc. could fix that right up, but for now I have other priorities. My primary purpose for learning French had been to use it for understanding Assimil courses with a French base, which doesn't require active skills, so in triage, French is losing out for now. May be just as well so that I avoid increased interference with Italian at this stage. BOOKS (Italian): 3. ... FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 32. Angels & Demons 33. The Big Lebowski 34. SBS Radio 35. SBS Radio 36. Various TV (Mostly documentaries on RAI Storia) 37. Serie A: Fiorentina v. Parma 38. CL: Juventus v. Galatasaray BOOKS (French): 22. ... FILMS, ETC. (French): 50. COMPLETE BOOKS (Dutch): 42. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 50. COMPLETE I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German): 25. ... FILMS, ETC. (German): 75. ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 126 of 251 07 October 2013 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
Further to this, I've discovered that a decent bit of this programming can be streamed off of the various RAI websites or viewed with the various RAI iPhone apps. So maybe I can watch Italian-language documentaries at home after all. Awesome! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 127 of 251 08 October 2013 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added Italian audio entries 39-45
So this is another update all about Italian audio. I finished the Harry Potter audiobook that I started before my trip. As I mentioned in an earlier update, it seems like my Italian levels have jumped, and that was clear also in listening to the later portions of this audiobook, where I could finally follow extended stretches reasonably well. Looks like all I need is one football match every two weeks and I finish Italian audio, too? Looking ahead to next year and possible follow-on super challenges, I'm thinking that somewhere between 25/25 and 50/50 films/books is a pretty good goal for maintenance over 1.5-2 years with a language that is already at B1 or better passively. Accordingly, perhaps a good goal to set would be 50/50 in each of IT/FR/NL/DE. That should be enough to get IT up to reasonably proficient and make sure I maintain (and probably improve, at least passively) the other three TLs, while being relatively achievable, and possibly even leaving room for the odd 6WC here and there (early candidates are Hebrew, Latin, Russian and maybe Danish or one of Spanish/Portuguese). I do need to be careful, though, especially with new Germanic and Romance languages. It seems once I learn to read in a language I'm loathe to abandon it, and thus I basically saddle myself with an ever-increasing "workload" of maintenance reading. I guess eventually the problem takes care of itself... BOOKS (Italian): 3. ... FILMS, ETC. (Italian): 39-45. Harry Potter: La Camera dei Segreti (audiobook) BOOKS (French): 22. ... FILMS, ETC. (French): 50. COMPLETE BOOKS (Dutch): 42. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch): 50. COMPLETE I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German): 25. ... FILMS, ETC. (German): 75. ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 128 of 251 08 October 2013 at 11:11pm | IP Logged | ||
Coincidentally, I just noticed that (counting my as yet unlogged reading), these three numbers almost exactly map to where I am with Italian (~500), French (~2500) and Dutch (~4500), respectively. And it just so happens that in each case, emk's assessment is a fairly accurate description of my reading level. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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