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Hendrek’s Italian TAC - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 9 of 38 25 January 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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The following is a brief account of my trip to Sicily over the holidays which I wrote to an Italian correspondence. If any other Italian speakers here care to offer corrections or suggestions, it would be appreciated! Primarily, let me know if the way I'm saying things sounds natural enough, or if I should use different "modi di dire"... and obviously if I've got grammar errors to point out (of course I do :( ), please do. I tried to avoid using any references to write this, and mostly didn't.
Edit: Also, I still get tripped up with where to use imperfetto vs. passato prossimo, come ovvio. Allora... Ho passato dei giorni magnifici in Italia. Io e mia moglie siamo andati a Napoli, Caserta, Palermo, Cefalù, Catania, e Siracusa. Dalla città nera di Catania alla città bianca di Siracusa, ognuno luogo era bello nel modo stesso. Siamo arrivati a Napoli e ci passiamo due notti, primo vicino Il Quartiere Spagnolo (dove un cameriere dopo la nostra prima cena in Italia, ci ha consigliato di non stare troppo lungo lì vicino durante la notte per via dei ladri :) ) e poi vicino Chiaia, che mi è sembrato molto più sicuro. Insomma, Napoli è una città con diversi faccie buone è cattive, ma solo come qualsiasi grande città nel mondo. La nostra panorama nella prima notte era meravigliosa, con Vesuvius e la baia di Napoli. Anche il museo era molto interessante. Siamo andati a Caserta per un giorno a vedere La Reggia (il palazzo) e anche perché la famiglia di mia moglie veniva da Caserta molti anni fa. Speravamo che avessimo molto tempo da passare lì, ma non era possibile. Abbiamo preso un traghetto notturno da Napoli a Palermo, il cui è stato il mezzo di trasporto il più interessante del nostro viaggio. C'è stato un tempesto sulla mare e il traghetto si è sporto alla sinistra e poi alla destra tutta la notte. Devo dare ringraziamenti al cielo che io non soffra del mal di mare. Dopo il nostro arrivo a Palermo nella mattina, ci siamo fermati a un bar, e poi siamo proseguiti al nosto B&B, ma ci voleva un lungo tempo di trovarlo e quindi dovevo usare il mio Italiano per chiedere le indicazioni. Palermo è una città molto storica e interessante e abbiamo visto le catacombe dei cappucini, il teatro greco romano e parecchie altre cose. Ma anche a Palermo esistono molti negozi che vendano i libri usati... quindi ne ho comprati molti da leggere nel futuro. Costavano molto meno che sul sito Amazon per esempio. Abbiamo passato sola una notte a Palermo la prima volta (anche una notte prima del nostro volo ritorno), ma è stata la notte del Capodanno. Mi sono sembrate dei campi di guerra, le strade! I fuochi artificiali erano dapertutto e molto forti! Ma, era divertente nonostante quando dei ragazzi pensavano che sarebbe divertente lanciare dei fuoci vicino i nostri piedi. La mattina successiva, abbiamo preso un treno da Palermo a Cefalù. Cefalù se non tu fossi mai stata lì, è una cittadina molto piacevole e completamente addatto a una vacanza, sopratutto nel inverno secondo me, perché non è la stagione del turismo. Ma sono sicuro che anche sarebbe stata carina nell'estate con la piaggia e il sole. A Cefalù abbiamo passato la maggior parte del nostro soggiorno... più o meno due settimane delle 2.5 settimane. La scuola mi ha aiutato molto (almeno, vediamo dopo correggi questa email!) e ci è piacciuta moltissimo. Mia moglie seguiva un corso per principianti, mentre ho seguivo un corso un po' più elevato, ma entrambi di noi stavamo migliorando durante i giorni lì. Le inseganti erano bravissime e potevamo parlare in Italiano tre ore ogni giorno senza fermarci. Sfortunatamente (dal punto di visto di un studente della lingua) fuori delle classe dovevo parlare in inglese con mia moglie. Dal punto di visto di un marito non è stato affatto un problema perché mi sono divertito tantissimo passando una vacanza rilassante con mia moglie. Quindi, il mio Italiano parlato è ancora un po' basso, ed è ancora difficile (di?) pensare delle parole abbastanza rapidamente, ma mi sembra che scrivere non sia troppo difficile adesso. Il weekend lungo della Befana, siamo partiti da Cefalù e siamo andati a trovare (o siamo visitati) Catania e Siracusa ognuno per una notte. Catania è una città nera per via dei scogli neri provenendo dall'Etnea. Siracusa è una città moltissimo vecchia è tutto bianca sopratutto nella città vecchia che ci si chiama Ortigia. Così le due città ci sembravano i contrari, ma tutt'e due erano bellissime! La piazza del duomo a Siracusa è la più bella piazza che io abbia mai visto. Il mercato dei pesci a Catania era molto interessante e anche il fatto che la città è una città pieni dei giovani (il vero contrario di Cefalù). Via Etnea è una strada bellissima con l'Etnea sempre lassù. Pensiamo che se tornassimo in Sicilia, passeremmo le nostre vacanze a Catania. E' stata la nostra città preferita in Sicilia. Ma, ho scritto troppo! Insomma, il nostro viaggio è stato meraviglioso e rilassante. Ci sono piacciuti moltissimo l'Italia e gli Italiani. Spero che sia possibile di ritornarci un giorno. Grazie se si può aiutarmi. Edit: I caught some minor errors myself. Edited by Hendrek on 25 January 2012 at 10:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 38 26 January 2012 at 1:45am | IP Logged |
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Welcome back from your study/trip, Hendrek! - Thanks for posting the report. And I'm inspired by your 0-B1 in
six months; I'm currently working on my French, but'll have to get cracking on Italian soon, if I'm thinking of a late Autumn /early Winter trip. - Songlines, fellow Team Romantics member. Edited by songlines on 26 January 2012 at 2:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 11 of 38 26 January 2012 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
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Thanks songlines. French should make it a lot easier for you to absorb quickly.
For whatever reason the site switched my language display to say that I "speak" Italian instead of that I "study" it... I would not say that I "speak" it quite yet. I was messing with my profile and removing Farsi, since I'm really focusing solely on Italian now and I obviously messed something up. Now I can't figure out how to switch it back... anyone know how to force it back into the "study" category? Edit: nevermind, I fixed it. I had accidentally labeled myself as having "basic fluency" which seems to automatically place the language in the "speaks" category. Edited by Hendrek on 26 January 2012 at 8:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 12 of 38 27 January 2012 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
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So,
I have a new short-term goal in front of me. I am scheduled to take the Italian DLPT at the end of next month. I am hoping to get at least a 2/2 in the reading/listening portion. There is no speaking or writing portion on this particular test, as they're designed to evaluate intelligence gathering capability, which is a one-way street from L2 to L1. I just signed up for the February 6WC so it corresponds pretty well with my preparation period. I'm not nearly as concerned about my reading ability as I am about my listening ability, as I can read without too much effort, even at the novel level, but listening success really depends on the quality of audio, the topic, and the speed and especially whether I can pick up the context which makes hearing the words so much easier. Any advice from anyone out there on preparing for a specific test in a relatively short time? Not the DLPT in particular since I'm sure few here would have taken it, but in general. My thoughts are: 1. listen, listen, listen, preferably to native material with a transcript available (www.scola.org). 2. I will also watch some movies with or without Italian subtitles. 3. I have an Italian radio station on throughout the day, but usually I am working on actual job things and can't really listen for understanding. I can't yet passively pick up the meaning in the background, but when I actively listen, I can catch most of it. 4. Maybe try out this "podcast" thing I've heard of. 5. Read more current events and editorial pieces with a pop-up dictionary to improve common-use vocabulary. Novels are nice, but it's very literary vocabulary that gets trained. 6. Continue to speak during my recurring Skype appointments, but focus on the passive side for the time being. Although, I will probably continue to try self-talking about random Assimil lessons, which I've been doing a bit. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 13 of 38 30 January 2012 at 4:25pm | IP Logged |
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Ciao,
OK, this week has been a little on the slow side with studies. I did manage to check out 2 movies, but haven't yet watched them. I read maybe another 50 pages of Narnia during the week. Mainly, I've been doing a lot of listening and searching for new things to listen to. I got my iPod working, downloaded iTunes and started synching podcasts which I then listened to all weekend. This really makes it A LOT easier, because I had several projects around the house to do and I was able to freely listen without having to lug around a CD or tape player. Skype didn't happen this weekend as I was busy for some scheduled times, and then one of my Italian contacts had to cancel. So in sum: About 2 hours of Narnia reading About 8 hours of listening to podcasts More or less continuous Italian radio during the work days About 1.5 hours of vocabulary ANKI work I have some podcasts that also have transcripts and have found that listening a few times and then checking the texts to fill in what's not understood is a helpful technique. ANKI: I was using ANKI pretty much every day for a few months, but gave up on it about 3 months ago. It just wasn't much fun. But, I decided to try it out again. I have the "Loom of Language" deck with something like 3000 words. Before, I had a tough time recognizing most of them. After all of the reading I've been doing though, I breezed through about 900 of them without too much difficulty... maybe around 50 that I really didn't know at all. So it seems that the reading has been helping a lot with vocabulary... at least passively. Edited by Hendrek on 30 January 2012 at 4:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 14 of 38 01 February 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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So it's the start of the 6WC for February! I'm participating as I still have a lot to learn, and life and work is catching up making it necessary to get back into the swing of serious studying... especially given my upcoming test date at the end of this month as I mentioned.
I've decided that everyday during lunch, I will read an article in Italian. I've already read an article today using lingro.com as a pop-up translator. I went to corriere.it and searched "intervista" (interview) so that the transcripts of what I'm reading reflect more natural speech than even a letter-to-editor can do. This, I hope, will round out my reading since most of what I have read is from novels and therefore heavily literary language. It's funny, but I notice that I can pick up a novel and pretty much read it. It just takes a moment to key in on the context and then it begins to flow. This is not nearly as easy for me with a news article for some reason. My strategy will be to vary the topic or content each day as much as possible, so that I'm exposed to a greater degree of standard speech vocabulary for passive recognition. The DLPT test I'm taking follows the U.S. ILR levels and the level 2 (roughly B1) reading uses a lot of news article excerpts from what I've gathered from example tests. The level 3 (roughly C1) reading however uses more literary extracts with the assumption that those are more difficult (level 4 -- roughly C2 -- gets into philosophical, technical, etc). It will be interesting to see how I do if I can read the level 3 better than the 2. My strategy for listening is just do a lot of it at native speeds, along with listening to podcasts that also have transcripts I can review for clarity. I've been focusing on doing Iversen's "bloodhound" technique a lot, which I think helps. I understand most of what I hear when I'm doing this. I also still have to watch the 2 movies that I checked out: "I Vitelloni" and "Il Posto". I hope to use Subs2SRS with them and see how that goes. The test is making me a little nervous, just because it will be the first real, documented feedback on how much progress I've made with all of this work. If I get a low score I think it will be very disheartening, so any advice on how to best prepare would be appreciated. On another note... I'm feeling the wanderlust bug nipping at my heels. And this bug happens to be the Mandarin one the more I think about it (but also French, Farsi, Esperanto). I just know that I should "finish" Italian to a C1 before I venture down that abyss... so I can at least assure myself that I am capable of learning a foreign language once Mandarin begins to whisper otherwise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 15 of 38 02 February 2012 at 3:11pm | IP Logged |
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An update:
I logged 2 hrs 45 mins yesterday for the 6WC between reading articles, listening to podcasts, and reading my novel. I won't be able to do that every night, but my wife happens to be in school some nights of the week leaving me with extra alone time. I found some extra resources that I can use, such as JLU which is actually extremely helpful. It's sort of like GLOSS except I think better formatted and easier to use. The other advantage is that it has a bunch of Italian materials... whereas GLOSS has none. I'd recommend it, but unfortunately one needs a .gov account to access it. The material there is split by level (B1-B2 = 2+/3 ... C1-C2 = 3+/4). Out of curiousity I opened a reading sample judged at the 3/4 level discussing differences in national defense policies and I was able to read it easily! For a moment I was thinking: this test won't be so bad at all. Then I opened up a 2/3 level document on vacationing in a national park and it was as if I had never seen Italian before (past that magic threshold of too much unknown vocabulary). So that bubble was burst. I also found out that in order for me to qualify for extra pay with Italian (not considered a strategic necessity in languages) I need to score at least a 3/3 in the reading/writing portion... or around a C1 in passive skills. I doubt I'll be able to do that by the end of this month, but I'm going to try to, and that way at least get feedback on where I am and how much further I need to go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hendrek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4880 days ago 152 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Persian | Message 16 of 38 07 February 2012 at 4:47pm | IP Logged |
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OK, so my weekly update is a day late.
As I mentioned before, I'm focusing almost exclusively on passive skills improvement through intensive and extensive listening and reading practice so that I have a shot at passing my upcoming test. At the very least, I want to know that I worked as hard as I could at it for this month... since if I pass it, the extra pay will essentially cover the cost of my Italy trip this past holiday. That'll make all the invested time even more worthwhile I think. Combine this incentive with participating in the 6WC and my motivation level is really high. It's amazing how the twitter format motivates you to get your time in. I've deliberately been stingy with the time that I actually submit, meaning I err on the side of "maybe I didn't *really* study that long". So, if I listen to a podcast for 45 minutes, I'll submit 30 minutes, since I'm sure that my mind wandered for a portion of the podcast. I'm sitting at 17 hours of total study so far and I'm exclusively studying Italian. But overall, I'm trying more or less the AJATT approach (AIATT?) as much as is reasonably possible. I have to unfortunately continue to sing the praises of JLU almost exclusively, as that's primarily what I've been using (aside from podcasts and movies and lingro with corriere). I say unfortunately only because it's a restriced site, but I think GLOSS is essentially the same thing, just without Italian, and is also publically accessible. I would thus wholeheartedly recommend that you go for GLOSS if you are trying to cross that annoying passive threshold from intermediate to advanced. They have all of their recordings labeled by ILR (CELF) level, and they all have complete transcripts. Also, they already have two versions of the recording, one at normal speed and one slowed by about 10%. So basically, everything that I was trying to find and build myself is already done here, and there are dozens upon dozens of recordings of various topics from native sources. Also, they all have questions and provide immediate feedback on comprehension as a way of prepping for the test. My technique has been: listen to or read the content without pausing or using the dictionary and try to reason my way through it for the general information (usually I can understand most of it the first time through). I'll go a second time if needed. Then I open lingro or open the transcription or maybe play the slow recording for more difficult things to make sure I understand it all. I then answer all of the questions to test my actual overall comprehension and recall. The questions are especially helpful, because someone went through and created feedback responses... so if you choose the wrong answer, it says something like "that particular thing wasn't actually mentioned or was mentioned in a different context, listen more carefully to section XX again", which makes it easier to fix comprehension errors. ... Aside from that, I watched Il Posto and I Vitelloni. I found I Vitelloni to be very good, while Il Posto was less so with the kid assuming a "deer-in-headlights" silence for a lot of the film. I watched them both without subtitles and was able to follow along with the plot, though I certainly missed a lot of specific words and phrases. That's enough for now I suppose. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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