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Gary’s 2015 TACtivation: FR, IT | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 121 of 187 07 May 2015 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with everything, I hope the health and sleep problems even out.
I deactivated Duolingo's record function a while ago (my old laptop didn't particularly like it) and never felt like reactivating it. It's probably too early to tell, but do you feel like it's helping you? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 122 of 187 07 May 2015 at 7:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, the more popular => better quality "rule", that doesn't apply to Duolingo. Spanish
should be the top by this logic and I really disliked it compared to the German. Yes, that approach "oh, it is cute you learn my language but I don't believe you are intelligent enough to get further than -salut, je m'appelle- even if you learnt for a decade", that is horrible. Elenia, don't let it disappoint you too much. What sometimes works is taking a few beers and creatin a situation where people naturally just would speak in French you would just join in and let them get the habit of hearing you. Or just be stubborn and speak with your friends about the issue, ideally in French. I wish you lots of success with finding new French friends, I'm curious to hear about your experience with the search. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 123 of 187 08 May 2015 at 11:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Interesting that you agree about Duolingo being better for some languages than others. The French course also feels noticeably more challenging than the Italian one at the same level, and this is even when in theory I know French better than Italian.
Elenia: do you mean whether the recording feature is helping, or Duolingo in general? Too early to tell in either case I reckon. I feel like the tests are helping to practise active skills of putting sentences together etc. and reinforce the basics, but it's hard to say since it's only been a week and I've done almost no real speaking in that time.
Yes, that about sums it up! I've had the same problem with Italians, and I've overcome it a few times: - It's slightly easier if you're with several native speakers rather than just one: they'd normally speak the language with each other, and probably will do every so often to explain things more quickly etc., so it's a bit more natural for you to use it too. - In addition, if you're with several native speakers and one of them is already "convinced", it's then MUCH easier to convince the other(s). Their word that you speak the language counts for much more than your own word; combination of social proof and native-speaker "authority" I guess. This has worked for my flatmate's friends, for example, and even my flatmate suddenly becomes much more keen to speak Italian with me if there are other Italians around. Of course this is a little harder for French, where even finding one native speaker is difficult. But if you manage to meet one who is willing to speak French with you, you'll have an easier time if you then meet other native-speaker friends of theirs later on. Edited by garyb on 08 May 2015 at 11:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 124 of 187 09 May 2015 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks to both of you for the well wishes and the advice!
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 125 of 187 11 May 2015 at 12:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've fallen off the Duolingo wagon already. I was doing great but then last Thursday I forgot. Not due to being busy or lack of time or anything, I quite simply forgot, and I've not been back since. Will try to pick up again today.
Similarly I had various good intentions for the weekend that didn't happen. No experimentation with pronunciation and Speech Analyzer, no self-talk, very little input. An Italian Skype contact has offered to listen to recordings of me speaking and help with pronunciation, which is great but in the end I didn't have time to record anything. I'm free tonight and I'll have the house to myself (yes, I'm a little self-conscious about practising pronunciation when people are around!) so I should get that done. However I did spend some quality time in bed, do some exercise, see some friends, and speak some languages. Yesterday I met up with the Italian guy who had stayed in my flat and chatted with him, had a chat with another Italian Skype friend, and met up with the French friend. She also speaks Italian at a similar level to mine so we spoke that a little. I know I've said negative things about practising French with non-natives, but for Italian it can be a nice novelty as I don't meet many other learners. I listened to some podcasts at the gym: Place de la toile (French radio show about the Internet, used to be a long programme but now seems to be short episodes of 3-5 minutes) and Dee Giallo (recommendation from an Italian contact, about curious and mysterious events and urban legends). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 126 of 187 14 May 2015 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did my Italian recording and sent it. Now awaiting feedback. I found it useful, and noticed that each paragraph felt easier than the last, suggesting that it's a good warm-up exercise and I could probably gain a lot from doing it regularly. Reading aloud is yet another thing I've tried to make a habit in the past, alongside other pronunciation work, but never stuck to. When I get feedback I'll post a link to the recording on here along with comments. My own thoughts are that my rhythm and stress were mostly OK, my intonation was all over the place and definitely needs work, there were unnatural pauses, and I made a few mistakes with individual sounds that more practice should fix. I'll wait and see if I get any more insights and advice on improvement.
Yesterday I went to a Couchsurfing meeting. I met a Belgian who said she was interested in a French/English exchange, so maybe I've already lined up a replacement French speaker for the one who's about to leave, but I won't speak too soon. If I had a dollar for everyone who said they were interested and then changed their mind... I'd spend them on iTalki credits and stop wasting my time? But exchanges are great when they do work out. And she has a Spanish boyfriend who also offered to do a language exchange with me! Another thing I should collect dollars for is the number of Spanish speakers who've offered to help me without me even asking. I keep saying it, but Spanish learners have it so easy, at least where I live. But I'm stubborn and still not quite content with my French so I'm sticking with that for now. I caught up with some Italian friends there, and met an English Italian learner. It was funny because she kept saying she was jealous of my grammar and vocabulary knowledge and I kept saying I was jealous of her good pronunciation, something that she considered the "easy part" and picked up quite effortlessly. She did live in the country for some time, and mentioned that she does acting. Does acting make you good with voices, or do people who are already good with voices tend to be interested in acting? Anyway it's just a little reminder not to worry too much about your shortcomings or comparing your skills to others', as different people are good at different things and they can be just as envious of your strengths as you are of theirs. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5205 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 127 of 187 18 May 2015 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm trying to get back into the habit of bilingual entries. I can't justify complaining about not having enough time to study languages and work on output but then spending time on here writing long entries in English. So I think it's good to write in my foreign languages to practise, then include an English translation: it keeps the log accessible, it makes it clearer what I'm trying to say when I write badly or make mistakes (I find some French written by learners here difficult to decipher at times, and I'm not claiming I'm any better!), and for me it can help make the links between idiomatic expressions. This means I'll write a bit more about life in general as well as just languages, which is maybe more interesting or maybe less interesting.
Allora, parlo un po' di com'è andato il mio weekend. Giovedì scorso era il mio compleanno; purtroppo quel giorno ho lavorato ed è stata una giornata normale. Anzi, peggio del normale: ero stanco e un po' raffreddato, la mattina* ho avuto un appuntamento dal medico, e poi la sera ho dovuto lavorare fino a tardi. Quando sono tornato a casa verso le 8 avevo l'impressione di star per crollare, mi reggevo appena in piedi. Però ce l'ho fatta a scendere al ristorante indiano sotto casa mia a prendere un bel curry da asporto, tanto per concedermi uno sfizio. (*: qui dovrei dire "la mattina", "di mattina", "il mattino", "quel mattino", o... tante possibilità e non so qual è quella giusta! E simile, "la sera" o "quella sera" o "di sera"?) So I'll talk a bit about how my weekend went. Last Thursday was my birthday; however that day I worked and it was a normal day. In fact, worse than normal: I was tired and had a bit of a cold, in the morning I had a doctor's appointment, and then in the evening I had to work late. When I came home at around 8 I felt like I was about to collapse, I could hardly stay standing. However I made it down to the Indian restaurant under my flat to get a nice takeaway curry, just to treat myself. Ho festeggiato il giorno dopo, il venerdì - avevo organizzato una festa a casa mia. Stavo ancora un po' male, ma per fortuna avevo preso un giorno di riposo e il vino mi ha rallegrato! Abbiamo preparato tanto cibo, e parecchi amici sono venuti. Compresi alcuni Italiani e spagnoli, e anche un paio di francesi, così ho avuto l'occasione di usare le mie lingue. È stata una bella serata, e ho avuto il resto del week-end per recuperare. Sabato è stato un giorno di relax, non me la sentivo di fare qualcosa di produttivo, mi sono fatto una bella dormita di quasi dodici ore. Domenica stavo decisamente meglio; ho fatto le prove con la mia band, sono andato in palestra, e sono riuscito a parlare con un'italiana su Skype. I celebrated the day after, the Friday - I had organised a party at my house. I was still feeling a bit ill, but fortunately I had taken a day off and the wine cheered me up! We made lots of food, and quite a few friends came. Including some Italians and Spanish, and even a couple of French, so I was able to use my languages. It was a nice evening, and I had the rest of the weekend to recover. Saturday was a relaxed day, I didn't feel up for doing anything productive, I had a nice sleep of almost twelve hours. On Sunday I felt decidedly better; I practised with my band, went to the gym, and managed to speak with an Italian on Skype. Ho anche approfittato del mio regalo di compleanno: una piccola tastiera (del tipo musicale) che si collega al portatile. Ho suonato la tastiera per anni quando ero più giovane, prima di scoprire la chitarra; avevo sempre l'intenzione di riprenderla prima o poi, quindi forse questo è il momento! Ha solo venticinque tasti, cioè due ottave; non è esattamente adatta ai pezzi per pianoforte, ma per suonare qualche melodia o accordo è bello e poi è molto portatile, entra facilmente in uno zaino. Un giorno vorrei comprarmene una di dimensione normale, però intanto questa va bene! Soprattutto perché per il momento preferirei continuare a concentrarmi sulla chitarra, e una grande tastiera mi distrarrebbe troppo ;). I also enjoyed my birthday present: a little keyboard (of the musical type) that connects to your laptop. I played keyboard for years when I was younger, before discovering the guitar; I was always planning to take it up again sooner or later, so maybe now is the time! It only has twenty-five keys, that is two octaves; it's not exactly suitable for piano pieces, but for playing some melodies or chords it's great and also it's very portable, it easily fits into a backpack. One day I'd like to buy myself a normal-size one, but in the meantime this one is fine! Especially since for the moment I would rather keep concentrating on the guitar, and a big keyboard would be too much of a distraction ;). Ho avuto un'altra bella notizia musicale: forse un mio vecchio gruppo si riunirà! Mi manca quel gruppo, avevamo pezzi molto veloci e tecnici che faticavamo a suonare correttamente e ci divertivamo. Non abbiamo l'intenzione di scrivere nuovi pezzi, solo di fare qualche concerto e suonare i pezzi già scritti in nome dei vecchi tempi. Vedremo, però: i musicisti non sono le persone più affidabili, e parlare è facile. I had more good musical news: maybe my old band will get back together! I miss that band, we had very fast and technical pieces that we struggled to play properly and we had fun. We don't plan to write new songs, just to do a few concerts and play the already-written songs for good old times' sake. We'll see, however: musicians aren't the most reliable people, and talk is cheap. Tornando all'argomento delle lingue: ultimamente non sono molto contento del mio Italiano parlato, faccio troppi piccoli sbagli con i verbi e faccio fatica a esprimere certe cose, e non parliamo neanche della pronuncia. Non mi preoccupo però, come sempre incolpo la stanchezza e la mancanza di pratica. Adesso mi rimetto a scrivere e a parlare di più (come il famoso "adesso mi rimetto a dieta") e se tutto va bene le mie competenze di prima ritorneranno. Coming back to the subject of languages: recently I've not been very happy with my spoken Italian, I make too many little mistakes with the verbs and I struggle to express some things, and let's not even speak about pronunciation. I'm not worried though, as always I blame tiredness and lack of practice. Now I'm starting to write and speak more again (like the famous "now I'm starting back on the diet") and hopefully my previous skills will return. Edited by garyb on 18 May 2015 at 4:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Elenia Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom lilyonlife.blog Joined 3854 days ago 239 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Swedish, Esperanto | Message 128 of 187 18 May 2015 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Glad you're feeling better, and that you had a nice opportunity to practise your languages. Also: bon anniversaire!
A side note: I read the Italian clause by clause, checking the English to see how much I understood. The answer is, of course, 'not much'. However, I surprised myself by remembering the meaning of 'purtroppo'. Quite a few years ago, the Independent were giving away free TY 'Instant' courses, and I dabbled with the Italian course for a while. Strange to think that 'purtroppo' is the only thing that stuck... Also, perhaps bolding or italicising the translation would make it easier for English speakers to read (otherwise it can be a bit like a block of text). EDIT: Very embarrassing your/you're mix up correction, and formatting Edited by Elenia on 18 May 2015 at 4:03pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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