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Gary’s 2015 TACtivation: FR, IT

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Serpent
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 Message 153 of 187
09 June 2015 at 4:36pm | IP Logged 
Haha, believe it or not it was in Russian ;) Might have been the last time I read a book in it without doing LR or parallel texts :D

It does seem similar, yeah. Good luck with it :)
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garyb
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 Message 154 of 187
10 June 2015 at 11:01am | IP Logged 
Fair enough. Another one I've heard of that looks interesting is "Set your voice free", which might even be more appropriate for my interests since it's more about singing than acting. But I've already committed myself to one book :) Plus many say that speaking a foreign language is like acting, as you're trying to express yourself the way a native speaker would, and I think there's some truth to that.

I changed my mind about the break from Italian reading. Last summer I spent a lot of time sitting in the park reading Ammaniti novels, and now that the good weather is finally arriving here I've felt like reliving those experiences so I've started his first novel, Branchie. I've remembered why I love Ammaniti: fun, crazy, disturbing at times, and tons of modern colloquial dialogue. This book in particular is written in a quite a straightforward style, in contrast to some of his later ones that have much more descriptive language, although I anticipate some tricky fish-related vocabulary.

I'm still in a crime mood after that film, so I've started La piovra season two. It's a strange mix between cheesy and gritty. In terms of language, it's very clearly spoken but there is a reasonable bit of judicial vocabulary in there so the subtitles on Youtube are handy. Just seen the first episode and a bunch of people have already been killed.

I'm again finding peace with French and accepting it as a low-priority and passive language. There are plenty series and films I'm still keen to watch and a few more books I'd like to read: during the rest of this year I hope to get through the two remaining Houellebecq novels and maybe some more Fred Vargas.
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suzukaze
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 Message 155 of 187
15 June 2015 at 12:03am | IP Logged 
Some corrections :)

garyb wrote:
la mattina ho avuto un appuntamento dal medico […] avevo l'impressione di star per crollare […] Però ce l'ho fatta a scendere al ristorante indiano sotto casa mia.

• “la mattina” is correct in this case
• “avevo l'impressione di essere sul punto di crollare”
• “Però sono riuscito a scendere”

garyb wrote:
Stavo ancora un po' male, ma per fortuna avevo preso un giorno di riposo e il vino mi ha rallegrato! Abbiamo preparato tanto cibo, e parecchi amici sono venuti. Compresi alcuni Italiani e spagnoli, e anche un paio di francesi, così ho avuto l'occasione di usare le mie lingue.


• “mi ha messo di buon umore”, “rallegrarsi” is a bit…old fashioned
• “cibo e sono venuti parecchi […], compresi alcuni Italiani, spagnoli e un paio di francesi”

garyb wrote:
[…] avevo sempre l'intenzione di riprenderla prima o poi, quindi forse questo è il momento! […], ma per suonare qualche melodia o accordo è bello e poi è molto portatile, entra facilmente in uno zaino. Un giorno vorrei comprarmene una di dimensione normale, però intanto questa va bene! Soprattutto perché per il momento preferirei continuare a concentrarmi sulla chitarra, e una grande tastiera mi distrarrebbe troppo ;).


• “ho sempre avuto l'intenzione di riprendere a suonarla […] il momento giusto (per farlo)”
• “ma va bene per suonare […] accordo e poi […] dato che entra […]”
• “va bene soprattutto perché”
• “sulla chitarra e una grande tastiera”

garyb wrote:
Tornando all'argomento delle lingue: ultimamente non sono molto contento del mio Italiano parlato, faccio troppi piccoli sbagli con i verbi e faccio fatica a esprimere certe cose, e non parliamo neanche della pronuncia. […] Adesso mi rimetto a scrivere e a parlare di più (come il famoso "adesso mi rimetto a dieta") e se tutto va bene le mie competenze di prima ritorneranno.

• “con i verbi, faccio fatica”
• “Adesso riprenderò a scrivere e parlare […] e, se tutto va bene, il mio livello migliorerà”

EDIT:
garyb wrote:
I've been learning Italian for how long and I still confuse "sessanta" and "settanta"?

I think this falls under the category of silly mistakes every learner does, mine with English was the third person singular -s. For a long time I often forgot to add it, even though I knew I had to…go figure XD

Edited by suzukaze on 15 June 2015 at 12:15am

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garyb
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 Message 156 of 187
15 June 2015 at 1:21pm | IP Logged 
Thanks suzukaze, very helpful! I made the sessanta/settanta mistake again while speaking yesterday :( indeed it's something so basic yet I continue to get it wrong.

I had a few opportunities to speak Italian at the weekend: a group of my flatmate's friends were visiting from Italy, I went out with a few friends including Italian speakers, and I chatted on Skype. But I was tired and not quite in the mood, and made lots of awful mistakes including the above one. All practice is good though.

I'm trying to put the pronunciation fixes into practice, and while it's mostly the usual case of all the good work going out the window as soon as I'm in conversation, a few things are slowly making their way in, like more consistent intonation. If I keep it up for the next few months I should see more improvement. I might make a sheet of paper with all the things I'm working on and put it on my wall so I can remind myself while I do solo speaking practice or Skype.

I did a long exercise from the voice book at the weekend, and then when I spoke on Skype later on my friend said my voice sounded different. So maybe it's doing something productive and not just taking up a bunch of my time and making me roll around on the floor in strange positions.

Had a phone call in French the other day. It was okay, seems like the input is keeping my French alive.
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garyb
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 Message 157 of 187
15 June 2015 at 4:30pm | IP Logged 
Media update and some Italian:

Ho finito di leggere "Branchie". Un libro pazzesco e surreale, che mi ha ricordato più i racconti di Ammaniti che i suoi romanzi successivi più seri. Il linguaggio non era troppo difficile né troppo facile.

I've finished reading "Branchie". Crazy and surreal book, that reminded me more of Ammaniti's short stories than his later more serious novels (the two adjective phrases "successivi più seri" doesn't seem quite right to me but I can't figure out something better). The language wasn't too difficult or too easy.

Ho visto i primi dieci minuti del film "Ora o mai più" e ho mollato, lo odiavo già. Poi ho iniziato a guardare "Non pensarci" che finora mi sembra carino.

I watched the first ten minutes of "Now or never" and I quit, I hated it already. Then I started watching "Non pensarci" which seems nice so far.

Ho finito la serie di "Workingirls", e complessivamente mi è piaciuta abbastanza anche se a volte il umorismo non azzeccava proprio. Il gran finale esagerato mi ha fatto ridere. Cercavo qualcosa di comico con episodi corti in Italiano, ho trovato "I soliti idioti" (di cui parlava Sillygoose) e ho guardato qualche episodio. Certi personaggi hanno accenti difficili da capire, dunque mi fa lavorare!

I finished the series of "Workingirls", and on the whole I quite liked it even if at times the humour didn't quite hit the mark. The over-the-top finale made me laugh. I was looking for something comic with short episodes in Italian, I found "I soliti idioti" (that Sillygoose was talking about) and watched a few episodes. Some characters have difficult to understand accents, so it makes me work!
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Sarnek
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 Message 158 of 187
15 June 2015 at 5:23pm | IP Logged 
Ho finito di leggere "Branchie". Un libro pazzesco e surreale, che mi ha ricordato più i racconti di Ammaniti che i suoi romanzi successivi più seri. Il linguaggio
non era troppo difficile né troppo facile.

Ho visto i primi dieci minuti del film "Ora o mai più" e ho mollato, già lo odiavo. Poi ho iniziato a guardare "Non pensarci" che finora mi sembra carino.

Ho finito la serie "Workingirls" e complessivamente mi è piaciuta abbastanza anche se a volte l'umorismo non c'azzeccava proprio. Lo straordinario
gran finale
mi ha fatto ridere. Cercavo qualcosa di comico con episodi corti in Italiano, ho trovato "I soliti idioti" (di cui parlava Sillygoose) e ho
guardato qualche episodio. Certi personaggi hanno accenti difficili da capire, e quindi mi fa sudare!



Ho migliorato un pochettino.
Azzeccare è un verbo transitivo quindi richiede un complemento oggetto. Esagerato significa più "exaggerated" che "over-the-top".
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garyb
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 Message 159 of 187
16 June 2015 at 11:29am | IP Logged 
Thanks Sarnek, that was quick! I wrote *"il umorismo" instead of "l'umorismo"?! I think I'll give up now until I catch up on some sleep ;) Seriously though, there are different kinds of mistakes: the silly one-off ones like that that we all make at times, the more consistent/systematic ones, the ones where I'm not familiar enough with a usage so I guess incorrectly like the ones with "azzecare" and "esagerato", and the ones that are technically correct but not quite natural like some of suzukaze's corrections. Obviously corrections of all of them are valuable :).

"Esagerare" can be a tricky one because it's often used in places where we wouldn't use "exaggerate" in English. "Hai esagerato" is often better translated as "You went too far" than "You exaggerated", so that's why I thought it might be appropriate there.
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Jeffers
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 Message 160 of 187
16 June 2015 at 11:46am | IP Logged 
garyb wrote:
"Esagerare" can be a tricky one because it's often used in places where we wouldn't use "exaggerate" in English. "Hai esagerato" is often better translated as "You went too far" than "You exaggerated", so that's why I thought it might be appropriate there.


The same thing applies to French, eh? I hear "Tu exagères" in contexts which I would translate more like "You're being dramatic" or (as you wrote) "You're going too far".


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