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Gary’s TAC 2013 - PAX | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5003 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 160 04 January 2013 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been checking out a bit of Italian TV from the streaming link that a few people have posted recently. It's not particularly reliable or high-quality but it's great when it does work; as I commented in another log, there's something cool about channel-hopping in a foreign language rather than just selecting a specific film to watch. I saw some news, some cartoons, and some of The Truman Show and Apocalypse Now; RAI 4 seems to mostly show dubbed English series and films.
I had a Skype chat with an Italian girl who studies linguistics and seems to know her stuff about phonetics, and she wasn't hesitant to correct my pronunciation as well as my usage errors. She pointed out that my Rs aren't always correct - I think that when I speak more quickly I often don't get in a proper trill so it ends up being an English-style approximant R. Therefore I need to slow down a bit and make sure I get it right, and after some practice it should improve and become more natural at conversational speed. She also said that my Es at the ends of certain words like "facile" are sometimes too open; easily fixed. Overall though, she said that my accent doesn't make it immediately obvious where I'm from, which is great to hear - while a native-like accent would obviously be my ideal goal, realistically I'm content to have a "non-specific foreign accent", one that doesn't immediately give away that I'm an English speaker. Fixing the Rs should help with that. Now if only I could find someone like that for French. I'll also take a million dollars and a flying pig while I'm at it. Seriously though, since one of my New Year's resolutions is to go out drinking less particularly during the week, I might be able to use the time and money for some Skype lessons with a tutor, something that I've been considering for a while. If I can get into some sort of a routine over the next few weeks I'll consider it more seriously. Italian Super Challenge Films: 43 done, 57 to go. Conversation hours: 73.5 done, 26.5 to go. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4461 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 10 of 160 04 January 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I also find it hard to make trilled Rs consistently throughout speech. Doing them in isolation or for a few words is no problem, but I always found it difficult to keep them up. Fortunately I don't need them for French, but I think it would be nice to learn Italian eventually.
Have you tried asking any of the Francophones on this forum to critique your pronunciation? I had good luck with one who was kind enough to listen to my recordings and confirm that I was mostly on the right track, which was encouraging. :-) Edited by tastyonions on 04 January 2013 at 12:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5003 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 160 07 January 2013 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Tastyonions: yes, that's my issue with the Rs. I've been practising them a bit so I'll see how it goes next time I speak Italian. And your idea for pronunciation sounds worth a try!
I'm getting back into the French practice again: on Saturday night I met a French guy at a party and spoke with him in French for a few minutes, and then on Sunday I had a Skype chat with my friend from Paris. The Skype chat went well but I made a few strange mistakes with verbs that I'd never normally make, which I put down to tiredness and the after-effects of the party; overall I wasn't as rusty as I thought I might be. Then tonight there'll be my first Language Café of the year, which I'm looking forward to a lot. For those who haven't read my past logs: Language Café is a weekly event in a pub in my city where people go to practice languages; it's best for Spanish and English but there's more often than not some French speakers and occasionally even Italians, and it's also good for meeting interesting people. There'll be a French meetup on Wednesday as well; this event is usually all-French conversation, although most attendees are intermediate-level learners and there aren't always native speakers there. (edit: just double-checked and it's actually next Wednesday - glad I made sure!) At the weekend I watched La casa sperduta nel parco, which I thought was an Italian film but it seems to actually be in English and there's a dubbed Italian audio track. It also has subtitles in both languages. For French I checked out Very bad blagues; some of it is relatively easy to understand but some is quite difficult. I found Quand on est en cours de Prépa challenging, especially the guy with the deeper voice. I think the fact that the episodes are made up of lots of very short sketches rather than one continuous storyline makes it a good one for practising listening: while all the sketches in an episode are based on the same theme, each one makes quite a different joke out of that theme, so there's less context to rely on and you don't know what to expect. Edited by garyb on 07 January 2013 at 12:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4432 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 12 of 160 07 January 2013 at 8:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think what makes VBB so hard is the music/echo that most of the episodes have. It's also hard when they use other characters like Gaspar/Balthazar and the two wannabe rappers suddenly after every joke.
Which ones did you find the easiest? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4805 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 13 of 160 08 January 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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Awesome log!
Your French studies are quite similar to mine in some ways! My plans for French early this year include going through assimils again, through grammaire progresive perfectionnement (i have bought it recently and it is awesome. however, im tying some loose ends before starting it seriously) and i have been pondering the alter ego 5 too (and will probably get it. seems to be good in some areas) Your Italian studies sound very interesting too. I have stopped my Italian attempts for Spanish :-) Two romance languages at once are enough, I'd say :-) Good luck on the TAC 2013. Team PAX seems to be a really strong one. I chose individual challenge this time but it doesn't mean any shortage of logs to read. Yours is surely high on the list :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5003 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 160 08 January 2013 at 5:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yeah, I think the echo made the classroom one worse, especially when combined with the deep voice. Dailymotion seems to be down right now so I can't link to examples, but of the ones I watched, I remember finding the "bumping into your ex" and the "at the entrance to a party" ones not too difficult. There's also half-hour video of the whole second series, and most of it was fine - they must have improved their recording methods for it, as the voices seemed clearer. I don't think I've seen the one with the wannabe rappers!
Thanks, glad that you're enjoying it and you have similar ideas! My copy of Grammaire Progressive just arrived yesterday but I've not had time to look through it much yet, I might do at the weekend. Even two romance languages might be a bit much - yesterday I actually started to notice a bit of Italian interference in my French! I really didn't expect that; the opposite happened when I first started speaking Italian but went away as I improved and practised more as one would expect. I wasn't saying Italian words or anything like that, but a couple of times I caught myself using Italian-style word order ("je l'aimerais faire" instead of "j'aimerais le faire") or prepositions ("de plus" instead of "plus" for "more"). It's minor stuff but it's still a bit worrying. I'm quite sure it's just because I currently speak Italian more frequently than French so it's becoming more natural to me, despite my French knowledge being much more advanced. This gives me all the more respect for people who manage to juggle multiple languages, and makes me want to keep putting off Spanish because a third one would just be crazy. Anyway I need to up my game with Verbling and self-talk to try to get more French speaking in and redress the unbalance. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Flarioca Heptaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5678 days ago 635 posts - 816 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Esperanto, French, EnglishC2, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Catalan, Mandarin | Message 15 of 160 09 January 2013 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm quite sure that you'll may know RaiTV, but I would like to add that I've found some really interesting programs there. Of course, what interests me may not interest many of you. However, as I've said, it's unlikely that one won't find something good to practice Italian listening in this site.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5003 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 160 09 January 2013 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the RAI TV suggestion Flarioca; obviously I know of RAI and I've watched some of it on streaming, but I hadn't thought of going on the site to seek out specific programmes. There's bound to be some interesting stuff on there; I've already got no shortage of Italian viewing material but more variety is always good! On a related note, I recently saw a bit of a game show and it was great as there was a nice mixture of "chit-chat" getting to know the contestants and hearing their accents from different parts of the country, along with clearly enunciated questions and even some language puzzles like guessing words from crossword-style clues.
I spoke Italian for a while last night and it was a nice reminder that, despite my points about it feeling more "comfortable" than French, it's still a long way off from actually catching up. On one hand I can have a decent conversation for a few hours, but on the other I still often struggle to express a lot of things well, can't find words, get verbs wrong, and have to stop and think. Still a lot of work to go! I'm thinking that B2 by the middle of this year might be a realistic projection but obviously it's hard to say for sure. I'd love to learn it to C1 but I just don't think it's a useful enough language to merit all that extra hard work and effort, so I think after B2 it'll go onto the back-burner and I'll get stuck into Spanish. That's my current thoughts at least. Italian Super Challenge Films: 44 done, 56 to go. Conversation hours: 76 done, 24 to go. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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