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Gary’s TAC 2014: Spanish, Italian, French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 65 of 138 05 May 2014 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Italian party on Friday. Italian parties seem to have practically become a monthly occurrence for me now, and it's awesome. I was socialising in Italian for more or less six hours and I met a lot of new people. For a while there was a band playing, and I noticed the effects of loud music on my listening comprehension: someone kept speaking to me but I could barely understand a thing. Afterwards a few of us went to someone's flat to have a beer and chat for a while. Overall it went great, I felt like I was able to socialise relatively easily and I didn't even have problems joining in the more fast and animated conversations and getting people to listen to me. It's a big improvement compared to the first proper Italian party I went to at the end of December (I mentioned it on the first page of my log) where I felt I could manage one-to-one conversations but wasn't confident about joining in bigger group ones. It did help that the people there were all from different parts of Italy, so even though it was an extremely informal conversation their language was very standard. Things get a bit tougher when it's a group all from the same area.
On Saturday I tried to speak Spanish for the first time in a few weeks, and it was a mess. I was struggling to remember even quite basic stuff and the Italian interference was back in a big way. It's hardly a surprise since I've stopped working on it to focus on Italian, and I'm confident that I'll get up to my previous level again when I restart, so nothing to worry about. I finished reading Io e te and again I'm keen to read more Ammaniti. I saw a one-star review of Il momento è delicato, a collection of short stories, saying it was shocking, weird, pornographic and with lots of Roman dialect. I bought it immediately. Sounds good to me; maybe I've found the Roman equivalent of Irvine Welsh's Acid House. I'll see. The Italy trip is finally coming together and I'm sorting out accommodation. Three nights in Tuscany to relax and see pretty things, then four in Bologna which will probably be full Italian immersion and partying, then two in Rome which... I'm not sure why I'm even going back there after my mostly negative experiences last year, but some part of me feels that it deserves a second chance, and at least this time round I know what to expect. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 66 of 138 08 May 2014 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I decided to go to the French meetup yesterday for the sake of trying to maintain my level, and the it's generally a calm and friendly meetup so it's worthwhile. I've spoken very little French in the past month or so, and I found that at the start I was getting tongue-tied and mixing up sounds and it took me a few minutes to "loosen up". It's certainly a technically demanding language to pronounce correctly, speaking it can feel like putting together pieces of a complex phonemic puzzle and I doubt it'll ever feel natural.
Similarly I was thinking that French doesn't really seem "natural" to me in many respects. It almost seems like something along the lines of Esperanto: something artificial that people learn as a second language then go to speak with others who've also learnt it as a second language. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it feels more like a subject of academic study than a real language that has native speakers. I practically do a double-take when I hear French on the street or in a bar, outside of a conversation group. I suppose that strange perception is just the result of my situation. To look at it more positively though, I have met a lot of great and interesting people through French who I wouldn't have met otherwise, even if 95% of them aren't native speakers. I speak Italian with Italians, Spanish with Spaniards, and French with people from all over the world. It's not all bad and for that, if nothing else, I don't have too many regrets. Anyway, I'm leaving for Italy in two days. I've not done as much work on Italian as I'd have liked, as work has somewhat taken over my life in recent weeks. I was hoping to do more pronunciation and conversation practice. But isn't that always the case for one reason or another, you never feel ready no matter how much you do... and overall I do feel like my Italian has improved a hell of a lot since my last trip there which wasn't so long ago, but I suppose I'll see when I get there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4465 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 67 of 138 08 May 2014 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you want to remove that "mixing up sounds" experience, you could try reading aloud as practice. What I do is one news article in the morning and one at night, taking no more than five to ten minutes each. Now even if I go a while without speaking and have to take more time to formulate my thoughts, I never get that "these sounds feel funny in my mouth" sensation. :-)
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 68 of 138 20 May 2014 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm back from Italy. Overall the trip was more relaxed and went a lot more smoothly than last year's, which is nice although it means I don't have a huge amount to write about it. I did a lot of socialising and partying in Italian, and generally didn't have much trouble understanding and getting by, even in group conversations in noisy environments. However there were a couple of times when I just didn't understand, and speaking often didn't feel very fluid and I had to think about what I was going to say. But I wasn't shy and I made an effort to join in the conversations even if I made mistakes, which in itself is important.
From my experience in northern Italy, if you speak Italian then people will reply to you in Italian, even if you're obviously not a native speaker. And unlike France for example, this applies in social situations as well as customer service. Which is of course perfect for me. I was feeling the benefits of immersion: you hear so many words and phrases in context and you start to figure out when and how to use them, and it feels much more real than when you're watching a film. Rome on the other hand isn't quite as good a place for learning, but I knew that already. I'm still not very happy with my pronunciation and I'd like to be able to converse with more ease, so that's what I'm going to keep working on. I'm also keen to pick up Spanish again since I've been neglecting it for a couple of months and it shows. My interest in French is still steadily diminishing, but I'm hoping Anki plus a conversation from time to time might help it stay alive. If I find some time I might write a bit more about my trip, but in Italian. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 69 of 138 23 May 2014 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Making peace with French...
I made the last minute decision to go to French meetup the other day, because I saw that for once a few native speakers were planning on attending (Meetup.com is handy for that, although of course some people come without responding and vice versa so it's no guarantee). There were several French speakers of around my age there, so I tried to take advantage of this once in a lifetime opportunity. Ok, let's not exaggerate... once in a year. I got the usual routine of not being taken seriously, but I dealt with it pretty well. Maybe after my week in Italy the European frankness was still in effect over my usual sadly culturally-instilled British fear of directness: explicitly calling out the elephant in the room and pointing out that I didn't appreciate their attitude towards me had a great effect and made them respect me a lot more. I did get a "did he really just say that?!" look, but that's not a bad thing. After that we chatted away for a while; I felt more relaxed and so did they since I had essentially informed them that yes, I actually speak French, and no, they don't need to slow down and explain things as if I were a beginner. With Italian for example, simply having a decent level is often enough to make people realise that you have a decent level, but with the French you have to actually tell them. The French often tend to be quite direct and not afraid to show their feelings, so if you take that attitude too they'll respect it. Of course you need to have a pretty decent level to back it up, but happily my French doesn't seem to have declined despite lack of practice and chatting with a group of native speakers is still quite manageable. After all that I feel quite happy and I'm accepting my French for what it is: far from perfect, and not very useful, but when I do have a use for it it's up to the task, and the little I'm doing to maintain it appears to be enough. While I still don't expect to make friends with French people any time soon, I might have just figured out how to save my dignity in interactions with them. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5009 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 70 of 138 23 May 2014 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
- Glad to hear that worked out; well done! Edited by songlines on 23 May 2014 at 12:44pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 71 of 138 26 May 2014 at 11:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Back into Spanish:
My break from Spanish must have lasted almost two months. This past weekend I finally got stuck into it again: restarted Assimil where I had left off (passive lesson 90 out of 100) and watched a couple of Destinos episodes. Getting back into Assimil is a bit painful, especially the active wave, and I certainly don't feel up to the sorts of conversations I was having a couple of months ago. I absolutely don't recommend taking such a long break during the early stages of learning a language, while your basic active skills are still in formation, but in my situation it was unavoidable really. But I think after a week or two I should be back into the flow of it. To be honest I'm pretty keen to get Assimil and Destinos out of the way so I can get onto the fun stuff: watching films and talking to people. I'm sure most people reading this will think that nothing should stop me doing all that before I finish the courses, and on principle I agree; it's just a time management question, and my "Spanish time" doesn't have room for everything. More generally, I was starting to get really stressed last year and at the start of this year from trying to do too many things in too little time, so now I'm trying to relax more: accept the time limitations and try to work with them rather than against them. Slower progress is fine if it means feeling more relaxed. I also already wrote about my ego involvement in learning French, but I think that applied to my other studies too in various ways. Getting past the desire to have a certain level after a certain time is a weight off the shoulders, and there are plenty other sources of motivation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5007 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 72 of 138 28 May 2014 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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An Italian update is long overdue...
Libri e film: Ho quasi finito di leggere "Il momento è delicato". Finora mi è piaciuto abbastanza, i racconti sono abbastanza surreali anche se il libro non è volgare come quella critica mi aveva fatto pensare. Lo scorso fine settimana ho perso parecchio tempo, non riuscivo a decidere cosa volevo fare. Quasi che avessi i postumi di una sbornia, invece ero rimasto a casa senza bere. Sarà stata la stanchezza dopo la vacanza e il ritorno al lavoro. Però ho guardato un paio di film, tra cui "Jack Frusciante è uscito dal gruppo", scelto per la sua ambientazione a Bologna, la mia città Italiana preferita (beh, tra quelle visitate fino adesso...). La storia mi è piaciuta, mi ha ricordato la mia adolescenza, e ho deciso di leggere anche il libro. Comprare il libro, però, è stata un'altra storia. Ho comprato l'e-book da Amazon, come al solito, ma quando è arrivato mi sono accordo subito che la formattazione era tutta sbagliata, con delle interruzioni di linea in mezzo alle frase, e così era difficile da leggere. Ho chiesto un rimborso, un procedimento automatico che si effettua in poco tempo. Poi ho trovato il libro su Ibs.it (dove si possono comprare e-book Italiani anche dall'estero!), l'ho comprato, ho scaricato il file e... stesso problema. A questo punto era tardi, proprio non mi andava di chiedere un rimborso da una società Italiana, e inoltre volevo leggere il mio libro! Dopo aver trafficato un po' con le impostazioni di conversione di Calibre sono riuscito a renderlo leggibile, ma a quell'ora ero troppo stanco per leggere. Ho iniziato il libro il giorno dopo (sì, senza finire Il momento è delicato...) ed è bello... secondo me la scrittura richiede una certa dimestichezza con la cultura e la lingua Italiane (svariati giochi di parole, parole inventate, riferimenti culturali) e anche con la musica di cui parla, ma per me è perfetto e mi fa piacere leggere dei posti e delle strade in cui sono stato un paio di settimane fa. Ieri sera ho fatto uno scambio linguistico con un'italiana, è andato bene dal punto di vista sociale ma non sono stato molto contento del mio livello d'italiano. Diversi sbagli, accento scadente, poca fluidità. Forse ancora colpa di stanchezza, e trovo che sia molto più difficile entrare nel "flow" quando non si è circondati dalla lingua, per esempio con un gruppo di Italiani o in Italia; con un'unica persona in un ambiente anglofono non è la stessa cosa. Come sempre, vorrei esercitare di più le competenze attive e ho in progetto di fare più esercizi tipo "self-talk" oltre a continuare a approfittare delle occasioni di parlare con Italiani. E scriverò di più in Italiano! A volte mi lascio influenzare troppo dalle idee che basta ascoltare e leggere per migliorare la sua capacità di parlare... un sacco di cazzate. Edited by garyb on 28 May 2014 at 1:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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