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Gary’s TAC 2012 - The Romantics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 113 of 167 21 August 2012 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Overall last week wasn't very productive, despite having all the free time - I was feeling a bit bad, physically and mentally, and was lacking in energy and motivation. I'm not sure what was wrong, but I'm feeling a lot more like myself again this week.
Français I've had quite a bit of French practice recently, mostly with my French friend and some of his friends, but he's now gone back home. Despite that, I still feel like my French is getting worse, especially my pronunciation. I'm not sure if that's part of the normal ups and downs of language learning, or if it's simply because I've been conversing more with native speakers and less with other learners and so I'm comparing myself against a different standard and having deeper and more complex conversations as opposed to the usual meetup subjects like work and travel. It's definitely a big difference going from meetup groups where I'm one of the best speakers to groups of real French people in which all my weaknesses suddenly become obvious! I tried out Mae's advice from the thread on getting rid of an accent of holding your hand to your ear so you can hear your own voice - it's a much more low-tech method than the things I was trying before with microphones and recording, but quite effective! I've been using it for shadowing and Skype conversations (audio-only ones; it would look a bit weird on video!) and it's helped me spot some pronunciation problems. Overall I think I'm just getting a bit sloppy, especially with vowel sounds, so I need to focus a bit more on that again. Italiano I had a Skype chat yesterday but not much more speaking practice. I was speaking better than last week, far fewer small mistakes and the words were coming more easily, but there's still a long way to go. I watched a few films - the theme recently has been teen films, to see the language and culture of young people. I watched Notte prima degli esami, a comedy about a group of students about to finish school and take the Maturità, and I've started Caterina va in città, about a girl from a small town who moves to Rome and goes to school there. The latter has a lot of typical Roman speech: extremely fast and with plenty disappearing syllables, which is something I had been warned about, especially the missing verb endings - "andare" often becomes "andà" for example. Best of all, I managed to easily find Italian subtitles for both films! Seems like TL subs for TL films are a bit easier to find for Italian than for French, although as any French learner can attest to, that still isn't saying very much. Next up I've got the sequel to Notte prima degli esami and its French remake, Nos 18 ans (I wonder if the French guy in the original becomes Italian in the French version...). Italian Super Challenge Films: 15 done, 85 to go. Speaking hours: 22.5 done, 77.5 to go. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 114 of 167 26 August 2012 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Quick update for this week:
Français Couple of conversations, a film (Être et Avoir), a more detailed look at some of the lessons on Fluent French Now, some shadowing to attempt to tighten up my pronunciation a bit again, and yet another attempt to start using Anki again for useful expressions from films, TV, Viedemerde, etc.. Italiano A meetup, at which I was feeling a bit more healthy than last time round, and some films - Caterina va in Città and Notte prima degli esami - Oggi as mentioned before, and the horror classic Suspiria. Some of my friends were saying that there were a lot of good Italian horror movies from the 70s and 80s, so I've got plenty to investigate; the dialogue in horror films seem to be relatively easy to follow although there isn't always lots of it. Italian's one saving grace seems to be its pretty huge amount of cinema for such a small country. I'm not sure whether to continue with Assimil at this point - I'm about to hit the second half of Perfectionnement and it's just getting too specialised. I hope the Assimil gods won't frown on me for skipping the whole week on business language, since I have no intention to do business in Italy any time soon; the following lessons do look like they have some useful stuff but again it's more specialised and I'd rather focus on getting the basics nailed down. I'm considering de-prioritising Assimil, i.e., only doing it when I feel like it as opposed to aiming for daily study, and prioritising films and speaking instead. Italian Super Challenge Films: 18 done, 82 to go. Speaking hours: 25 done, 75 to go. That's a quarter of the way through the speaking. Overall I still I feel like I've spent more time and effort trying to find opportunities to speak than I've spent actually speaking, but I guess that's all part of the learning experience. On the subject of experience, I can now say quite confidently that 2 is the magic number for language exchanges - most exchanges which actually get off the ground will never go beyond two sessions, even if these two sessions go very well as is usually the case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5197 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 115 of 167 27 August 2012 at 12:24am | IP Logged | ||
What did you think of Suspira? I actually watched that last week, too. :-) I've found a lot of really great Italian films in the past few weeks. I will have to look up the others as well. I'm always looking to see what other people are watching, especially with the challenge of finding 100 movies to watch for the Super Challenge. I think it's a great opportunity to learn more about their culture and art, too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 116 of 167 27 August 2012 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
I enjoyed it. The plot isn't exactly strong, but it's more about the atmosphere, and it does that very well with the sound and vision. Apparently there are two sort-of-sequels so I might look into these too. I'll try to check out some of the films you've mentioned in your log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5197 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 117 of 167 27 August 2012 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have the list (all of my Super Challenge lists) here. There is a link to my on deck list of movies I want to find near the top, too, with links to the IMDb. I'm posting periodic reviews in my log and in the Super Challenge update thread, but I only do that once or twice a month. You're welcome to check them out. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 118 of 167 28 August 2012 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks, that should keep me busy for a while, there's some good ones in there for French too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5009 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 119 of 167 28 August 2012 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had a good evening last night - I met a native English speaker who spoke fluent
French and Italian; needless to say we got on well and talked for a while in both languages. There were also a couple of Italian guys and a Frenchwoman there so I got to practice with native speakers. I seemed to be on top form and was mostly speaking both languages more effortlessly and better than ever, although there were certainly still some moments where I just couldn't find a word or I got lost mid-sentence, particularly in Italian. The Frenchwoman even said I had good pronunciation - I'm quite sure that's the first time a native speaker has ever said that to me. Overall, definitely a motivating experience: as we all know, intermediate/advanced language learning has its ups and downs, and for me it's mostly been "downs" recently so the "up" last night was quite welcome. It was reassuring, especially for Italian which I was really starting to lose motivation for. One one hand I reckon watching all these films recently has helped me to think in the language more easily, and the more focused French study has sharpened up my speaking a little, but on the other hand I'm realistic and not going to get carried away - as I say that was an "up" in the ups and downs as opposed to a permanent boost in my skills, not to mention an unusually good evening in terms of opportunities, and it'll probably take plenty more time and effort until I can consistently pull off performances like that. Italian Super Challenge Films: 18 done, 82 to go. Speaking hours: 27 done, 73 to go. - plenty time and effort left ;) Also, I'm back at work now, so less time for Skyping and focused study, but more encouragement to make the most of that time. Edited by garyb on 28 August 2012 at 12:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5411 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 120 of 167 29 August 2012 at 1:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds like you have made some great progress since I last checked in! How do you find
keeping Italian and French separate? I still get a bit of bleed through between my French & Spanish and it can be very annoying - sometimes when I remember the vocab for the language I don't want it's like my brain fixates on it and can't bring up the other language fast enough. I want to start learning Portuguese next year so I need to solve the issue before I do! If you have any advice please let me know :) I couldn't agree more that the intermediate stage has its "downs" and I'm glad your Italian is hitting an "up" stage! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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