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The 1-year challenge: Italian

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244 messages over 31 pages: 1 24 5 6 7 ... 3 ... 30 31 Next >>
Lizzern
Diglot
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Norway
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791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 17 of 244
23 July 2009 at 10:32pm | IP Logged 
That's true.

So, you know, since I'm trying to incorporate some principles from AJATT in my learning... Full on immersion in as many aspects of life as possible... I should totally eat more gelato, right? I mean, there's really no getting around the logic of it.

I like your thinking.
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mrhenrik
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 Message 18 of 244
23 July 2009 at 11:05pm | IP Logged 
This does not necessary have anything to do with language learning. Whether you're learning Italian, Japanese, Russian or some native American language you should totally eat more gelato.

But I would assume there's an added bonus somewhere since you also study Italian. You could try, for instance, to blurt out your appreciation of the ice-cream in Italian while you eat it.

AIATT!
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Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5851 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 19 of 244
25 July 2009 at 11:07am | IP Logged 
Noted. You are, of course, right :-)

Staf from this forum sent me the link to Personalità confusa yesterday - grazie mille! (Will reply soon mate.) Best blog ever written, in any language. Seriously. I laughed so hard at some of these posts... So I now have a new source of for-natives organic reading material, this is just the kind of thing I'd been looking for! I might use it for something fancy, like Assimil-ing certain posts by translating into English and then back again, for practice, but it would probably be so time-consuming that it would make little sense to do so, especially since if I can understand it then it's kind of a waste of time, time that should be spend working on output in other ways that would be just as beneficial if not more. So I think I'll probably just stick to perusing those archives - which seem endless. Yay!

So that's pretty much all I did yesterday - another 'one of those days', but I did get an awful lot of reading done. I particularly liked his take on what would've happened if the Vikings had stayed in America: "la lezione di oggi è dedicata ai vichinghi che 500 anni prima di Colombo scoprono l’America ma poi, poveri fessi, si dimenticano di dirlo al resto del mondo e rientrano a casa."

So yeah, I'm looking through my top bar firefox bookmarks to see what I can move elsewhere to make room for this thing. (Edit: Done. Turns out I could shorten a couple of names to make room for one more.) Or maybe it's time to add a separate bar for Italian? I desperately need to spend some time fixing my bookmarks so that the most useful things don't get lost in the 100 kajillion not-so-awesome-but-still-worth-bookmarking things.

Other than that, I found myself a nice spot that would work better for studying than my you-can't-possibly-sit-comfortably-here bed, so hopefully that will help somewhat. Travel mode sucks.

And as soon as I get back home I'm getting more Italian art for the walls that aren't already covered in it, and an Italian cookbook, one of those easy ones for us lazy bums who can't be bothered to cook anything that takes longer than 30 minutes to make. Then maybe I'll ask my dad if there's any chance of getting Italian TV on my actual TV (I know there's stuff available online but I have to use the TV sometime) so I can look for something cooking-related, not just to learn the intricacies of how to express appreciation for food in genuine Italian, but cause I really do need to learn to cook... :-)

On a random note, this just might be the best song ever made. One of the first things I found in Italian, at the time when I was not yet hopelessly and adoringly lost in it - though I think it contributed in that direction... How was I ever NOT learning Italian? That's not a way to live!

Liz

Edited by Lizzern on 25 July 2009 at 11:15am

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Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5851 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 20 of 244
26 July 2009 at 11:36am | IP Logged 
Yesterday was listening practice day... I had some old videos lined up that used to be WAY too fast for me, partly because I didn't know all the vocabulary then, but I had a look at some of them yesterday and was surprised to find I didn't have much trouble understanding them, or at the very least (if I didn't know the words) make out what was being said so I could look it up. I feel like I need more audio input at this point, I'd like to have a go at that government radio thing but since I work during the week it's not really doable right now... So I'll be focusing on using interviews from youtube over the next few days, hopefully I'll find some new things.

Also, I need to start working seriously on output at this stage. I'll be focusing on writing, at least initially. I've kind of shunned it a bit so far, because I don't feel like I know that much even though I know a fair bit (a chronic problem for me) so I didn't want to start writing or speaking until I had a degree of certainty I wasn't shooting myself in the foot doing so. At this point, though, it would be a mistake to carry on using the language only passively. I'm ready for output, I need this... Even if it's surprisingly hard. Not sure how I'll go about practicing it besides trying to use it with my Italian-speaking willing victims, but I'll think of something. But not today - too many things to do, again...

Liz

Edited by Lizzern on 26 July 2009 at 11:40am

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Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5851 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 21 of 244
26 July 2009 at 6:32pm | IP Logged 
Been listening to some Dante today, as well as parts of some chapters from two other audiobooks I found on Librivox, focusing on just listening for the sounds, which seems to make sense given that my brain is still not entirely agreeing with the notion of actually being of some use to me. Oh well. It's bound to switch back on sometime soon. Anyway, I've found that it's been very helpful for getting listening comprehension working in a natural way, even though I don't feel like I've even been doing it that much. There is still a lot of vocabulary I don't know though, which I would partly blame the literature for - I'm sure that in the equivalent books in English or Norwegian there would certainly be things I'd need to look up - but I know that vocabulary is one of my main things to work on. Just need to get my dictionary out and keep checking things as they come up, then with enough input I'll be able to acquire the vocabulary I need, just takes time.

And while my computer was quite innocently taking forever to do something relatively straightforward, I did an Assimil active phase lesson just now. I'm behind on these, on purpose, which seemed like a good idea at the time, and was, but I need to get up to speed now, so I'm hoping to do at least two lessons a day in addition to the other things I want to focus on.

In general I could do with some more structure in my day, I guess I've been blaming the fact that I'm staying with my folks over the summer, but that doesn't have to prevent me from doing some planning, even though it somehow feels more difficult to do so here, because life happens mostly at random, whereas when I'm hope everything about my day is entirely up to me. I'm here for 3 more weeks though, and I want to get more out of my time rather than look back and realize I wasted time... The Italian is not the area of my life that's suffering from it the most, but it would certainly benefit from me making some changes in my routine, or rather, developing a decent routine in the first place.

Liz
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Lizzern
Diglot
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5851 days ago

791 posts - 1053 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, English
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 22 of 244
26 July 2009 at 11:00pm | IP Logged 
OK I just need to see this in writing and, I guess, make a full confession about two of my major pet peeves...

1) I'm bound to make some mistakes, possibly even big ones, in front of other people.

2) It is profoundly likely that I'll end up speaking with an accent for a not insignificant amount of time.

3) 1 and 2 are NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.

The end. Buonanotte a tutti.

Liz

Edited by Lizzern on 26 July 2009 at 11:02pm

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Lumulo
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CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Italian
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 23 of 244
26 July 2009 at 11:18pm | IP Logged 
Ti chiedo scusa se ficco il naso in un argomento che non mi riguarda, ma qual'è la tua
lingua madre? Hai contrassegnato il norvegese con un asterisco, ma quasi si fatica a
credere che tu non sia una madrelingua dell'inglese. Non hai per caso dei parenti fuori
dalla Norvegia? So che avere un'ottima conoscenza della lingua ingese è una cosa
abbastanza normale nei paesi scandinavi, ma rimango sorpreso ciò nonostante.

    Benjameno   
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Iversen
Super Polyglot
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Denmark
berejst.dk
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 Message 24 of 244
27 July 2009 at 11:36am | IP Logged 
Thanks to Lizzern and Staf for that link to http://personalitaconfusa.splinder.com (the funny person with the 'personalità confusa'). I have two computers on my job, and today the right one has been continually monopolized by that site, where I have just read the most complete and adequate essay on the economical crisis that I have seen for a long time. The saga of the vikings were also funny, and I may want to find their own account of happened somewhere just to check the details. It is good that this is a quiet periode...


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