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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 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 209 of 244 28 November 2009 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, one other random thing, relating to synesthesia and the comment I made about Personalità confusa earlier today: The name Alessia looks like my country. Vibrant green and intense shades of blue, and a bit of white as well. Exactly the colours I associate with nature here, and the colours I missed while I was living abroad in countries with a different colour palette. This is one of the things I really appreciate about synesthesia - how some words just look like a piece of art in their own right. Of course not everything stands out as particularly beautiful, but the things that do are special somehow.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6084 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 210 of 244 28 November 2009 at 5:56am | IP Logged | |||||
I suppose that's true. And for the most part, I have enjoyed just doing nothing. :)
Exactly. Even though I wrote that text and it's even in my native language, without some of the words, it makes no sense and I cannot figure out what they are. I actually found the example that the administrator had, with actual less-frequent words blotted out. HERE it is for those of you that are interested still. And HERE is another thing about the most common words. Very interesting, I think -- that although only 20% of words (about 3,000, I think) make up 80% of occurrences, those less common words are crucial in allowing the passage to be clear. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 211 of 244 28 November 2009 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Interesting links. I'd seen the one with the graph before. At this point I usually find that if I can understand things well enough except for a few words, then looking those up tends to make a big difference in my understanding of the text, and brings me a little closer to being able to appreciate what they were trying to say, beyond "more or less". Often there are shades of meaning that I never would have seen if I'd only glossed over it by reading the words I already know and skipping the rest.
If there are words we've never seen before, almost regardless of how good the context is, it's very hard to accurately figure out what the word means. There are some exceptions of course - I remember reading about "i Nani" in LOTR and it just couldn't be anything other than the Dwarves. There were a couple of other words that became relatively clear after seeing them several times in several different contexts - but I don't see how anyone could have figured them out based on one occurrence alone, no matter how good, which is what you're most likely to experience if you're reading a specific article. I still checked the word in a dictionary for confirmation - knowing what a minefield Italian is when it comes to false friends, I won't allow myself to draw any conclusions without double-checking to make sure I don't teach myself something inaccurate. Context is hugely important though of course, in letting us add new layers of nuance to our understanding of the basic definition of a word we've learned. I just wouldn't go as far as to say that context can teach you all that much about specific vocabulary unless you use a dictionary alongside as a guide. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 212 of 244 01 December 2009 at 7:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Haven't gotten much done over the last few days. Lots to do for uni, which tends to mean I don't prioritise certain other things, so I haven't really made the time to do another wordlist even though the next 2 are already underlined and ready to go. It still takes time to write them out. I might have time to start one on Thursday morning before uni, but at the rate I'm going I might just need to sleep in instead. We'll see.
I've been doing other things though - some days I'm sure I spend more time doing other Italian-related things than I would've spent making another wordlist, but that's ok. They're good for me, just less rapidly so than wordlists. I've read a couple of months worth of Personalità confusa - it's been fun seeing the blog in its early stages, see how it developed into what it is. Some interesting stories, and it's rare that things I read have me laughing out loud but somehow it's been a regular thing. This is just the sort of thing that makes me so happy I'm learning Italian. And wondering what else I'm missing out on... Other than that, I've been watching youtube videos again - interviews mostly - every once in a while, if I come across something interesting. The amount of material that's available on youtube is just ridiculous - I can't even keep track of everything I'd like to watch on just a couple of subjects that interest me, I can't imagine how much else there is that would probably be interesting to me. Unfortunately, like in so many other parts in life, I can't make time for everything that interests me, so I just focus on a few things. If I had endless time, I'd probably still be generally busy. The reading-LOTR-in-the-morning thing never really happened, even though the book is right here within arm's reach of where I'm sitting when I have the daylight lamp on. I think I'm just too comatose in the mornings to realize. So let's try this again - I've left the book on top of the lamp, so that I have to at least pick it up and move it someplace else before I can use the lamp. Hopefully this time I'll actually get some reading done. Maybe. I've surprised myself before with my uncanny ability to ignore things that are right in front of me, so no assumptions of success here. In other news, I just ordered my very first iPhone today after seeing all the cool uni-related apps that are available - looking forward to filling it up with all kinds of useful junk. It will, of course, be set to Italian as soon as I get my hands on it. And now my music and audiobooks and podcasts and so on will come with me everywhere whether I want them with me or not (I tend to leave my ipod at home most days). It should get here within the next few days - I can't wait! If any of you know of any good language-related apps, it would be great if you could post about them - I'm sure there are tons of potentially useful things I've never even heard of. And at lunch with a Spanish-speaking friend a while back we got to talking about Personalità confusa (random? check) and she could easily access the site on her slightly-less-advanced-than-iphone phone (yeah, somehow that still surprises me, even though I should probably know better) so this way I'll be able to read it anywhere. Fun! Waiting for the bus will never be boring again. Potential problem though - you have to be more than a little weird/crazy to lol in public here, so I might get some strange looks from people. And possibly damage the conveniently-waiting-for-the-bus-indoors general public's view of my future profession. Ah well! Totally worth it. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 02 December 2009 at 12:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 213 of 244 02 December 2009 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Update on the reading-LOTR-in-the-morning project: Fail.
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| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6084 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 214 of 244 03 December 2009 at 12:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Oh, well. I sometimes write notes to myself that I put on my alarm clocks (yes, I have two, and I hide them in various places throughout my room, like under desks) that beg me to get up because I have a lot of work to do. It never works, though. I think we outsmart ourselves... I have tried cookies, setting my clock two hours ahead... Edit: Oops! Grammar mistake. And what is my native language again? Edited by ellasevia on 03 December 2009 at 12:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 215 of 244 03 December 2009 at 12:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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I use 3 alarms every day, all of which I'm perfectly capable of sleeping right through. I tried having another one out in the living room but it's too easy to just go back to bed after turning it off. Actually, I should try that again. I've thought about getting those alarm clocks that roll off your nighttable and hide, or one of those that throws puzzle pieces across the room that you have to go and find and piece together to get it to shut up. Somehow I doubt it would work - there are no limits to how sleep-oriented I can be in the morning.
How you manage to get up at the times you've written about in your log, I will never be able to understand. I get up when I have to. But then I have a sleep phase disorder, so I can't manage my own sleep times like most people can. I wish I could be a morning person, I imagine I'd be more productive, but it just wasn't meant to be. Ironically though, if I sleep when my brain thinks I should, then I'm actually more able to focus after midnight than any other time during the day. But since I can't routinely sleep till noon, this is what I'm stuck with. I'll probably just give up on trying to read in the mornings, I think I'm just too tired to get anything out of it anyway, and I don't want to start associating Italian-related things with that kind of discomfort. It's a shame, I don't really get much done in that time, so it would've been good to use it for something. I like the cookie idea though. A bit of random sharing: I just love this. Enjoy! Edited by Lizzern on 03 December 2009 at 1:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5851 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 216 of 244 03 December 2009 at 11:59am | IP Logged | |||||
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I had concrete plans about how I was going to do a wordlist this morning, but ended up getting a bunch of new music instead. Not sure how that happened. But just based on how big a deal music has been for me in the past this was definitely worthwhile, and it's great to find some that's new and fresh. I still love the old music, of course.
Strange thing, but I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of Italian language music, and yet I already have SO much music I love. I should probably start looking around more actively for new singers... If any of you have any suggestions then by all means post - no heavy metal and such, just... you know... good music. No offense to heavy metal fans! (It makes me lose faith in mankind.) But yeah, it seems I tend to love things from the 70s and 80s more than the most recent stuff - which I would've never suspected, because I'm generally unimpressed by those decades in other languages. I guess the Italians had a good thing going. A couple of Italians have commented that things started going downhill bigtime in the early 90s, and they might be right, who knows. So yeah, any recommendations are most welcome. I had no idea I'd find so much good music just from learning Italian, quite a pleasant surprise, but I'm sure I'm still missing out on some amazing music... Liz 1 person has voted this message useful |
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