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Jasoninchina presents: semi-motivated | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 1 of 40 25 May 2011 at 8:15am | IP Logged |
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Before now, my study of Mandarin has not required a log. I never felt that it would benefit myself or anyone else. However, I would now like to learn a few more languages, ones which I don't know much about, so the need is now present.
The languages I would like to study are Italian, Spanish, French, German, and Russian. My wife and I will be traveling to Italy during the next Chinese new year, so Italian is first on my list. I am also Italian by blood, so thats another reason. My main goal is basic conversation for the purpose of travel. Depending on my minds ability to assimilate new languages, I may take them further than that. I'd love to develop them as reading languages as I enjoy reading. In a few days I will be traveling to the US where I will be visiting family for about 3 weeks. During that time, I will be putting Mandarin into review-mode and hitting Italian pretty hard. I have chosen to use TY Italian. I was able to put it on my Ipad, so I can study whereever I am, it's fairly short(only 20 lessons), and I feel it will give me a decent taste of the language. My goal is to finish the book by the time I return to China in late June. Once I finish TY Italian I will assess my ability and desire to continue this language. Mandarin is still my primary language of study and I hope to incorporate it into this log. My ability to listen and read far outweight my ability to contruct a sentence, thus I would like to utilize this log to journal in Chinese. For those of you who familiar with the languages I am studying, I would greatly appreciate any comments, corrections, advice, and words of motivation you may have. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 2 of 40 25 May 2011 at 8:42am | IP Logged |
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TY Italian Ch.1: Completed
Italian is clearly easier to learn than Mandarin. Who would have thought? I find that I can pick up the words much faster and can understand the dialogue almost right away. I'll be interested to see how long that lasts :-). 中文：今天，我教两节课。早上的学生很麻烦 。她是七岁，总是摸我的身体。下午的学生不 喜欢学英语，但是我必须教他，因为他是我的 妻子的弟弟。不过，我非常兴奋。下个星期我 去美国休息。那个的时候，我打算学意大利语 。我的妻子想去Venice参观. 她没去过意大利。所以，我应该学得努力。 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 3 of 40 26 May 2011 at 8:36am | IP Logged |
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TY Italian Ch.2: Completed
The most difficult aspect of learning Italian has so far been in rewiring my brain for a new language. TY likes to ask questions like "how would you say 'who is this?'" My natural tendency is to respond in Chinese. Has anyone else experienced this? I imagine I'll eventually acclimate to the use of two foreign languages. Also, it has become abundently clear that TY is only giving me the barebones of the language. I hadn't planned to use any other materials, but it may become necessary. All in all, I can't wait till I can write this log in Italiano. 中文：最近，我很忙。下课以后，我学习意大 利语和汉语。我的业余越来越少。但是，去美 国的时候我应该有很多。不幸的是，我必须暂 停学校。今天早上，我看见一个老鼠在我的窗 户外。那个的时候，祂正在喝水吃一些布。昨 天晚上，我的妻子把一盒水放在阳台里。所以 ，我觉得我们不应该东西放在外面。我决定： 老鼠必须死！ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 4 of 40 27 May 2011 at 8:44am | IP Logged |
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TY Italian Ch.3: In progress
With chapters 1 and 2, I learned the lesson in one day, then reviewed it the next. With chapter 3, it is a bit more difficult for me to do this. There are more words and the content is becoming more complex. So I think I will spread the initial learning over two days, then review on the third. Another thing I have noticed is missing from TY is a reading of the vocabulary at the beginning of a lesson. I have come to enjoy that in my Chinese textbooks. I mention this because I am having some difficult pronouncing a few sounds. The "r" gives me some trouble, depending on its position in the word. Also, "gli" is a bit difficult. Any words of advice on pronunciation is greatly appreaciated. 中文：今天，老鼠没来。昨天晚上，我跟妻子 一起去电影院看电影。五分钟以前的电影开演 ，电影票的人让我们进去。但是五分钟不够。 排队又长又曼。我们错过了电影的开头。电影 票的人不在乎。我的妻子跟他讲话，但他还不 在乎。我以为中国的服务比美国的好。我的错 。我还爱中国，但是有时候我们不同意。 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 40 27 May 2011 at 9:08pm | IP Logged |
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Hello,
good luck with learning so many languages. Italian is beautiful. To your question about rewiring brain for new foreign language. I had troubles with this years ago, when I had to start learning English instead of French at school. I had the same trouble you said (immediate answer but in wrong foreign language) and one more-dealing with the things which are similar in the languages which is a trouble you are very unlikely to meet I guess. Just give it a bit of time, it will get solved as Italian becomes more natural to you. And when you start learning your third foreign language, you should have much less trouble with this from my experience. Have a nice time with Italian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Yashinka Diglot Pro Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5212 days ago 29 posts - 37 votes Speaks: Swedish*, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, German, Italian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 40 27 May 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged |
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I have just started up learning Italian once again for the sake of completing a beginner course. Since I have studied japanese almost daily for two years now, Italian doesn't pose much of a challenge in comparison to learning kanji, which you most also somewhat agree with, I imagine ^^ in any case, good luck with Italian, I will keep on reading your log to see if you encounter the same hurdles as I do *right now, mostly gender based words for me*
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 7 of 40 28 May 2011 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
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TY Italian Ch.3: Complete
I'm finding that I can gain a passive understanding of the Italian that I'm learning quite easily. I can read and understand 100% of the dialogue once I learned the words. I can also understand the dialogue quite well when spoken. I am having some trouble producing the words from my own mind. When the narrator asks me how to say something, its much harder to remember the words. So I definitely need to work on the speaking. I've inputted all the words into anki, perhaps I should see if I can be given the English so that I can practice producing the Italian. @Cavesa: thank you for your encouragement. I certainly hope that my brain will begin to iron out the details soon. @Yashinka: I'm glad someone else on this forum is where I'm at with Italian. I don't see Italian written about much on this forum. I can definitely agree with you that Italian doesn't pose nearly as much of a threat as Chinese did, and does. When I studied Spanish in high school and French in college I always felt that it would be impossible to learn the genders of all the words. After learning the tones along with the words in Chinese, this doesn't seem like much of a problem any more. As with Chinese, I will take it one word at a time. 中文：今天，我跟朋友们去教堂教小孩子们。 我们教他们英语和圣经的故事。虽然我不相信 耶稣，我的朋友们和家庭是所有基督教。我喜 欢教那些小孩子们，因为他们的家庭很不好。 我的外甥也去参观。他是两岁。他的妈妈是中 国人，爸爸是美国人。 但是他的爸爸住在美国，所以我教他英语。我 们去玩的时候，所有的人觉得他是我的儿子。 非常不好意思。有时候，有的人告诉我他看起 来像我。哈哈。 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5234 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 8 of 40 30 May 2011 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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TY Italian Ch.4: Started :-)
Sunday is my longest day, many classes to teach. And today I've been preparing for my trip to the States (wish me luck) so not much studying today. I did manage to start the chapter and go through my anki deck. Beginning this week, I have put Mandarin into review mode. I'm doing my best to do anki everyday and review my current textbook. I leave for the States tomorrow, so this'll be my last post for a few days. I hope to study some on the trip, but I'm usually not in the mood to do anything but watch movies for the 12 hour flight. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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