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dandt’s Italian Quest | ||
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| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 1 of 32 29 January 2015 at 2:31am | IP Logged | ||
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The short version is that I have been around Italian my whole life but rebelled by learning french instead of
communicating with my close family who only speak Italian. I've finally realised the error of my ways and benefits of being able to speak Italian and the Italian citizenship I can get, so I'm working hard to get where I want to get. The long version is probably the same. My Plan I know that there are really mixed feelings about Michel Thomas on here, but I've acquired it from a friend so will give it a try. I never finished the French program, but I found that it really gave me a great boost at the beginning, and the things that were covered in what I did complete are things that I'm still so familiar with now. I have a long road trip coming up, so I figure that it is a good opportunity to do the MT course. I think the big boost at the beginning will be important for me with Italian because I'm not really starting from scratch. I am, because I've never studied it, but I'm not because I've been around it, speaking bits and pieces here and there, watching the news etc, for most of my life. I hope to finish the MT course pretty quickly, and certainly before March. If I don't finish it, I'm hoping to get through at least the beginnings of it. I know that helped me to start forming my own sentences when I started French and, whatever the flaws of the program, I found that to be invaluable. Memrise: I've added a beginning Italian deck to memrise. I plan to do one section each day. A lot of it is things I'm familiar with, but I don't see that as a negative. Duolingo: I've got a goal of 30 xp per day. I did that before work this morning, so it's not really that hard to get it done. I already knew most of what came up, so I'm going to try and get through everything I know quickly. I've found what I am having difficulty with is the different forms of each word. I haven't made any flash cards yet. I'm a fan of physical flash cards and will probably make some in March (I'm moving). With French, I made flashcards based on word frequency early on in the learning process, and I think I'll wait a while so I'm not making flash cards for words i'm already very familiar with. I can work out words I'm struggling with from duolingo and memrise, and might start to make some for words I'm having trouble with from there, but I don't want to start making them to learn by rote yet. I have some reading material, but I don't think I'll work on that for a while. I want to do Assimil, and will try to start that as soon as I'm able to get a hold of it. Also looking into pimsleur, and will think about that. I'm not sure if it's the best of plans right now, but I'll reevaluate once I've moved. One thing I want to do is to keep track of the hours I spend learning. I've never done that before, and I think it will be interesting to see how much being in proximity to the language and just listening so much has had on me. I haven't been around it enough to have picked it up properly, and I haven't really studied it before, save for two hours sitting down with my dad when I was a kid and him teaching me a few things. Edited by dandt on 22 June 2016 at 3:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4418 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 2 of 32 29 January 2015 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Same exact situation as you. Family speaks Italian, I learned French instead. Like you, I also had some exposure (a few words and phrases).
Now, I'm a bit bored of French and I'm in love with my family's languages (Italian & Spanish, Argentine) and I can understand them even in dialect. Once you can sit in and listen to them talk naturally, it'll all be worth it in the end. With your French & Italian knowledge, it shouldn't take too long either. Ti auguro buona fortuna! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 3 of 32 30 January 2015 at 2:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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^ Thanks Sillygoose
I sat down yesterday and worked out my study hours for the semester (I'm a uni student), the time it'll take to travel etc purely for the purposes of working out how much time I could dedicate to Italian. My plans for the semester then began to rapidly change, and now there is a chance I'll have less time than ever. If things go to my preferred plan, I'll be dedicating 2-3 hours per day. There is a possibility that I could have more time, but I'm not sure if I could mentally dedicate that much time. Being a student, I find that it can be difficult to learn things like a language in non-study time, especially with the heavy courseload I usually have. I love the act of language learning, but I think that the mental energy just isn't there. Anyway, I was trying to work out how much time I could justify so I could work out my plans for language learning. For now, I'm just doing duolingo and memrise as I'm working a lot and don't have any resources/time/a routine. It's not much, but it's a start. I'm also doing a lot of planning and research. I tend to do that a lot. I've been looking at the FSI courses, and they look interesting, but there is a lot of touristy content and that's not something I am really interested in learning. I've been looking at Pimsleur too as I believe my uni has it in the library. I really just need to decide on what program I want to follow. I've also ordered a grammar book and got myself a notebook for writing down the things I need to remember, vocab I come across etc. I have one that I use for French and I really found it useful, like a mini reference book, so I think I'll do the same for Italian. I have tomorrow off work which means I'll be working hard on Italian for a lot of the day. I'm finding that I am making quick progress, even though I'm not really working all that hard. I suppose the exposure to Italian has made it easier to learn. Of course, saying as such has probably meant that I will never find it 'easy' again. Anyway, the plan for when I'm back at my own place and settled in the lead up to classes: - 30 min duolingo. Work on lessons and if there is time left after reaching daily goal (currently 50xp, but will reduce to 30xp when it's a little more difficult), go to the immersion tab and try to translate some things until 30 minutes is up - 10 minutes memrise. This will probably be while on the bus, so not necessarily dedicated study time. - 1 hour of some program. I have not yet decided what I will use. Suggestions are welcome. My university has a great language section, so I can probably access most things. - 10-20 minutes assimil. Complete the lesson. Any leftover time is to be used for reading. - 10 minutes reading. I have some graded readers that a friend is gifting me. I also have a stack of children's books that I acquired as a child. I'm also going to try to watch something at least 3 times a week, possibly the Cosby Show as it's dubbed on youtube and it is something I can do now, rather than waiting to get my DVDs from storage. I'm not sure how practical this plan is but I will try to use it as more of a general guide, rather than a strict plan. I just know that I need to set a plan and some goals (which I have to work out) or I won't work on this regularly. I'll slow my progress to next to nothing, and I'm so determined not to let that happen. As always, suggestions are welcome. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 4 of 32 01 February 2015 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Firstly, I'd like to apologise to anyone who actually reads this because my log is so boring and long. I tend to think
by writing, and even though I often try not to do so, it just happens. So the 6 Week Challenge starts today, and I've already managed an hour on duolingo. I got through the rest of Food 2 unit. For some reason, my days on Duolingo are out of sync and my day clocks over around 2pm, so I'm trying to do a little in the morning and a little at night so that I can still make my daily goal. I really enjoy the food units on duolingo as I'm already quite familiar with a lot of food- related vocabulary. Speaking of duolingo, I really wasn't happy with it in the first few levels. I didn't like how things, especially various verb forms, were not actually taught anywhere and how you're just left to figure it all out. I still feel that way, to an extent, but I'm starting to really like the platform. The last few skills I've worked on have been plurals, animals and food, so it might just be that the content is easier, or it could be that my skills are developing. It could even be that these are things I am fairly familiar with already. Perhaps I'm now adapting to the way it 'teaches'. I tried using LingQ again yesterday. I used it for a while with French but it never stuck, so I tried again with Italian. I like the idea, and really do like the idea of having a platform that tells you how many words you know of the particular language. I find that to be such a valuable concept, but it doesn't really work for me in practice. I think I'll try to have another go with it a bit later in my language journey. I watched a bit of I Robinson (The Cosby Show) dubbed in Italian yesterday, but I really need to find some subtitles for it, whether they're English or Italian. I had a basic idea of what was going on, so I wasn't completely lost, but I couldn't tell you what was being said. It's probably too early to be watching something like that without any guidance at all. I dug out the old Italian-English dictionary that my dad bought me when I was a kid and he decided he would teach me Italian. I'm planning on spending some time doing some reading today. I have some graded readers, some that have audio tracks, and am going to have a crack at them. After that, I'll do my daily Assimil. I know people on this forum love Assimil, and I tried really hard to enjoy it with French, but it just seemed so passive. I didn't get into the second part of it, so I guess I just have to stick it out for now. In fact, I did notice, looking through the book, that it says you just have to keep going for three weeks, so I'll try to keep going. I just feel like I'm doing it 'wrong' because it seems to easy to just listen and read along. At the moment, I really can see how I could easily spend two hours a day on Italian study, especially if I really used the time on the bus for reading and drills in memrise and anki. On a uni day, that'll give me up to an hour of time. I feel like I should be doing more at the moment, but I always feel like that. I still have to decide on some sort of program to work through properly. I've heard good things of Pimsleur, but I have also heard that it moves slowly, and I think I would find that discouraging. I might have a good look at it and see for myself. I can definitely see that my Italian is improving very quickly. I've only been seriously working on it for a few days, but it is very quick progress when compared to my french. It must be because I have some internalised knowledge of the language or something from years of exposure, because I can't think of any other reason why. Interesting things I've noticed: - my dream last night had Italian in it. The dream itself wasn't in Italian, but there was Italian in it. It was all fairly simple sentences: La cipolla è una verdura, il gatto è un animale, sono l'acqua potabile, gli uomini leggono i giornali etc but they were still in my dream! I got pretty excited about that because it means I'm internalising it. Yay! Okay, that's the only interesting thing that I've noticed. edit to add: Late last year, I noticed that sight words cards for little kids beginning to read were like $1 for a pack of 50 -100 at an office supply store nearby. They were really great ones with pictures and I decided to buy them, white out the english on the back, and then write french on them. I haven't yet written anything on them, so I'm going to put italian vocabulary onto them at some point soon. I thought it was a great way to make flashcards pretty inexpensively. One of the sets that I have just has words on it, but I'll do those as well. I prefer physical cards, even though anki can be more practical, but this is a really good option. I still get the benefit of 'making' the cards and it is less expensive than buying the index cards for it. I think I'll work on those tonight. Edited by dandt on 01 February 2015 at 2:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 5 of 32 02 February 2015 at 2:46am | IP Logged | ||
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After reading eyðimörk's log, I've
decided that I desperately want to set up some similar cards in Anki. I'm in the process of trying to make some with any media I have with me. It's not much, as I'm in the process of moving, but it really looks like it could be a valuable learning tool, plus I love the idea of being able to use native materials so early on without actually struggling to understand. I decided yesterday that I really do want to work with a solid text-based program. I got all excited about using FSI because I think the drill-based approach could work well for me, but was really disappointed to see that the Italian offerings aren't that great. Seeing the amazing French Basic program has me wanting to work hard on my french again, not helped by finding my stack of french books as I unpacked yesterday. I've decided that I will try to do a little french work each week and, once I've made a fair bit of progress on Italian (Perhaps to B1), I'll start working hard on French again. Thankfully, I managed to find my old copy of 'Teach Yourself Beginner's Italian' from when I was 10. I don't have both casettes any more, nor a means to play them, but I did manage to find the audio online. Hopefully it's from the same edition, and it seems to be right from the quick look I had. The program is very simple and there are things in the last few chapters that I know I am well aquainted with from duolingo, but I think it's probably a good program to use for now, given that I already have it. I plan to work through it fairly quickly. If nothing else, it will be a good base. It has 20 lessons, and I think I could get through it in a month or two quite easily. I've also gotten a book of Italian Grammar Drills (McGraw Hill). I believe that I have the same one for french, packed away somewhere. I bought the ebook so I could get the book immediately and am going to get it printed when I have a chance. I'm not sure if it is the best book for grammar but it does have a lot of exercises. I really need to work on my grammar as that is something I know I'm struggling with. For now, I've decided to give Assimil a break. I saw somewhere on the forum that you get more out of the program once you've gotten a bit further in the language, so I think I will start it up again in a month. At that point I will have moved and be back at classes, so it should be easier to study Italian on a firm routine. I did around an hour of Michel Thomas yesterday when I was doing some gardening. I've done quite a bit of his French program and had enjoyed that, but I'm not sure that I like the Italian as much. Perhaps it is because of the similarities between French and Italian, or perhaps my mind wasn't in the right place, but I didn't quite get so much out of it. I'll give those parts a listen to again and hopefully will get more out of it. I don't think that it is a perfect system or method, but I did love the confidence boost I got from the french program in being able to construct sentences myself so early on. Another thing I have done is signed up for Italki. I was really pleased to see how relatively inexpensive lessons can be on there. I'm definitely planning on getting some lessons, perhaps once a week or fortnight, once I'm settled and have my routine planned out. I honestly thought that lessons weren't going to be a realistic option for me, but I can definitely justify $10-$20 for an hour long lesson. In terms of duolingo, I'm now working on possessives. It's my seventh 'skill' and I should finish it today. I am enjoying it, and I like the drilling aspect. I don't like the speaking part as the microphone rarely picks up what I say, so most of the time I end up cheating through it. Using duolingo is much easier now that I know to hover over unfamiliar words. I'm still uneasy with conjugations, but I think I'm getting there. Slowly but surely. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 6 of 32 03 February 2015 at 6:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I was home sick from work yesterday and today, so I was able to get a lot of Italian study done, stuck in bed all day.
According to the 6 week challenge, I did around 7-8 hours yesterday and around the same today! I’m WayTooMeta on there. Cose che ho fatto: I began watching Buffy in Italian. I picked up some things purely from understanding, but I did rely on the English subtitles a lot. I spent much longer than the 40 minutes of the episode watching it, rewinding to check various things. I learnt a useful phrase: ‘Ciao. Sono una grande puttana.’ I joke, of course, but I really do love Buffy, so it makes watching/learning easier. I made some subs2SRS cards using the first Buffy episode but haven’t used them yet I watched the movie 'Il comandante e la cicogna’ and found it absolutely hilarious. I really enjoyed it and am really thankful for netflix and the foreign films section. The movie was definitely crazy. We had talking statues, a pet stork and all sorts of hijinks. I understood a few pieces here and there, and that was really a great feeling. I’ve put a note in my diary to watch it again in a few weeks to see how much I’ve improved. I spent quite a bit of time working on grammar. My grammar book is split into nouns, articles, pronouns etc, and I’m not sure whether the best approach is to work from start to finish. I suspect that is the intention as the drills in the first chapter (nouns) are really quite easy. Regardless, they were certainly useful. Worked on my Teach Yourself book. Got through two units. They’re very basic and I think, at least for now, I could easily cover two units a day. I’m not pushing it though. Worked on DuoLingo. I covered Clothing and Questions. I can really see how I’m getting better at recognising different verb forms and using the right ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 3881 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 7 of 32 03 February 2015 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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You're putting an impressive amount of time and energy into your Italian. I look forward to reading about your progress!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dandt Senior Member Australia regarderetlire.wordp Joined 4406 days ago 134 posts - 174 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French | Message 8 of 32 03 February 2015 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
holidays and, while I'm working full time, I've been at home sick for a few days. The six week challenge is certainly helping too. Every time I see someone getting lots of hours, I start buckling down again. My friends were laughing about how hardcore competitive I am getting! This ridiculous study load cannot be sustained though, and I think I'm already starting to tire of it. I just don't want to stop like with my French. --- Did some more grammar work tonight. While I'm okay with gender to an extent, for some reason I get lui and lei confused all the time. I'm getting better at it, but I really just need to drill some of these things. Hopefully working with Glossika will help with that. I bought it on complete impulse last night with next to no research. I kind of regret it, just because of the expense, but if it's a good product, it will have been money well spent. If nothing else, it's incentive to keep studying. I really think I have to keep my pace more steady than it has been. I know this will be easier once I have classes again and have a routine, but I have to get to that point without burning out. I think it's time to set a few solid goals, so I'm going to try to think of what they will be in the next few days. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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