|
 |
Moving on with Italian | ||
Tags: Italian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Spidi Triglot Newbie Belgium Joined 6205 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 6 01 August 2009 at 6:07pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Hello everybody,
I haven't posted here before, though I have been following this forum actively for some time. I just never felt the need to ask or post something, because it seemed like everything had been said already.. So first of all: thanks for all the priceless information that's on here! Now for my problem (I have searched but it's somewhat more specific information I need): I have studied Italian for 2 years at a relatively calm pace, evening school. I quit last year because I couldn't combine it with the university, but I have completed the Pimsleur series, for which I took my time and in the meanwhile tried to expose myself to as much Italian as possible. Now I watch Italian movies, which is ofcourse hard, and have read some Easy Readers (vocabulary 1800 words) without much problems. I look up the words that I don't understand, put them in a list, and try to learn that list by heart. But this is rather ineffective for me. It also reminds me of the endless vocabulary lists and grammar we had to learn for French at school, which you would forget after the test anyway. Also, in books they use literary tenses which aren't that common in the spoken language, or am I wrong here? So I am looking for something more interesting, exciting, Pimsleur-stylish (with that I mean accent on listening/speaking, not on grammar), a more natural way to improve my Italian. Maybe this is not possible and I just have to pull through with rough studying now, I don't know. Thanks in advance, Michiel from Belgium. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6019 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 6 01 August 2009 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Well I'm not sure about literary tenses in Italian, you may be right, but I'm not a fan of graded readers. One of the things about using full-length novels is that the majority of the required vocabulary usually reveals itself in the first 100-150 pages. If a book is 400 pages long, that means you're looking up new stuff mostly in the first third of your reading time, then revising for the next two-thirds of the reading time.
Unfortunately, few graded readers are more than 100 pages, so you don't get the same opportunities for revision. Anyway, it's hard to say what the next step should be -- two years of evening classes could be nothing or lots, depending on your teacher. What do you know? Is it mostly phrases? Do you know a lot of grammar? Particular vocabulary? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spidi Triglot Newbie Belgium Joined 6205 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 6 01 August 2009 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks for the information, I will look into some regular Italian books.
My 2 evening classes weren't given by the same teacher, in fact it was in another place as well, but they did supplement eachother. In the first one we learned quite alot, in the second less but there was more emphasis on talking. I don't know phrases as in "pre-built" phrases, I can conjugate most of the verbs, but I don't master the congiuntivo and (tra)passato remoto entirely. So I can mostly build phrases quickly if they're easy, if they're harder it'll take longer but I'll manage, if I don't have vocabulary problems. And that's the problem mainly, but as I said, I find word lists very ineffective, although I have loads of them, also from friends who study Italian at the university. I know this is a hard, if not impossible, question to resolve, but I really feel like I'm not advancing as much as I would like to anymore. And because Belgium has 3 languages I feel it's my duty (also better for work ofcourse) to master the 2 other official languages, but I'm experiencing the same problems there. That's why I chose to do Italian first, got sick of French and German, at least the way they tried to learn it to me at school. I hope this has made my problem a bit clearer. Thanks again for the reply, and I can only congratulate you on learning Dutch ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Dario8015 Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6009 days ago 37 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 4 of 6 02 August 2009 at 7:05pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You might try this Italian Audio magazine - 'Incontro Italiano' - you can either use the free podcasts or pay for a subscription (which is FAR cheaper than many alternatives that I could mention).
Take a look around the site - there are videos to watch as well. I've been a subscriber to this for quite a while and have found it very useful for pushing past that 'plateau' http://www.maxmondo.com/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spidi Triglot Newbie Belgium Joined 6205 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, French Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 6 04 August 2009 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Ok, I got "Il Gattopardo" and there are 6 or something podcasts on my iPod! I'll let you know how it's going, but so far I can say I have read more in my dictionary than in the book itself ;) What a difference with those easy readers..
Thank you Cainntear and Dario! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Oasis88 Senior Member Australia Joined 5713 days ago 160 posts - 187 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Italian | Message 6 of 6 10 August 2009 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | ||
Cainntear do you then suggest to look up these words in the dictionary for those first 100 pages or so, and then slowly ween ourselves from the dictionary? Edited by Oasis88 on 10 August 2009 at 2:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
