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Mike’s Italian Progression | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4628 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 9 of 25 28 June 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Good luck with Italian. It's a really beautiful sounding language and since you spend a week in Italy every year, just remember that by working at it everyday the next year you'll be able to have a fluid conversation with someone! I'm thinking about learning it myself since my dad's side speaks it.
To answer your question about Assimil, if you follow their instructions it takes about 6 months to complete. I think their way is the best, for me anyway. I remember every word from every lesson except sometimes the active wave translating throws me off because the translations are either too literal or not literal enough. Edited by sillygoose1 on 28 June 2012 at 3:49pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| mikonai Diglot Senior Member United States weirdnamewriting.bloRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4921 days ago 178 posts - 281 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Swahili, German | Message 10 of 25 28 June 2012 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Sorry to hear you hit a rough patch, Gravityguy! I've never used MT, but I doubt
there's any harm in listening to the tracks over again if you want to, unless you just really wanted to finish the whole thing and move on to Assimil (which is always a temptation for me: I want to finish up what I'm on and move on to the next thing. Not always a good thing, in the end). I know how you feel with the memory problems, though. Vocabulary is sort of my downfall, and countless times I've had to look up a word or peek at an answer only to go: "D'oh! I knew that!" It happens to me even outside of language learning. Some days go really well, when I get a lot done and I get most everything right (or really close to right), but then there are the days where it's the exact opposite: I'm distracted, everything's not quite right enough, and those are the discouraging days. I guess I have to have some of them to balance out the good ones, huh? I hit a similar sort of thing as sillygoose1 on the Active Wave of Assimil. I love the course, but the reverse translations did get me sometimes. I sort of had to tell myself it wasn't quite that important, so long as the essential meaning was intact. The course doesn't bring you to full fluency, and I think interacting with native speakers is the best way to get to native fluency, once you're at that point in the Active Wave. Nothing like having a buddy to tell you "that works, but mostly you'd say it like this..." I really admire your dedication to learning. I'm sure you can keep it up, through good days and bad. Edited by mikonai on 28 June 2012 at 5:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 11 of 25 29 June 2012 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I borrowed MT Japanese (basic) from the library so I only had a chance to go through it a few times on the commute into work. IIRC it's only 8 CDs, so ~8 hours. Repeating it doesn't seem to me like a huge waste of time (especially if you are using time that would otherwise be dead anyway). Of course, MT Italian may not be so useful. MT J uses a native Japanese speaker (as well as a non-native teacher and - obviously - non-native students). I'm told MT Italian is by MT himself and he's "clearly not native". That said, I found MT very useful for getting a handle on a few points of basic grammar, whereas I found Pimsleur very good at getting me to actually speak. So I'd say use MT until you are happy that you understand all the grammar that he is trying to teach and then try to find native material (of a suitable level) to learn the sounds of the language. BTW: If you are in the UK, then a satellite setup will cost you maybe £150 and will get you ~15 decent Italian channels, plus a bunch of French, German and Spanish, a few other languages and a bunch of shopping channels. One of the Rai channels is aimed at kids and tries to gently teach English. From the few times I've watched bits, I'd say that it would also be quite useful for an English learner of Italian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4529 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 25 01 July 2012 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Thanks Sillygoose, I think I will try the Assimil method first and see how I get on. If I think another method would suit better then I will try it (but only if I'm sure that the assimil method is definitely not working).
This is exactly the same as I am, always eager to get onto the next one. I do have to make myself hold back though in order to get the most out of things. I can't wait to get onto assimil but I only want to do it once I have finished MT properly :)
I'm glad that I am not alone in not remembering all of the vocabulary. I have done better though since I went back and re did the last few tracks on CD 2 :)
Thanks Mikonai, I have wanted to learn for a long time and I am determined that now will be the time. Like sillygoose said, the fact that I go to Italy every year is a big driving factor. I can't wait to go next year and have a conversation with a native, especially as very few people in the area I visit actually speak any English. It will make Tropea even more special! :D
Thanks dampingwire, I have looked at getting a satellite setup before but I have no idea what setup I would need. Do you know of any good retailers that have a decent reputation? On to my diary.... It's been a few days since I last posted but I have now finished CD 3 and will be hoping to have finished half of CD 4 by the end of the day which will put me half way through the foundation course. I went back and did the last 3 tracks on CD 2 on Thursday and found that when I started CD 3 again, I could remember a lot more of what was being asked so I think that it really helped. I was a little despondent at first as I really wanted to get on with it but I am glad I went back. If I had to do the same again then I would do it without hesitation. I had a day off learning on Friday as I had to get up at silly o'clock in the morning and I was exhausted. I couldn't see that anything would stick in my mind when I was so tired so I decided to give it a miss. A had done every other day last week though so a day off here and there may be a good thing. On another note, I went into WHSmith yesterday and purchased the new 2012 edition of the Collins Italian Dictionary. RRP is £20 but smiths are selling it for £7.99 at the minute which I thought was a bargain. Almost 900 pages of dictionary and another 200 and something pages of grammar for less than £8 is good in my eyes (does that make me sound like a rep for smiths? lol). I was impressed though as I needed a dictionary. I was also going to buy the teach yourself complete Italian which was £25 but then saw it on amazon for £15 so I'm glad I didn't. I think I'll hold off on that though until I've finished Assimil. Although I may see if I can get a cheap copy of pimsleur from somewhere though that I can do at the same time as assimil. Anyone have any suggestions as to where sells all 3 levels quite cheaply? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4529 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 25 01 July 2012 at 8:26pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Just finished CD 4 which means I am half way through the foundation course. Whoop Whoop
:D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4529 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 25 05 July 2012 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I have now finished CD 5 of MT foundation course. Along side this, I have also been
listening to some Italian pop music whilst on my commute to and from work. I'm not sure how effective this is as I can generally not understand what is being sung but after a few listens things do start to get clearer. In fact one of the songs, 'il blanco' I can actually sing along to (in the roughest sense of the word) and I have learnt what a lot of the words mean. I'm pretty sure though that singing is completely different to talking which sounds a whole lot different. Along with the above, I have begun creating a parallel text for the first book of Harry Potter. It is hugely time consuming but I'm really hoping that it pays dividends once I start reading it. Actually, even just aligning the T1 language with the T2 language seems to be helping a little as I am being forced to match the corresponding paragraphs as they don't actually match up with each other. I've learnt quite a few new words just from this alone. I am hoping to have CD 6 finished by the end of tonight; as long as other things don't get in the way. My worst case goal for the night will be to have finished just half of CD 6. Edited by gravityguy on 05 July 2012 at 10:26am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 15 of 25 05 July 2012 at 10:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
No :-) You basically need a dish (mine's 80cm, Sky ones I think are 60cm), an LNB, coax cable, and a receiver. The dish will last forever, the LNB probably will too. Last time I looked you could get a dish + LNB for £50. The coax will be another £10-£20 (depending on how long a run you need). I currently have a Manhattan Plaza XT receiver (~£60 delivered, from somewhere random on the web in the UK). If you stick the dish on the wall yourself, you need to point roughly where your neighbour's Sky dish goes and slightly wiggle to find the Hotbird satellite. (Or you might want Astra, but for Italian, Hotbird is probably your best bet). You may need an alignment kit to set it up properly (compass + signal strength meter, probably £10 from Maplins). Your local satellite installer can probably stick it on the side of the house for you if you prefer. Obviously you can go the whole hog and get a dual LNB which will point to two satellites at once or even a motorised set up. I'd start cheap and see where that gets you.
I've not looked for Italian Pimsleur or MT but I have looked for Japanese. Pimsleur I got through a friend and through my company. MT Foundation was at the local library (so 75p rental fee :-)). MT Advanced I did see dirt cheap on Amazon of all places (through an affiliate) for ~£20. The same (or a similar course, Total Japanese) was in Blackwells in Oxford for £100. I don't know what the differences were but both had 4 CDs (so about 4 hours). I've not bothered yet as 4 hours didn't seem too hot. BTW: If you want audio, you should head over to Italianpod101.com; I don't know how much of it you can get for free and it certainly hasn't as many lessons as japanesepod101.com (to which I have subscribed) but there does seem to be a bunch of stuff. The advanced section has an audio blog and I've just tried two at random with my free account and some girl is whittering on about Napoli and the local superstitions as I type this. If it's anything like japanesepod101 then there's plenty of mildly structured audio but you get to build your own SRS (i.e. there's no repetition). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 16 of 25 05 July 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I brought that one home from the library a while ago for my daughter to read. She's been through the English versions (+ audio books) so often that she pretty much has them all memorised. I remember seeing "babbano" and thinking WTH? until I twigged :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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