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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6491 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 1 of 10 03 January 2008 at 5:07pm | IP Logged |
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In my summer university holidays in December 2006 to February 2007, I started to study Italian for the first time since primary school. I discovered this wonderful forum through Fanatic's excellent book and really enjoyed the learning experience.
Unfortunately, my university studies and work hours prevented me from continuing or maintaining my language studies, so one year later I am picking it back up. This time, I have decided that I want to get a basic level of understanding established. In theory, this basic level of understanding can be easily maintained during the busier times of the year, and it can be increased when I find the time. The deadline is Sunday the third of February as I start a new job on the following day, and the university term begins a few weeks later. These are the things I want to be very familiar with or have memorised by then: 1. Completed survival book of phrases that would be very useful when I travel to Italy. All the phrases are currently written in a notebook, and about one third of these have the accompanying Italian phrase. I would like to have all phrases memorised. 2. Be very familiar with the grammar presented in the first nine lessons on my Transparent Languages computer program. In my holiday last year, I worked through all fifteen lessons and summarised the important points, so this should be easy revision. 3. Be able to recognise (and use) the first 200 nouns, adjectives and verbs on the word frequency list I downloaded. Or more, depending on how many of the first 200 I already know and how quickly I complete the rest of this list. 4. Assemble a list of words and/or phrases that would rescue me in a situation where I do not know the appropriate Italian word. 5. As a result of all of the above, I would like to have enough of a grasp of grammar and basic vocabulary to be able to read my dual-language book without referring to external sources too often. At the end of the holidays last year, I was able to do this for most of the grammar and it felt fantastic! I have just started the Italian With Ease Assimil pragram, and will continue with that throughout the year, since it requires very little time. I will post updates of my progress. Wish me luck! Edited by TraineePolyglot on 10 January 2008 at 3:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6509 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 2 of 10 03 January 2008 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck with your Italian studies! It sounds like you've set yourself some attainable goals. Once again, good luck.
P.S. You say your deadline is the third of January, perhaps you meant of February? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6491 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 10 10 January 2008 at 4:15pm | IP Logged |
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Oops, I meant February. I have now edited the post. Thanks for the comments, too!
It is now one week since my original posting, and therefore time for an update to keep me accountable. This week I have revised my notes on the nine computer lessons and have completed the remaining two thirds of my survival book. Completing the survival book had the curious side-effect of unlocking my memories, so I'm now back at the stage I was a year ago. My recognition of various grammar points seems a lot stronger than last year, though. This has done wonders for my motivation! I bought a local Italian newspaper and was happy with how much more I could understand. The plan for today is to begin work on finding the Italian equivalents for the English words and phrases I have put together to cover point four in my original post. I did not listen to any Assimil lessons this week, so I have reviewed the previous lessons and will resume listening to one new lesson per day. Over the next week, I will go through the computer lessons themselves and look for phrases to confirm or replace the Italian phrases in my survival notebook. This should help me memorise the phrases, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6509 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 4 of 10 11 January 2008 at 11:20am | IP Logged |
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It sounds like you are making great progress, having reached the level you were when you left off your studies last year. Is February 3, your cutoff for actively studying Italian, or your cutoff for doing anything in Italian? If, after you start your job and university studies again, you can not spend a great deal of time studying Italian, perhaps you can squeeze out 30 minutes a day (or every other day) to refresh what you have learned so you won't have to start over again.
Also, have you tried Michel Thomas Italian. I've just started with the French a few weeks ago, and I am amazed at how much I've learned from it. They aren't 30 minute lessons, it just goes on, but is broken into tracks of about 10 minutes each, so whenever one has an extra few minutes one can listen to the cd and learn a little. I haven't tried the Italian myself, but if it is like the French, you may get a lot out of it. Good luck again with your studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6491 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 10 17 January 2008 at 3:34pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the feedback and suggestions! February 3 is the cutoff for actively studying. I'll still be reviewing what I've done and going through an Assimil lesson every day. I can't afford to buy another language program at the moment, but there are a few I've been curious about. I will have to check the local libraries.
This week's progress: I have been reviewing the notes I wrote last year about the computer lessons. Unfortunately, I can't find the CD, so I still haven't used the program yet. I continued listening to one Assimil lesson per day, and have reviewed previous lessons a few times. I have also finished trimming about 4000 words out of the top 10000 in the word frequency list I found on the internet. When I first went through adding an English translation (without a dictionary), I knew 68% of the first 100 words, 61% of the first 200, 45% of the first 500, 36% of the first 1000 and 34% of the first 1500 words. I kept going a little further and noticed that I knew just as many in the following 500 words, so that was motivating! I now have an English translation for the first 200 words, and an example phrase for quite a few. Plans for this week: Draw up a table of the different tenses using example sentences. This should help me memorise the tenses, and be a good way to revise. Also this week, I want to start filling in my vocabulary book for point 4 in my original post, and I'll attempt to read one of the stories in my dual-language book to see how well I am doing. And, although it doesn't cost much, I want to find my computer CD! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6491 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 6 of 10 24 January 2008 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
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Another week has passed (already?!) and I confess that I haven't achieved as much this week as in previous weeks. I have been playing too many video games! However, I drew up my tense table and tried unsuccessfully to find the computer CD. I also attempted to read the easiest story in my dual-language book and discovered that my vocabulary isn't nearly wide enough! It can still be a useful tool for me to learn to recognise the various tenses, though. I did not start filling in my vocabulary book.
With one week left, I will now be cleaning up the last few items on my wishlist: 1. Continue revising survival book phrases. 2. Revise grammar table, and try to recognise tenses in dual-language stories. 3. Continue revising word frequency list. 4. Fill in vocabulary book. 5. Read graded dual-language book (graded as Livello Due/QCER B1). There are activities in it and a one-hour recording, which will be helpful. Hopefully I picked the right level! Reading a few paragraphs, I know about 80-90% of the words, so it looks good so far. The Assimil lessons have been strangely effective, and don't seem like work at all, which is handy if I feel lazy. I don't know whether I will memorise the things I wanted to memorise, but I will have more time next week as I am not working. I will still work slowly on my Italian throughout the year with the help of Assimil, movies with subtitles, songs in Italian and graded readers with recordings. Edited by TraineePolyglot on 31 January 2008 at 3:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| TraineePolyglot Newbie Australia Joined 6491 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 7 of 10 31 January 2008 at 4:03pm | IP Logged |
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It has now been four weeks, and today is technically the last day of my holidays. Time to review my progress!
1. Survival book: I have completed the book and am very familiar with most of the phrases. 2. Familiar with grammar: I constructed a handy reference table of the grammar and spent time reviewing my lesson notes. I'm reasonably familiar with the different tenses and could probably recognise them most of the time. 3. First 200 words on word frequency list: I looked through the word frequency list and wrote an English translation for all Italian words that I was familiar with. This showed me that I know at least a couple of thousand Italian words, which is well over the target I set! 4. Rescue vocabulary: I did not fill in my vocabulary book. I decided that it was not in keeping with the overarching goal of these holidays (see point 5 in original post and below), so I did not spend much time on it. 5. I have a reader with audio CD that is entirely in Italian, and I have so far been able to understand what is happening, except for a couple of words that were defined in the margins. I am very happy with this result, and believe that it was the grammar work (and, to a lesser extent, the word frequency list) that helped me do this. I need a much wider vocabulary to read my dual-language books, which is understandable considering that they are representative works of Italian literature! The Assimil program barely seems like effort, but I've easily memorised a lot of the content in the three weeks of lessons I have now completed. This is probably because the lessons are so short, and I can play them in the background repeatedly. I'm really, really happy with my knowledge of Italian and will continue throughout the year at a slower pace. I will keep doing at least one Assimil lesson per day, more grammar and survival book revision, and increasingly difficult reading. I am so confident with my familiarity with the language, that I have started learning French with my girlfriend. So far, there's no possible way I could confuse these languages, but perhaps the grammar may be similar further into our studies. I may start a separate thread for our French learning experience. Ciao! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Marj Senior Member United States Joined 6509 days ago 257 posts - 283 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, French | Message 8 of 10 31 January 2008 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on your progress with Italian!! And good luck with your French studies.
Marj 1 person has voted this message useful |
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