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NeonQwerty’s Italian and German thread | ||
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| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes  Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 137 of 206 14 July 2009 at 5:17am | IP Logged |
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I always know when I haven't been up-to-date with my blog entries when my thread falls off the first page... But full credit due to those who are being diligent with their blogs and (more importantly) their studies.
I won't say what I did specifically on Friday, what I did on Sunday and what I did today because quite frankly I don't remember when I did what. I will say that the main irregularity was that I did not do any new vocab from my book on Friday, and I did my review today instead of yesterday. I also did not do new vocab yesterday or today. I did do the following: -the first 2 CDs of Michel Thomas vocabulary course -watched Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in Italian. I did well enough comprehension-wise, and there are some misunderstood parts that are probably due to the movie's convoluted plot :-P -did what is now becoming my standard weekly review: went over last week's words once from Italian to English, then twice from English to Italian. My retention isn't bad. -read a bit of my book I'm quite happy with the work I got done, considering that Friday and Sunday I was in zombie-mode from too much partying. In case you're wondering, my date ended up being Saturday night and it went very well. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 138 of 206 14 July 2009 at 6:24pm | IP Logged |
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I just renamed this thread in order to reflect it's soon-to-be dual focus on Italian and German. Including today, I have 10 days left before heading to Montreal. Here's where I stand:
-My vocabulary book is almost done (!). I'll obviously have to go over it multiple times, but that can be done at a relatively leisurely pace in the future. -I focused on vocabulary because it was my biggest limiting factor. That is no longer the case. My current limiting factor is verb conjugation, and I suspect that the one after that will be proper use of prepositions and pronouns. After that, I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to construct simple to moderately complex sentences at will; I will be able to construct even more complex sentences at a later date, after exposure to a lot more "authentic" material -I am very excited to start German again, but I am nervous about doing so while I'm still studying Italian "formally". By "formal", I mean that I am still explicitly learning new vocabulary and grammatical rules. I wasn't quite sure when I would start studying German, but now it's getting clearer: I will do so when I'm able to at least temporarily relegate Italian study to exposure to authentic materials and occasional vocabulary review Given all this, I would like to finish my grammar book within the next ten days. This will require a lot of cramming. I've done a very good job of pacing myself so far so as to avoid burnout, and I think I can do 10 days of intense study. So for the remaining time in Chicago, I will only study Italian formally, and assume / hope that it will all come together nicely once I start exposing myself to authentic material again I'm still not entirely sure how and when I'll start German again. I have two potentially very useful Italian books waiting for me in Montreal: another vocabulary book which if I recall is replete with exercises, as well as an "Advanced Italian" book of some sort that may help me consolidate my grammar. Even with those two books, I'm thinking that I may still be able to interpose them with some German audio, and possibly even my basic Barrons "Learn German the Easy and Fun Way" It's funny; a lot of people on this site tackle multiple languages at once, but I'm the opposite. I'm very hesitant to learn German if it will mess up what I have going on in Italian. I don't think it should be too big of a deal, but I'm reticent about taking other people's "Oh, it will be fine" comments at face value. For one thing, I suspect that we oftentimes have different goals with respect to language learning. For another, I've come to believe that the strategies that I feel most comfortable with seem to be precisely the opposite of what a lot of people feel comfortable with. Here's what I mean: When it comes to my studying, I do not like chaos. I do not like "diving in", and I do not like deploying what I've learned until it reaches a certain level. This level is nowhere near perfection, but it is much higher than babbling out words and hoping to be corrected. I don't begrudge those who are more spontaneous or tolerant of ambiguity than I am, and at the same time I don't buy into the oftentimes-not-so-subtle implication that organized, disciplined, and drill-heavy learning makes one a boring, archaic fuddy-duddy. Now, I'm willing to accept that my brain can handle much more "chaotic" learning than I feel comfortable with, and I'll probably put that to the test in August when I (gasp) study two languages at once. Still, it's something that's on my mind. Having said all that, it would be a mistake to misconstrue my concern as a real worry; I see it as more of a yellow caution light than anything. I am very excited about starting up German again, and I'm hoping that my brain will be able to keep the two languages separate. Finally, to toot my own horn, I think that starting out with a relatively easy language (for a French speaker such as myself) such as Italian was a great idea. I've made all sorts of mistakes when it comes to language learning, and I'm sure that I'll be much more efficient when tackling German. I won't get into a long discussion about it here; I'm sure that whatever insights I've gained through my Italian studies will come out as I describe my plans for German. Whew! I think I really needed to write all that! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 139 of 206 15 July 2009 at 1:30am | IP Logged |
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Huh.
So I finished the vocabulary book. I studied ~260 words today I didn't study chapters 23 and 24. I barely understand the purpose of 24, and I think that I would be better off learning 23 by making my own vocabulary list with example sentences as I come across them when reading online. I also did not study the last section of 22, which is comprised of idiomatic expressions. I may come back to it one day, but at this stage in the game it's useless. In any event, tomorrow I will do my standard "weekly review" practice on the new words, and then it will be a matter of going over both the advanced and basic words from the beginning! Assuming that I do nothing for the rest of the day, I will have 9 days to finish the grammar book. I currently have ~100 pages to go through to finish it for the first time, and then I need to re-do the book. Re-doing the book means re-doing all the exercises, and looking over the "theory" and rules if and when appropriate. But seriously, huh. Wow. This is going to be achievable. As I said in a previous post, I have two more Italian resources waiting for me in Montreal: another vocabulary book and an advanced Italian grammar book (I think). It pains me to think this way, but I may end up delaying my German studies if the books seem extremely useful. I'll put it this way: if I can get through both of those books before heading to San Diego in September, I will do so, even if it means delaying German. I don't think it will get that far; I can probably do some gentle German audio at the very least, but only if I'm not mentally exhausted from Italian and the math I'll be learning in August. --- I don't know if I mentioned this in a previous post, but here is how I studied vocabulary; I thought that someone at some point might find it helpful or interesting. If you're a casual blog reader, you may want to skip this; it's pretty dry and technical. The main division in my book is between "basic" and "advanced". I did the basic, and only after reviewing it a few times did I do the advance. In any case, both sections are divided into chapters, which are further divided into subsections, which are *further* divided into mini word clusters, with anywhere between 2-15 words in a given cluster. My methodology for working through the book was as follows: -read over the words in Word Cluster (WC) A a few times, until I have some sort of decent immediate recall, which I verify by covering up the Italian column and trying to translate the English column -go to WC-B and do the same as previous step -covering the Italian column, re-do WC-A from top to bottom -re-do WC-B -go to WC-C and do as I initially did with WC-A and WC-B -do WC-A in reverse order, that is from the bottom up. I consider this to be very important, because I want to avoid memorizing the words based on their sequence; if I always go through lists from top to bottom, Word X will make my brain conjure up the following word, Word Y. I want to be able to access Word Y without having seen Word X -do WC-B -do WC-C -do WC-D as I initially did WC-A, WC-B, and WC-C -re-do WC-A, but this time alternating from the beginning to the end of the list. For instance, if WC-A has seven words, I start with the first word, then the seventh, then the second, then the sixth, then the third, the fifth, and finally the fourth. Again, this is to try to avoid memorization based on arbitrary links between words. Now, this is key: with all previous steps, it was fine if I made mistakes (although I tried to avoid doing so, obviously), but in this step, everything must be correct. If I make an error, I close the book for a minute or so, and then try again, repeating until I get everything in WC-A correct. Then I proceed to... -do WC-B in reverse order -WC-C -WC-D -WC-E as I initially did WC-A, WC-B, WC-C, WC-D... -WC-B in the alternate fashion, as I most recently did with WC-A. Once any word cluster has been done in alternate fashion (i.e.: the fourth time that I go over it), I consider it to be "done". Therefore except for the beginning and end of my study session, I am always working with four word clusters. As I finish one by doing the alternate-word method, I add the next cluster on the page 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 140 of 206 16 July 2009 at 3:41am | IP Logged |
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Today I...
-reviewed the remainder of vocabulary that I mentioned in my previous post. Once from Italian to English, twice English to Italian -studied all subjunctive verb tenses for avere, essere, and one of each of the three major verb groups (as well as one "isc" ire verb) and got through about half of the general present subjunctive chapter in my book. It went quite well -ate at an Italian restaurant. It was delicious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 141 of 206 16 July 2009 at 11:37pm | IP Logged |
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Today I got through the verb section in my grammar book; it was quite dense, and I'm glad I went through it. The subjunctive and imperative modes are much less confusing now, although I obviously need hours of practice with both before becoming reasonably proficient. The good news is that in many cases I'm able to just "know" the answer by ear. The is both a blessing and a curse; I ultimately want the entire language to be spoken and read automatically, but at this stage I still need to pay careful attention to rules. So I am reminding myself to take the extra second or two to really work out the questions being posed.
I was having a lot of trouble concentrating, so I decided to leave it at that in terms of study. I did watch the pilot episode of Crash in Italian (with no subtitles), just for fun. I drew the following three unsurprising conclusions from the experience: -I understood most of it -I missed some nuances in the plot -it will take quite a while before I'm fully comfortable with this type of authentic media -I mostly just need to keep exposing myself to the language in a conscientious way in order for my skill to improve. This is reassuring to me 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 142 of 206 18 July 2009 at 5:14am | IP Logged |
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I noticed that a lot of my recent posts have been very wordy, and I think that this one will be no different...
First, what I did today: I did enough of my grammar book (mostly on pronouns) to make me think that with a lot of work, I can finish it tomorrow. That's good, as it would allow me five days to go over portions of it before leaving. If I can manage that, I will have succeeded in my ambitious short-term Italian goals. I was planning on doing more on my way to and from the gym, but I forgot to bring the book. Fortunately, I had the Michel Thomas Vocabulary course on my mp3 player, so I got through most of CD 3. I'm quite happy with the course; it's giving me an opportunity to generate many different kinds of sentences and work through verb tenses and pronoun placement, which is very nice. I also out of boredom watched the second episode of Crash, again obviously in Italian. I didn't understand quite as much as I did in the first episode, and my experience watching it was actually very productive in terms of self-assessment. Although my comprehension was slightly worse than what it was previously, it was still quite good. So bonus points there. I also realized that I am actually nowhere near the level where I can generate off-the-cuff remarks like the actors do. This sounds bad, but in truth being able to do so would represent the pinnacle of language learning as far as I'm concerned. What this boils down to is that I still need many more hours of cumulative study in Italian before being satisfied with my level. I suspect that the number is around 200, but what the hell do I know. Now, "I need to work a lot more on it" might sound trite, but it has real implications for my next immediate goals. This past summer has, so far, seen my Italian improve by what I consider to be leaps and bounds. This gives me the emotional impetus to work even harder in order to "finish" the language... but I'm really starting to appreciate that I'm still not advanced enough to justify a concerted sprint. Anyone who has done distance running can relate to what I'm saying: sometimes you need a lot of discipline to not push harder. So assuming that I succeed in my current short-term goals, I need to figure out what my goals are for late July / August, and what the goals for September will be. Here are the areas of interest, followed by an important limiting factor: Italian: I'm getting to the point where there are few theoretical mysteries to the language, and those theoretical quirks that exist are not of much interest to me. The next step is to practice vocabulary and sentence construction, as well as keep on exposing myself to and trying to work through authentic media German: My school classes start around September 20th. On my application to UCSD, I mentioned that I had a "poor" but nonetheless existent knowledge of the language. At this point, I feel that I have nothing Math: Whaaa...? What the hell is this doing on a language blog? Well, I'm including it for three reasons. First, it's on my mind, and this is my blog. Second, time spent working on math cuts into language study time. Third, I consider math study to be more or less structurally analogous to language study. I have a "math camp" in San Diego starting around September 10; I will be expected to have read and be comfortable with a certain textbook. Any math geeks reading this would laugh at the ease of this textbook, but for a political philosopher such as myself, it's going to take some solid work. The math is non-negotiable; I must have it done by September 10th. In self-help terminology, while all areas of interest are important, this one is important *and* urgent Political theory: Oh, yeah, no kidding, this is actually what I get paid to do. I haven't done much reading over the course of the summer, and whatever plan that I come up with needs to make allowances for reading time --- Ok, so those are the four fields. Until September 1, let's assume that I can dedicate three hours a day for six days a week to "study" in general. This is subject to change, but let's just work with the assumption. What I'm thinking is the following: DAILY: 1 hours of math, 45 mins of political theory, 0.5 hours of German, 0.5 hours of Italian, 15 minutes added onto whatever I don't know how long the math will take. Once it's done, I'll be able to re-allocate that hour. Why not allocate more time? Because of the afore-mentioned limiting factor. I'm going to Montreal to spend time with my family. I rarely get to see them, and I'll probably see them even more rarely when I get to San Diego. My career is very important to me (and I actually group language learning under "career" for the sake of mental clarity) and I'm very happy to work at it, but I will be disciplined in spending time with my parents. They deserve it. After all, they raised a wonderful son who rambles wonderfully on his wonderful blog. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| neonqwerty Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5973 days ago 229 posts - 239 votes Speaks: French*, English* Studies: Spanish | Message 143 of 206 19 July 2009 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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Just one of those bad days...
I finished the grammar book, but it turns out that that's nothing to feel too excited about; a lot of what remained ended up being filler. I saw episode three of Crash, and a 25 minute documentary on the rise of far-right sentiments in Italy and Russia (very scary stuff). But at this point I'm just getting sick of the language. I'm pretty sure it's because I've assimilated a lot of technical information over the past little while, and my brain needs time for assimilation. I may re-do the exercises in the book, finish up the Michel Thomas vocab courses, and then take a break from formal Italian study for a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5719 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 144 of 206 19 July 2009 at 2:24am | IP Logged |
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Ever read AJATT? Been following your log for a while so it pains me to hear you say you're getting sick of the language! So I guess I'm just here to, you know, repeat myself, lol - perhaps you should make it more fun? I guarantee your method would zap the life right out of me and my Italian would sink into the muddy pit otherwise known as the German residence, and I wouldn't want to look at it again.
Pat on the back, and you don't need to do it this way if you feel like it's taking away your joy of learning... There are better ways. It can be fun all the time! Just need to find ways that let you learn from enjoyable things... Personally I prefer enjoyable input with just incidental learning - but lots of it - and I'll look things up and study them as and when I need to. I'm hoping for fluency within a year total and better-than-native fluency within 2 if my first goal works out... I won't do things I find unenjoyable, like extensive grammar cramming, vocabulary lists or SRSing, but I do believe it can still be done. Maybe you need a change of strategy? Now go read AJATT. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful |
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