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The 1-year challenge: Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 169 of 244 01 October 2009 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting stuff Leopejo. And what you said about stress rules is basically what I'd already figured out. Good to know it doesn't get much hairier than that.
Listened to chapters 1-11 of the Apology of Socrates audiobook yesterday. Understood it reasonably well, rather surprisingly. Very interesting book certainly... I'm not going to be posting here for a while, I'm still not sure if I'll carry on studying, so I have some decisions to make here. I might be taking a break from Italian, possibly a permanent one, but I'm not sure yet. There's little point in going into why, but we'll see what happens. Anyway, thanks all for reading and for your comments, and all the best with your studies :-) Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6785 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 170 of 244 01 October 2009 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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:-O
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6144 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 171 of 244 01 October 2009 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Wha?? No! What!? Why?? :( 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| densou Senior Member Italy foto.webalice.it/denRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6134 days ago 120 posts - 121 votes Speaks: Italian* | Message 172 of 244 03 October 2009 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Think about it :>
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| staf250 Pentaglot Senior Member Belgium emmerick.be Joined 5699 days ago 352 posts - 414 votes Speaks: French, Dutch*, Italian, English, German Studies: Arabic (Written) | Message 173 of 244 03 October 2009 at 1:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wanted to encourage and incite you, I chased you. Sorry, sorry, sorry!
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| mike789 Newbie United States Joined 6329 days ago 39 posts - 51 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 174 of 244 16 October 2009 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Sorry to hear you won't be posting further in this thread and might drop Italian; I appreciate the answer you gave in a different thread about using Assimil, and was glad to read about your progress as I read thru this thread. Don't sell yourself short; even if you go no farther in Italian, you're probably still much farther along than most people trying to learn the language ever get.
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| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5911 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 175 of 244 23 October 2009 at 11:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well boys and girls, it's been a while... It's been 6 months since I started learning Italian, so I thought I might just post a progress report of sorts - seems appropriate, or whatever...
Thanks for your comments guys; none of you had anything to do with the log's sudden entry into hibernation - nothing to worry about, everything is fine. Really :-) I'm still studying. Well, most days that 'studying' takes the form of reading/watching random articles and videos on the internet, listening to music, reading centuries-old books out loud, reading comments to youtube videos, and all the other presumably useless nonsense you've gotten used to expecting from me. Looking back on half a year of studying, these things have been more useful than anything else - it's one thing to hear about something through Assimil or look up something grammar-related, it's quite another to be exposed to it on a daily basis in what amounts to vast quantities if you add it all up. Understanding-wise, my vocabulary leaves a lot to be desired (oh and the cultural knowledge to grasp it all), but other than that, things are looking pretty sweet. I think I'm finally over my (re-)induced hatred for wordlists - moral of the story, don't ever apply useful/interesting/effective techniques to material you dislike. Actually, don't ever use material you dislike, period, how about that. Anyway, I've started reviewing my old wordlists and have copied every weekly horoscope since mid-September into a file for later use. (Turns out they're fab for wordlists, and entertaining to read too... I'll do more soon, honest.) The wordlists seem like a good idea (I'm pretty much already doing everything else I need to be doing, except Assimil which is temporarily dead) and I feel like I should do them - if you'd told my 16-year-old self I'd ever feel that way I would've laughed in your face, but there you have it. It's fast, it works, it helps with understanding syntax and idioms, it looks tidy on paper (bonus points), and it's interesting enough as long as the material suits me. Turns out actual study can be fun too. Who knew? Oh, and I went to Italy :-) Only for a day, which is far too short a time, but I had a lovely time while there... And wanted to hop on the next train back. (Went there on a day trip while on vacation in France.) Got in a bit of speaking practice - a little addictive, I must say, which I didn't expect (generally shy person), but it did give me an unexpected boost. Somehow I thought it'd just be scary. Further evidence that Italian is definitely for me... I was clumsy as heck, and I have already forgotten the Italian words (which I didn't know before the gelato lady pointed at them) for "kjeks eller beger", but I loved the whole experience - especially the gelato :-) I suppose it's good timing that I watched a video by Moses McCormick today in which he basically said that if at 5-6 months you still can't really speak the language all that well even if you understand it, You're Doing It Wrong. I have a ways to go in terms of activating the language, but strangely, there were so many things I never activated as such in English, but could use perfectly when I needed them, and I'm seeing the same thing happen with Italian, bit by bit. I do need to work on output more though, definitely... Kinda fun to know that sometime, and hopefully in not too long, I'll actually be able to speak and write Italian without feeling like I'm hacking it to pieces with my not-so-few and not-so-far-between mistakes. Something to look forward to, certainly! For once I spent a whole 6-hour (woo) Schiphol stopover reading an actual book - fiction even! - so I'm well into La Compagnia dell'Anello, which is actually even better in Italian than in English. (But it's not like I'm biased or anything...) I didn't expect extensive reading would help as much as it did... I mean, I knew it would, but I don't know, maybe not that fast? Even all those pesky connective words (I'm sure they have a name) are starting to come together and make more sense than a translation could ever give me, so hopefully most of the particularly problematic things will sort themselves out in my head during the very limited book-reading I intend to do. I may need to look into translations of other works by Tolkien, hmm... I've also started reading Personalità confusa from start to finish - if you're learning Italian (or speak it natively, you lucky pooches) you should totally read this guy, and if you're not, start learning Italian so you can. Seriously. If I ever feel discouraged or unsure about Italian for whatever reason, there's always something there to change my mind. It's a strange thought that people who never learn foreign languages will never have joys like these, many of the things I listen to and read these days are by people whose names people here have never heard before and likely never will. That last bit is pretty neat in itself. But really, there's so much stuff in Italian I'm glad I have access to, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way - or would, but never takes the steps to get there. Anyway, that's all from me for now. I might get back to logging again sometime, possibly soon, though perhaps not as extensively as before (busy girl). Open to bribes. (Will work for chocolate!) I'll carry on with my usual random activities, and will probably post here at the very least at the end of each month of study, on the 23rd. The 1-year challenge is dead I think, except to see how far I can get in that time. An interesting experiment in linguistic fidelity for me - looking forward to seeing where my Italian will be at when I get to the 1-year mark :-) Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6785 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 176 of 244 24 October 2009 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Niente male :)
As far as I'm concerned you're cheating me, on two levels. a) You have 4 months on me and b) you have Spanish. Nevertheless I'm excited to see where you (and us both) end up at the end of these rather longish time periods of study. 6 months of everyday study, who would think that's even possible? :-O And jeez, what a kick it is to realize you're beginning to speak a language, no? An experience quite apart from any other. It sure pushes me to start more languages. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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