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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 41 of 53 19 June 2011 at 11:27am | IP Logged |
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This morning I have watched the first two episodes of 'Cantieri in'Italia'. I am going
to watch them all in order after previously only having dabbled with the odd random episode. I have listened to a bit of Italian music this morning. I have just also gone through my ANKI deck for today. I think it is up to around 200 words now. I've still got to do Assimil for today but I'll do that this afternoon. I will try and also read a few more pages of Harry Potter at some point later on today. 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 42 of 53 20 June 2011 at 10:44am | IP Logged |
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A little more on yesterday...
I did end up reading a few more pages of HP. I also watched a film in Italian last night (Michael Clayton). This morning... I have already watched part of some drama show (I think it's called Nikida). I was pretty happy that I could understand large parts of the dialogue. I think with all the input I am getting from the TV, Assimil, music on Youtube etc my listening comprehension is improving rapidly. I have also just gone through my Anki cards for today in about 10 minutes or so. I'm now listening to some music again on Youtube. This set of activities is keeping my interest and motivation really high. I hope it continues like this and I don't see why it won't. It has become second nature now to fly through Anki, listen to some tunes on the net, watch TV throughout the day when I can, all whilst slotting in Assimil somewhere during the day. This has been an important realisation for my future language learning. It would be a mistake to hang all your hopes on one particular course (no matter how good). I need different tools and activities to keep me motivated, interested and to avoid burn out. I have looked again at the exam info I mentioned the other day. A local university runs PLIDA exams twice a year and the next ones are in Nov/Dec. The B2 exam is £67 and the C1 £79. You have to register 5 weeks before. Longer than I thought but I still have til October to decide which one to do based on how my studies are going. If anyone does in fact read this, do you have experience of sitting Italian exams linked to the CEFR scale? Which one is the most recognised? CELI, PLIDA or any of the others I can't think of at the moment? I know at least 3 are recognised by the Italian authorities so I am more interested in what ptential employers might think of each type of certification. Edited by magictom123 on 20 June 2011 at 10:45am 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 43 of 53 25 June 2011 at 4:13pm | IP Logged |
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I'm still adding new words to ANKI as I read through Harry Potter. I know some people
like to read on and on through a book and then maybe go back and really zero in on unknown words etc. However, I am finding that the things that works for me is to add words that look like they might be interesting/useful as I read through for the first time, and then to re-read the page or chapter over again so that I have a better understanding of the story before I continue. Otherwise, with too many unknown words I am sure that I would lose interest and not proceed further. I am on page 25 of the PDF version of the book I have and have just finished chapter 2. I am going to re-read it again maybe once or twice more and weed out the words that I might come across once in a lifetime from those that I might have regular need for, and add the latter (if I haven't already) to ANKI. I am really enjoying the reading I have been doing recently. A few nights ago I watched a film called The Core on one of the RAI channels. My comprehension of such things is definitely improving as I absorb all this input. I have also been re-watching some of The Simpsons episodes that I have been taping. It is always interesting to note how a word you have just learnt might start appearing everywhere as has been the case with a few I have learnt recently. As I was getting ready to go out for a bit this morning, I flicked over the TV and RAI Sports were showing a rerun of a few stages of the Giro d'Italia. I could understand an awful lot of what was being said - that is quite a pleasing thing to be able to write. I going to do today's Assimil lesson in a little while as well. In case I haven't written this already, I am now adding words from Assimil to ANKI in a separate deck. I also have a third deck for words that I don't know as I conduct an inner monologue throughout the day. This is hard to do when there are other people always around and so there are only a handful of words at the moment in this deck but I am sure it will grow considerably in the near future. Edited by magictom123 on 25 June 2011 at 6:16pm 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 44 of 53 28 June 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
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I have just finished watching 'Life is Beautiful' in Italian with English subtitles. I
had to rely on the subtitles an awful lot but I thought the film itself was great. This morning, for first time ever, I went and sat in the library to read a book. Normally, I go in and have a quick browse but I had some time to myself this morning and so I decided I would go and have a sit in there. The language section is pretty good for a local library when all the books are back from being loaned out. Although I am far from the start of my journey into learning Italian, I have often wondered how Benny @Fi3m's manages to get by initially having only used a phrase book. On the shelf today was the Lonely Planet Italian Phrasebook and so I sat down and had a good read through it. My initial idea on the way to the library was to maybe read through a bit of one of the TY books but I found the phrasebook really interesting as it also had a meal section and a small dictionary section in the back. I also find it interesting to note what sort of things are included and deemed essential or something that will be of immediate use for such a phrase book. I found a cut down version of the same phrasebook online and will have a glance through that later. Just having a load of sentences without the grammatical explanation can be a challenge as I figure out why a certain translation has been given and so on. Up until now I have gone through all my decks each day on ANKI because regardless of ease I just click the same button unless I don't know the word. From now on I will determine which button to press for each word and use the software as it was intended. This means I won't be reviewing as much every day but as I add more and more words I was hardly using a sustainable method anyway. Providing I get some peace and quiet later, I am going to read a few more pages of Harry Potter. 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 45 of 53 02 July 2011 at 12:17pm | IP Logged |
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Last night I watched a preview of the Tour de France on RAI sports 2 before going to
bed. I understood the vast majority of what was said. (EDIT) I forgot to add that I also watched another episode of Cantieri d'Italia yesterday. I enjoy watching them and they are really good. Although I could understand nearly everything in the episode, there have still been things I have learnt from each episode so far. (EDIT) This morning, I have already listened to some Italian music via youtube and have just finished reading chapter 1 of the first Harry Potter book in Italian. After reading through 2 or 3 chapters of one of the other books in the series, I thought it would make sense to go through them all in order, since I have them all now. Anyway, whilst reading, I continued to highlight unknown words and it appears that on an average page there are around 500 words in total, of which I am unfamiliar with anything from 20 to 70, with the average number of unknown words per page being around 40-45. This means that so far I can understand over 90% of the text without any help. As for the rest, usually the context in which a unknown word is used allows me to have a rough guess as to what it means. I should say that to read a full chapter in Italian has taken me just over an hour. Finally, I did a fully copy and paste of the whole book to an online word counter and all the words including a short introduction about the author etc come in at around 74,000 - so I still have some reading to do hahaha. Edited by magictom123 on 02 July 2011 at 12:23pm 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 46 of 53 02 July 2011 at 12:26pm | IP Logged |
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Just an extra short post to say that I have noticed that the coverage of today's stage of
the Tour de France has already begun on RAI sports, so that's the next 5 or 6 hours of listening practice sorted for me. Ciao. 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 47 of 53 04 July 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged |
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I watched maybe 3 hours of the Tour de France in Italian today. Watching a lot of
cycling means I have picked up a lot of specific vocabulary over the last few months. Here are some of the words (there are others of course) that I have come across from watching cycling on TV, that I would otherwise probably never come across or learn. uno scatto - when a rider attacks (tries to ride away from) other riders. una salita - a climb, obviously used when the riders are going up a hill/mountain. una foratura - a puncture. un vento contrario - a head wind. When the wind is blowing in the riders faces. un vento favorevole - a tail wind. The opposite of above. la coda - literally tail, it's used in cycling to mean the back of the race/peleton/bunch of riders. traguardo - finishing line. pendenza - gradient. Used when talking about the steepness of a hill. casco - helmet. There are other words that I had heard of before that come up frequently in cycling: borraccia - a water bottle partenza - departure squadra - team ...and so on. Like I said, there are more words I have picked up just from viewing cycling on TV and this is very encouraging. I learnt 'casco' (helmet) only yesterday as it was mentioned that one of the teams competing in yesterdays stage were wearing rather strange helmets. I had read about people in a position where they can learn just from using native materials, and whilst I still have areas of grammar to study, it is motivational to pick up terms and expressions from something as fun as watching TV. It makes the more 'study' like aspects of language learning seem worth it. Anyway, as for the rest of the day Italian wise, I did my usual session of listening to music on Youtube. Aside from one line or so, I can now sing 'Nel blu dipinto di blu' all the way through. My son is even singing little bits of it. All in all, the fun and adventure continue. EDIT: whoops, I forgot to add that I went through ANKI for today and having gotten hold of the audio that accompanies the HP books, I listened to about 3 pages worth or so whilst following along in the book. It was nice to hear a dramatic reading of the text in the spoken word. Edited by magictom123 on 04 July 2011 at 9:25pm 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 48 of 53 05 July 2011 at 10:15pm | IP Logged |
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I watched 2-3 hours or so of the Tour de France today in Italian. This sort of activity
really reinforces that language learning should be as much fun as possible. I don't think I could spend so long each day doing something that didn't interest me, no matter what the long term benefits were. I have gone through ANKI for today which is now easier since the words are more spread out and so there are fewer words each day rather than doing a whole deck every day as I was initially. I need to add more words to my decks as I have had a total of around 200 for a week or more now. This evening, as I write this, I am watching 'The Terminator' on Rete 4. I have seen this film before in English of course, and the story is easy to follow due to being an action film. I am feeling a little tired now as I have done quite a bit of physical exercise today and so this film is really more of a wind down to the day than trying to grasp and understand every word - which is just as well, as I am missing quite a bit of whats said, partly due I think to the soundtrack of the film slightly drowning out the dubbed audio. Anyway, every little helps. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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