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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 113 of 182 01 December 2009 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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The last few days haven't been very productive. It might be congiuntivo that discouraged me a bit, but most likely it's just interference from other things messing with my daily routine. I'm still working through chapter 20 on the congiuntivo imperfetto e trapassato. I think maybe it's starting to become a little more clear to me what the subjunctive is all about, but it's going to take a long time to become comfortable with it.
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| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 114 of 182 05 December 2009 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finished everything on the congiuntivo. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand I'm pleased to have covered it, and it's not very complicated. But I've only understood about half the various uses of it. Some still completely mystify me. Sentences like:
- La partita sta per cominciare. - Almeno vincesse il Milan! I would have said "Spero che vincesse il Milan!" Or - Ho notato anch'io che Laura era un po' fredda con te - Che fosse offesa perche' non le ho piu' telefonato? I would have said "Forse si fosse offesa?" No fricking clue what on earth "che" is doing there, though. This is one down side to an Italian textbook: there are no translations. The examples are supposed to explain the patterns, but if you don't understand what they intend to say then it doesn't work. I looked in my grammar reference and it was the same thing there, a long list of cases when it's used, but no overarching rationale. But in the majority of cases I do understand what the sentence intends to say, and now that I've seen this tense I can identify it and observe it in action whenever it comes up. In time I'll get it. In my passive learning I have these bitter sweet moments. Today I was watching a documentary on Berlusconi (which unfortunately turned out to be in English) and they had some interview clips in there from various people, and speeches by mr. B. At first I thought "hey I can follow absolutely everything", that was about 15min in. Then later came some parts I couldn't make out. Well, that's discouraging but I have to keep reminding myself just how far I've come in just a few months. The other day I was watching some interviews on youtube and very little slipped by me. Incidentally, B's story is fascinating as it is ironic. Basically, he struck his opportunistic self into power as a consequence of the comprehensive "Mani pulite" judicial investigation into political corruption. And now they have him, how gratifying. Edited by numerodix on 05 December 2009 at 7:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 115 of 182 07 December 2009 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Turbulent times. I feel like Italian is the one thing keeping me sane at the moment. When I do my lingo routine in the morning the day gets off to a much better start.
I've had so many distractions this month that I'm a little behind in the hour count. I try to cover 100 hours per month, and that's been working so far, but lately it's dropped off a little, so I've been trying to make up ground by doing more passive stuff. That's had a good impact. My understanding is on a steady road from explicit to implicit. I don't have to think so much about deconstructing verb tenses and whatnot, it's beginning to make sense just hearing it. I've also come to a point where I can make out a lot of new words from context, which is a very pleasant way to learn. In textbook land, there's only 4 chapters left and the countdown has begun to the last 100 pages. If I don't finish in 2009, I certainly will soon after. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 116 of 182 07 December 2009 at 7:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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One observation about wanderlust. I find that the deeper I come into Italian the less I feel tempted to veer off into another language. I've become very comfortable in my routine. It's not effortless, because if I have some distraction and don't get anything done for a day or two it's harder to come back. But as long as I keep going everyday it's almost easier to do it than not to do it. And the rewards for following a pretty intensive program are soon to arrive as well, I've already come so much further than I pictured myself at the start.
Obviously, I still have another language or two to cover, but with Italian all of the machinery is in place. All the resources, the habits, the knowing what to do when, it feels great. I don't doubt myself anymore, I don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Once I finish the textbook I'll have to do a little work again on new strategy, but I've come so far that I have faith it will work out just fine. If only my next languages go as well I'll be delighted. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 117 of 182 09 December 2009 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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81 pages to go.
on Dutch In other news I've been flipping through the textbook I have for Dutch, it's called "Kunt u mij helpen". I bought it some time ago because it was used for a course I started and then promptly quit for unrelated reasons. And I don't like it at all. Granted, that's the same first impression I had about my Italian textbook, but it's different this time. The Italian one was mystifying and scary when I first saw it. The Dutch one looks way too easy. The Italian one is 500 pages, rather dense, with a fairly high theory/page ratio. The Dutch one is 300 pages, the first of a series of three, and I get the impression that doing all three might get me to the same level that I get from the Italian book in just one volume. In the Italian one each chapter teaches a new grammar topic. The Dutch one is "functional", ie. "#1 - what is your name, #2 - where are you from" etc. This makes it look considerably more boring. And I just can't imagine myself writing it out the way I do with Italian, there are too many characters for the amount of substance they carry, it'd be a waste of time. So I'm gonna have to ask around the bookstore to see if they have something a little denser and more grammar focused. I get the impression that Dutch is gonna be a lot easier, because I can read a bunch of random sentences just flipping through the book, so I'd bore myself to death if I had to do it at a slower pace than I do with Italian. I'm planning to start once again with Pimsleur and Michel Thomas. Their Dutch programs are much shorter than the Italian ones, but I really need to get my listening comprehension off the ground, and Michel was perfect for building my Italian grammar fundamentals. Then we'll see how transparent the language looks at that point. Either proceed with a textbook-heavy approach, or (as I suspect) just move to passive learning + some kind of grammar supplement. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hobbema Senior Member United States Joined 5733 days ago 541 posts - 575 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Portuguese, French, Dutch | Message 118 of 182 09 December 2009 at 7:48pm | IP Logged | ||
Best wishes and good luck in your search. I will be interested to see what you find for Dutch. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 119 of 182 11 December 2009 at 1:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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70 pages to go.
Dutch Back from the bookstore (Selexyz). So my goal is basically to find the equivalent of my Italian textbook in Dutch. Here are some findings. Keep in mind I didn't write down the titles so they may not be correct. 1. There are one or two series that are presented at highest visibility. These are likely to be the ones used most in teaching, hence the emphasis. Two of them are "Kunt u mij helpen" and "Code", each of which is a series of three books, with exercise books and tapes. I don't find these appealing. They are designed for classroom use, with exercises for listening and "talk to your partner in class". They are also rather slow paced, where grammar is presented in very modest chunks. If Dutch is utterly unfathomable to you, this might be right for you. But for me it's too slow. 2. Digging deeper, I found something called "De regels van Nederlands". This is not a series, it's only one book. But it comes with a workbook and an exercise book (couldn't quite figure out what the difference would be between those two). It's grammar focused (as the title would imply) and seems to cover quite a lot of ground. But there's quite a lot of explanation text, which doesn't make it very suitable for my style of textbook learning. It also doesn't have much other content, so it's quite dull looking. And not cheap: around 50 bucks for each of those booklets. 3. More promising, there is a series by Routledge. Now this is more like it. Two volumes: "Basic Dutch" and "Intermediate Dutch". There's also a comprehensive grammar volume from the same publisher. These are much closer to what I want. They progress by grammar topics and seem quite well laid out. However, there is a big flaw: the teaching language is English. This a no go for me. The amount of explanation in English easily trumps the Dutch content, which means you're working mostly in English. Rather defeats the purpose. Then there is the fact that as I go on learning, I'm most likely to move to Dutch language materials entirely, which means it does me no good to know the grammar terms in English, I need to know them in Dutch. And they don't exactly give them away: 30-50 per booklet. 4. And then I found two more books. One is called "Beter Nederlands". The other I don't remember, but it's clearly grammar focused judging by the title. These again progress by grammar topic, but they're not as dry as "De regels.." book. They're shorter than my Italian textook, only something like 200 pages each. And not too expensive - 20-30 per piece. The presentation is self contained, so you get a bit of content, some exercises (solutions in the back) and it seems fairly well balanced. But in the end I realized that I'm not able to make a sound judgment on these materials at the moment. I don't even have any fundamentals in the language yet. Once I get going I'll be more apt to make a pick. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 120 of 182 11 December 2009 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Milestone: 400 hours
Well the hour count indicates that I've reached another milestone, but this time around I don't really have much to say. I still haven't finished the textbook work, which marks an important goal that is soon to be reached. Textbook progress: 85% Hour breakdown - Trends Here is the breakdown of the major components so far (I'm not doing a graphic this time because I expect it will just leave a broken link in the end, I don't have a permanent place to host the image and there's no upload function on this forum): Pimsleur : 46h Michel Thomas : 42h Assimil : 12h Textbook : 178h DIDACTIC : 292h Video : 77h Books : 25h PASSIVE : 108h TOTAL : 400h Some observations since the 200h mark: - I haven't done that much reading. I'm still on the same book, and I'm halfway now. For a while I was in the habit of sitting down with it everyday after I finished my textbook stuff, but that didn't stick. - I've been doing a huge amount more of passive learning through tv and movies mostly. This has been easier to do than reading. It doesn't require quite as much focus, and I tune out a bit sometimes. What's new here is the conversational component. In my studies prior to this most of the language I've seen has been in written form, which means the informal colloquial language hadn't been explored much. With the addition of this passive component I've had the chance to get to know the spoken language and I can now follow a tv show or a movie a lot better. The way forward As I come to these mile markers I find it opportune to assess my progress so far and adjust my long term goals. As I mentioned in the past, I've decided to finish somewhere around 600 hours/6 months. (So far I've been able to do about 100h/month.) I still stand by this now. And for that matter, I'm pleased with the progress I've made in the last 200h, I feel like I'm on track. After 600 is complete I'm going to have to scale down my level of activity in Italian, because I'm starting a new language. I'm not sure yet what form that will take. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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