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TAC 2011 - Team Ì - Italian - magictom123 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 25 of 53 15 February 2011 at 1:55pm | IP Logged |
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Hi JPike and Canada,
Firstly, I'm sorry for the slow reply here. A few hours after my last post, I awoke in the middle of the night and was severely sick and have continued to be so until today, where I feel quite a bit better. I had been bedridden, losing half a stone in weight over 2 days in the process, but as I said I feel much better today. I have been following both your logs with interest but have yet to write much since you are both currently studying different languages and I feel there is little I am qualified to comment on. Having said that, you have both made the effort to write on mine so I will make the effort to comment more on your logs from now on, even if it is only in a motivational tone. I can see you are both making good progress with Arabic and Spanish respectively and it will be great if you get the opportunity to spend time on Italian. As I am sure you are aware, we are in the minority here in learning this lovely language. I can't emphasis enough how beneficial it has been to me to have Italian TV available to me. Before I had this tool, I felt isolated in my studies as I had little or no opportunity to see the language alive and kicking - books and course audio are good but nothing replaces seeing and hearing real people speak the real language. Anyway, thanks for your continued support. Tom 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 26 of 53 15 February 2011 at 2:21pm | IP Logged |
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As mentioned above, I have been ill, and so, for the first time since I started Assimil
in November last year, I had to miss a days study 2 days ago. I was gutted about this since I didn't want to 'break the chain' so to speak. I was determined not to make it two days in a row without studying and so yesterday, with sweat literally dripping off my head, I made my way through Assimil. Luckily, it was an easy lesson in the sense that after playing the audio through once or twice I seemed to understand virtually everything. I think learning through context is an important milestone and hopefully one I am beginning to approach. Right, since I haven't posted last weeks results from Assimil's active wave, I will do so now: Lesson 22: 97.79% Lesson 23: 95.11% Lesson 24: 94.12% Lesson 25: 97.01% Lesson 26: 96,45% Lesson 27: 97.30% I think now is a good time to explain what exactly I do regarding the second or active wave of Assimil. After 'completing' that days lesson in the passive wave, I go back to the active wave lesson earlier in the book and play the audio once through without looking at the book. Next, I play the audio again whilst looking at the book. After this I read the notes for that days lesson before covering the Italian side up and vocally translating the text. I go through the whole text in one go. After this, I open my notebook and translate the text in written form. Afterwards, I check my errors and confirm where and why I have gone wrong. Using this method means that up to this point, I have failed to find myself in a position where I am completely at a loss as to what to write or say, since the quick review of the lesson is ample to have refreshed myself on the lesson's content. Assimil aside, I was extremely pleased this morning to turn on the TV and watch a debate on the Tunisian immigrants/refugees that are currently rolling up on Italian shores. The reason being that I understood a large portion of the debate. Not every word but enough to understand a woman in the studio arguing with an outside presenter who said that despite the high number of immigrants coming to Italy right now, in recent years countries like France and Germany have received ten's of thousand's more immigrants than Italy has. As I watched, I tried to consider whether my apparent leap in understanding was maybe due to being in a somewhat more relaxed state than normal due to recovering from illness. Normally, it is difficult to stop translating in head what I hear on the TV. This morning, however, I just let things 'wash over' me a little more. This is something I will try and develop more in the coming days. Edited by magictom123 on 15 February 2011 at 2:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Edgel Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5462 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Studies: English*, Italian, Spanish | Message 27 of 53 18 February 2011 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Tom,
I'd never thought of getting one of those cheap satellite dishes before, didn't know you could! That's a great tip, thanks. I'm curious as to what other Italian channels might be available.. You are right, being in different states of mind seems to have a huge effect on ability to comprehend things in the new language. I wonder if at times I am just overlooking how much is passing me by (uncomprehended!)more so than at others. If that makes any sense. Good luck with the learning anyway, Ed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 28 of 53 24 February 2011 at 1:33pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Edgel,
Sorry for the slow reply. As I said somewhere earlier in this log, my dish cost £50 from ALDI in one of their sales. They are also available from B&Q and Lidl from time to time. The channels you receive depend on where you point the satellite. My dish is only 45cm wide but it picks up a strong signal for several satellites. I found the website dishpointer.com very useful. As for channels, since I am receiving channels from hotbird (13 degree east from the UK), there are maybe 1500+ channels. Languages include Spanish, German, Italian, English, French, Arabic and maybe some others I don't recognise. Since I am studying Italian I have made a list of favourites so that I don't have to browse through a load of shopping channels. My list includes RAI news 24, RAI 1, RAI 2, RAI 3, RAI sports 1, RAI sports 2, RAI international, RAI Gulp (kids channel), Frisbee (kids channel), RAI storia and some others. There are also many regional Italian channels but I mainly stick to the RAI channels. Other notable channels include France24 (available in 3 languages, although not Italian). Also, moving the dish slightly allows another satellite to be picked up which includes Eurosport (in German). It would be a good idea to get a satellite receiver capable of adding new transponder numbers rather than just using a preset list. The reason for this is that sometimes new channels become available but you have to scan for them manually and need the transponder they are transmitting from. It might sound complicated but it is very easy to sort out. The kits come with a small device that whistles like a kettle as you scan the sky with the dish. Using dishpointer.com you can get a general idea of where to aim the dish and then using the little locational device, which also has a LED display, its a simple matter of getting a combination of all lights being lit on the display and a high whislting noise. Then do a scan of the channels via the TV and you're off! I hope that helps, and if you have any more questions - feel free to ask! Regards Tom 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 29 of 53 24 February 2011 at 3:18pm | IP Logged |
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Assimil active wave lessons from the last week:
Lesson 29: 96.74% Lesson 30: 95.60% Lesson 31: 96.65% Lesson 32: 93.55% Lesson 33: ?????? Lesson 34: 92.86% I'll have to edit this post later in order to add the result from Lesson 33 as I have just noticed I didn't mark it at the time of doing it and don't have my notebook to hand. Overall, this week in question was probably the hardest since I had restarted my studies in earnest last November. Although I was ill last week and had posted how I felt a lot better, unfortunately the after effects of everything mean't that I had very little energy and it was hard for me to find the motivation for a few days to continue on with my daily routine. I did however, plough on and I'm glad I did as it seems important to keep up the daily study of a foreign language. In the last few days I have felt like I am once again making progress. During the course of this week, Il Giro di Sardegna, a minor but nonetheless interesting cycle race from Sardinia is taking place and RAI sports 2 have been showing around an hour of it each night. I watched last nights programme and was happy to find that for the best part of an hour, I understood the gist of everything that was said. This morning I also took another one of those language placement tests that are in another thread on this forum and scored 33/51 on the Italian test, which put me in the high intermediate bracket. I wouldn't put myself there but at least after a lot of effort I am not getting back results that place me as a beginner, even if the accuracy of such tests is debatable. Whilst things are improving steadily, I still feel like there is a divide between what I have learnt in Assimil and my active vocabulary. Therefore, in order to work on this I have been looking for a conversational partner. Luckily, I have found an Italian speaker who is learning English and wants to chat a few times a week. We plan to have our first skype session in a few days so I'll report back how that goes. Whilst I don't believe it is important to remember every word I've come across in Assimil, I was slightly disappointed to find that I had forgotten some words from lessons in the last month. I know I haven't reached the active wave with these lessons yet but due to this I have started to shadow lessons. I am doing this with current passive wave lessons as well as older lessons (not each current active wave lesson though). In the few days I have been doing this I have realised how much I have needed to raise my game if I want to speak at native level speed. The extra effort of shadowing seems to be paying off already as in the last few days, Assimil has been relatively easy for me to understand, even with all the new vocabulary that is introduced. So, onwards we plod. In around 3 weeks I will have finished the passive wave of Assimil so I am going to have to give some thought on what I am going to do next. I think even after completing Assimil, I am going to have to work on the subjunctive and so maybe a textbook will be the way to go. There was one in the library the last time I was there. I might check that out as it seemed to be full of drills and exercises and claimed to reach B2 level. I am considering doing a third wave of Assimil as well to really sweep up some of the points that haven't fully sunk in. Any other suggestions from anyone reading this would be welcome, but bear in mind, I can't afford expensive items so unfortunately I will have to discount anything of that sort. Ci vediamo presto! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 30 of 53 07 March 2011 at 1:57pm | IP Logged |
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I realise I haven't written on this log in nearly two weeks. I have been continuing on
almost as normal with my studies. Unfortunately, A few days have slipped in where I haven't done an Assimil lesson. There are two reasons for this: firstly, my wife is on holiday from work at the moment and so we have been going on days out which hasn't left any time in the day to study with Assimil. Secondly, as the dialogues have got a bit more intensive, I find I need more time to digest them. I have also started to use other resources. I am now using the podcasts/graded audio at lingq to aid my listening comprehension as well as trying to read more online articles. All of the above is not to say I have been slacking off with Italian. In fact, I feel like I am still making good progress. I have been speaking a lot to myself over the last week or two and this is definitely helping. Rather than lessons from Assimil, however useful, about the Italian political system, I am constructing sentences such as 'I am a bit hungry and feel like a piece of toast' whilst pottering around the house. I hope to return to more frequent updates from this week on here. Looking back at my previous posts has definitely been self motivating. As I have said previously, I am a big fan of cycling, and the cycling season is really starting to get under way. Yesterday, the biggest race of the season started and in a day or so another big Italian race gets under way. RAI sport are covering both of these and with other smaller races I have been lucky in that I have lots of material in Italian to view which really interests me. I am nearing the point where I feel like I will make a video in Italian and put it on youtube. I have to say that for the moment, I am really happy using Lingq for it's free audio section. I hope to continue to use that site alongside Assimil and using other resources to continue making progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magictom123 Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5584 days ago 272 posts - 365 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 31 of 53 08 March 2011 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
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Another update, another mock exam...
Yep, I couldn't wait any longer and so this morning I decided to have a crack at the TELC mock Italian B1 exam. Here's how it went: As usual, I haven't completed the parts I couldn't fairly do at home or have marked by an examiner. The parts I have completed have definite answers taken from the answer key at the end of the paper. The full exam has a total of 300 marks. The sections of the exam I sat had a total of 180 marks. Section 1/Written comprehension results: Part 1: 3/5 (15/25 marks) Part 2: 4/5 (20/25 marks) Part 3: 8/10 (20/25 marks) Section 2/Elements of the language results: Part 1: 10/10 (15/15 marks) Part 2: 8/10 (12/15 marks) Section 3/Oral comprehension results: Part 1: 3/5 (15/25 marks) Part 2: 9/10 (22.5/25 marks) Part 3: 3/5 (15/25 marks) Final results: 48/60 questions correct! 139.5/180 marks! Using the mock exam's mark scheme and for the moment ignoring just how many questions I got right, out of the parts of the exam I have completed I have a score of 77.5% If you look at the number of correct answers from the questions answered then this total would be 80%. If we use the guide of a previous post that said 60% from the full exam was required in order to pass the full and proper exam, then scaling my score up to the full exam (300 marks) would be a score of 46.5% Since there are 120 marks available in the sections I didn't complete, I would only need to score 40.5/120 marks) from these uncompleted sections to pass the exam with a total score of 60%. I am confident that I would do this quite easily. A few notes on the B1 mock exam. The exam follows the same layout as the earlier exams I had sat at home. As you would expect though, there is quite a difference in difficulty when compared to the lower levels. For example, in some of the multiple choice sections you are given 15 answers to choice from in relation to 5 individual questions. This is a lot more than the other exams and obviously increases the chances of you picking the wrong answer. Also, in the oral comprehension section, some parts of the audio are only played once before an answer is required whilst in another subsection, the audio is played twice but the content is considerably longer than at the lower levels and so extracting the required information out of something like an interview is quite difficult (for me at least). I am happy with these results. I think I will leave the B2 exam until I have completed Assimil. The exam has helped to reinforce what I already knew, i.e. I need to continue to work on my listening comprehension and probably also find a good grammar book to use alongside Assimil. Talking to myself seems to be helping and I would like to really pick up on that, as well as shadowing the dialogues from Assimil. The graded material from Lingq is just what I was after and so I am going to plough head first into that. I would at some point like a physical copy of an Italian book to read just to get me away from the computer. Anyway, that's enough for now...a presto! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| canada38 Tetraglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5486 days ago 304 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Japanese | Message 32 of 53 13 March 2011 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
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Hey magictom,
I took the test at www.italian-test.com, and got A1 77% and A2 60%. It seems I have a lot of work to do! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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