Italian List!

What helped me learn a lot of Spanish was my choice of books and audio, and so with Italian I want to learn in a similar way so that I can get to a simlar level. Of course after a while I´ll be using what I learned on a regular basis by having conversations, reading, watching movies, etc.

My list of materials includes the first 2 books which I´ve finished, the 3rd, which I´m currently working on, and as for the rest - Teach Yourself Improve Your Italian is on the way - I ordered it a few days ago. I also have Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced Italian Grammar, the two Schaum´s books and the self-teaching guide here already. I have some books at my house in Winnipeg too which I guess I´ll add. The rest are just possible materials I´ll use in the future. I liked the description and reviews on amazon. It´s almost 100% certain that I won´t (and won´t need to) use all the materials!

Just as with Spanish, it will take probably a couple or few years to finish everything I want to finish before only reading, watching movies and having conversations. There are just too many things I want to be able to do in addition to study Italian (like enjoy books in Spanish, teach English to Spanish speakers, and perhaps dabble a bit in one or two new languages) so completing most of the list will take a while.

I´ve stopped with French and Portuguese for now but I don´t plan on abandoning them forever. I just want to focus most of my efforts on Italian. My French is better than my Portuguese though. I´ve forgotten a lot of what I learned with Pimsleur´s Portuguese program but when I start studying French again I think I´ll pick it up/advance much more easily. And the good thing with French too is that there is way more material available than for Portuguese. It´s kind of frustrating that Portuguese grammar workbooks aren´t so readily available. I´d love to buy a whole series of PMP Portuguese books like I´ve done with the Spanish ones.

My Italian Self-Study

1. Italian the Easy Way (done)
2. Practice Makes Perfect: Complete Italian Grammar (done)
3. Barron´s Complete Italian Grammar Review (currently working on)
4. Schaum´s Outline of Italian Vocabulary
5. Teach Yourself Improve Your Italian with CD
6. Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced Italian Grammar
7. Schaum´s Outline of Italian Grammar
8. Italian: A Self-Teaching Guide
9. Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Verb Tenses
10. Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Sentence Structure
11. Italian Verb Drills (I had already finished a good chunk of this book but it´s in Winnipeg)
12. Colloquial Italian 2 with CD
13. Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Conversation
14. Practice Makes Perfect: Italian Pronouns and Prepositions
15. Read & Think Italian with CD
16. Ultimate Italian Advanced
17. Hippocrene Mastering Advanced Italian

Books I have read in Spanish (continued)

4) No se lo digas a nadie


Aunque esta historia envia un mensaje que debería ser tomado en serio, no puedo evitar de pensar en las partes graciosas de este libro, que me encantan.

En «No se lo digas a nadie», la gracia viene por la mayor parte del diálogo: (pp. 34):
-No digas esas palabras, que es pecado- dijo Juan Manuel.
-Decir teta o poto no es pecado, tonto- dijo Miguel.
-Es pecado, caracho- dijo Juan Manuel - Ahorita estás pecando delante mío.
-Teta, teta, teta, poto, poto, poto- dijo Felipe.

 (pp. 52):
-Yo sé mucho de mujeres, hijo- continuó Luis Felipe. -Y creeme: todas son putas, solo que unas lo saben y otras no.
-Mi mami también es una puta?- preguntó Joaquín.
Luis Felipe soltó una carcajada.
-No, pues, tu madre no- dijo. -Todas son putas, menos tu madre.
-Ya decía yo- dijo Joaquín.
-Tu madre es un caso raro, hijo- dijo Luis Felipe. -Yo no he conocido mujer como ella. Tu madre prefiere rezar que echarse un buen polvo. A veces, cuando me la he estado montando, he llegado a pensar que tu madre estaba rezando.

Me gusta el uso de jerga peruana, la mayoría de la cual yo no había oído antes y tuve que preguntarselo a alguien. Estas palabras y expresiones ¨coloridas¨ me hacen reír. Desearía que la jerga en inglés pudiera sonar tan poética. («¡Ya me hincharon las pelotas estas palomas!» -pp.60)

No obstante, esta historia es en general seria, y para mí una realista a la que probablemente muchas personas pudieran relacionarse - pues, especialmente las personas homosexuales, ya que el personaje principal, Joaquin, es homosexual, y su lucha con su familia y la vida en general es muy evidente. Joaquin aún reza a Dios para que lo ayude a ¨no ser maricón¨, el cual haría la vida mas fácil y llevaría a que sus padres lo acepten mucho más. (Joaquín tiene un padre machista, homofóbico, y mujeriego, y una madre super-religiosa). Tratarían a Joaquín más como su hijo si no fuera gay.

Pensé que absolutamente todos los capítulos de este libro eran interesantes. He leído muchas novelas en la vida y ésta es una de mis preferidas.

Books that I have read in Spanish

Books that I have read in Spanish:

1) Como aprendí inglés

Éste es el primer libro que termino de leer en español. Es interesante leer acerca de las actitudes, métodos, y razones diferentes de aprender inglés, que es mi idioma materno. Aún las actitudes hacía el español como idioma materno difieren entre las historias de este libro, lo que para mí fue interesante.

Hay muchas experiencias contadas aqui por diferentes personas - experiencias buenas y malas - y es muy probable que si estás aprendiendo (o si ya has aprendido mucho de) un idioma extranjero - podrás relacionarte a muchas de ellas.

Leí «Como aprendí ingles» mientras estuve en Perú de vacaciones, así que una de las partes que me gustó y que me hizo sonreír fue escrita por el hijo de Mario Vargas Llosa (Alvaro), quien había estudiado en Gran Bretaña. Escribió: «Cuando llegue a la escuela, la primera pregunta que se me hizo - a través de un intérprete - fue si había coches en Perú. Respondí que preferíamos UFOs para evitar la congestión.»

2) Hay una chica en mi sopa

Pensé que esta historia era interesante pero no increíble. Para explicarla brevemente, es acerca de una chica de 11 años que se enamora de (o llega a ser obsesionada de) su maestra alemana. Este amor/obsesión dura 6 años, durante los cuales ambas son amigas.

3) Diario de una ninfómana

Pensé que «Diario de una ninfómana» era absolutamente entretenido, interesante, e impredecible de principio a fin.

Antes de leerlo, yo pensaba que quizás seria híper-sexual (o por la mayor parte acerca del sexo), con descripciones detalladas y gráficas de los encuentros de la chica, Val, pero este libro tiene mucho mas que eso.

Yo no tenía ni idea de como una persona (que en realidad es considerada/¨diagnosticada¨ como ninfómana) pensaría o como se comportaría - si seria muy diferente comparado a otras personas. Sin embargo, al leer este diario, me di cuenta de que, como los demás, Val quiere encontrar el amor. A pesar del hecho de que haya dormido con muchos hombres y que haya sido prostituta, encontrar el amor todavía es muy importante para ella, y si - lo encuentra, pero no entraré en detalles acerca de lo que sucede con eso porque no quiero arruinar el final para los que desean leer el libro.

Es interesante notar la diferencia entre los encuentros de Val antes y después de llegar a ser prostituta. Antes, tenía encuentros con gente que creía que era similar a ella - personas de quienes ella tenía ¨buenas vibras¨. Aunque después de llegar a ser prostituta - después de empezar a trabajar para una ¨agencia¨ en un prostíbulo que ella llama ¨La Casa¨, no tenía la opción de escoger a sus parejas que ahora eran clientes. Ella tuvo algunos encuentros con hombres locos y asquerosos.

Una cosa que me gusta mucho acerca de este libro es que muestra que solo por ser prostituta, no significa que una mujer no sea culta o que sea estúpida. Val es una mujer culta que habla múltiples idiomas y es también dulce y amigable - a veces en momentos equivocados cuando debería comportarse ¨como puta¨.

Me gusta la manera en que Val describió a las personas importantes de su vida - sus amigos y su familia (incluso las amigas que tenía en La Casa) y otras personas (y hasta aún animales) que la han impactado positivamente (incluyendo un ¨cliente¨ que ella visito cuando era prostituta).

Spanish in Peru

During the past 7 months, I´ve been living in Peru with my boyfriend. I´m no longer formally studying Spanish because it´s not necessary. After living here, I have a much easier time listening to people, understanding colloquial words and phrases, watching movies, understanding songs, etc. I still don´t speak enough but I have trouble doing that in my native language too.


While I´ve been here, I´ve visited different places, read books in Spanish (most by Peruvian authors – these books actually do help me with understanding Peruvian slang and vocabulary in general), I´ve read a book called The Peru Reader as well to learn more about the country (ok, well I´ve read most of it. The plan is to finish it in the near future).

I still have to ask some people to please slow down or explain something more clearly when they talk because it seems I´ve had to get used to each person´s voice individually. I can understand 99.9% of what my boyfriend says whether it´s said quickly, slowly, loudly, quietly – just because I´m used to him.

I speak with relative ease in Spanish and my boyfriend has commented that ¨I can tell it´s way easier for you to speak in Spanish than it is for me to speak in English – you speak at a normal pace with few errors. You can say what you want.¨

Right now I´m focusing on trying to help him learn more English because now the plan is for him to try to find work in Canada with my help. He´s right though about our skills – I would say my Spanish is at ¨basic fluency¨ and his English is intermediate. Well, everything´s a process.

I´m studying Italian with Barron´s complete Italian Grammar Review and I also got a free kindle book from amazon in Itailan - it´s supposed to be funny so hopefully I´ll learn quite a bit and enjoy the story as well. I think I´ll alternate with grammar books and stories. What I love about the PC Kindle app is that I can easily highlight the word and see the definition and if I want, I can make a note for any word or phrase I want. I think it´s a great way to learn. This is how I´m helping José learn more English - and luckily for him, there are way way more funny English books available than Italian books in general.

Italian, French, and Spanish

Of course I already finished my university courses in Beginner's Italian and French, and intermediate Spanish. I plan on taking a course in the fall called "Writing in Italian" (which is the only intermediate course I can take) and a couple of advanced Spanish courses, "Advanced Spanish Composition" and "Contemporary Spanish Female Playwrights" I think it's called.

Spanish...The last Spanish course I took ("Spanish Oral 1") I didn't get an A or an A+ because I refused to do the main project worth 15%. The reason why I enrolled in such a course was to be able to improve my spoken ability so that I am more easily able to speak in real life conversations. Maybe learning idioms and slang would be helpful, but even if they consider that to be "too much" for an intermediate learner, the idea of speaking aloud about conversational topics would be helpful to anyone. For the project, we couldn't be creative, and there precious few topics one could present on. They all had to do with world issues - "negative" topics in my opinion, like deforestation in a certain area, or global warming. I can't imagine myself having a good chat with a Hispanic person about these types of things. I got a B in the course.

Italian...In Italian I would have done extremely well. I hadn't missed one test in school my entire life for any reason until last year. My alarm didn't go off on a test day and I woke up at 10:30, 30 minutes into the test. Good thing I had been doing really well other than that. If I weren't a motivated student and didn't study hard that could very well have hurt my mark quite a bit, but my final mark was a B+.

French... B+...I didn't do horribly but French labs were terrible for me. I already lacked confidence in pronunciation but then I'm put in front of a computer to talk to it and it doesn't talk back or help you out. Instead the lab monitor goes around and stops to talk to people about what they're doing... egh, I just thought it was weird. It's the only language I'm not taking in fall. That's not to say I won't take it again in school, but I'm going to use Pimsleur to help me feel more confident in my pronunciation before going back to classes in uni.

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I finished "Italian The Easy Way". It really is good for supplemental study if you're in a beginner's course in school. I'd also recommend it for complete beginners, as I had started with the book long before I took my first Italian course and found everything to be so well explained that I had no trouble understanding and then doing the exercises. Not everyone agrees with me though, I found out while reading reviews for the book on amazon.

There are plenty of exercises with an answer key in the back, a good English-Italian and Italian-English glossary. A wide variety of subjects, grammatical points, and vocabulary are covered, there are dots under letters to show where a stress is in pronouncing a word if the word is irregular as far as pronunciation, there are a variety of types of exercises (fill-in-the-blank, word search, crossword puzzles, being creative and making your own little stories which are the only exercises that there are no answers for). There are end-of-chapter reviews, and 3 "vocabulary checkpoints" with a list of vocabulary you should memorize before moving on, most of which you'll already have memorized just by being exposed to it already. I made flashcards for the ones I didn't know.

But...answer key has 1 answer only for each exercise when some things can be written/said in more than 1 way. The other minor thing is that a few times I've come across errors in the answer key or the answers in the answer key don't match up.

It was probably worth almost an entire year's worth of Italian in university though. Some people warned not to take it "as a substitute for a textbook" but I think this book (and a lot of other books, such as ones from the Practice Makes Perfect series) are waaaay more useful! Since starting university I haven't come across a language textbook yet that is better than one of those. And the even crazier thing is that you could buy the entire selection of Spanish (or French or Italian) PMP books for less than what one university textbook costs.

List of Great Books I've Used To Learn Spanish

I started learning Spanish in 2006 and since then have purchased many products to help me learn as much as possible. I've decided to make a list of products I've used that have helped me the most - the ones that are a huge reason why I can now have conversations completely in Spanish and speak with confidence. I've only included books that I've completed. There are some that I've finished about half of that I haven't included here, because I don't feel I should "review" products (even if they're really good so far) if I haven't completed them.

1) "Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish"

This was the book that really got the "ball rolling" so to speak.
If you're starting from scratch I definitely recommend this book. Because of this book, which has a great pronunciation guide and goes through a lot of the verb tenses and a lot of the common verbs as well as vocabulary (from the beginning of the book, you find out you actually already know hundreds of words in Spanish, because they're the same in English) I was able to have basic conversations by the end of it and actually feel confident in speaking, which is a big deal to me! There are little reminder cards the author tells you to make to glance at when you have a moment as well as a variety of exercises and tests to help you remember what you've learned. This is a great book to prepare you for more "intermediate" books such as "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses" and "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions". Another popular "complete beginner" book that I haven't gone through but have seen excellent reviews for is "Getting Started with Spanish: Beginning Spanish for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age" by William E. Linney. Another one, "Practice Makes Perfect: Beginning Spanish with CD-ROM" comes out on October 22, 2010.


2) "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses"

After I finished Magic Key I started going through this book. It's full of useful information that will help you understand how to use verbs in different tenses. The explanations are clear and there are examples with plenty of useful exercises (mostly translating sentences and paragraphs but there are a few true and false). There is an answer key to the exercises at the back as well as a good Spanish-English and English-Spanish glossary. After finishing this book I remember feeling a lot more confident with verb tenses and being amazed that these types of books were as inexpensive as they were. This book wasn't what I'd call "fun" but it will absolutely help the serious student improve their Spanish. After all, you find verbs in almost all sentences, so it's important to be able to use them correctly!

3) "The Ultimate Spanish Verb Review and Practice"

Going through just this book or just PMP: Spanish Verb Tenses is very helpful in itself. Going through both is an even better idea as going through the second book reinforces what you've learned from the first book. Also, there are some things one book goes over that the other doesn't. (goes both ways) One thing I remember off the top of my head that is shown very clearly in this book that I don't remember from PMP is the way you use the "passive voice": How to say things like :
"The food was prepared." vs. "The food was prepared by the chef."
(When it isn't specifically stated that someone is doing the action, you would use `estaba' for the word `was', and when you include who did the action, you would use `fue'), so, "La comida estaba preparada." vs. "La comida fue preparada por el cocinero". Just like the PMP book though, there are lots of exercises and really good, clear explanations on all the tenses as well as an answer key in the back. And just like the PMP book, this one is about $10.


4) "Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions"

Pronouns and prepositions often pose a problem to students learning Spanish because they work quite differently than they do in English. Dorothy Richmond, the same author of PMP: Spanish Verb Tenses, does an excellent job explaining how and when pronouns and prepositions are used. These explanations are followed by examples and plenty of useful exercises. And of course, there's a glossary of words at the back and an answer key. Once again, it's not a "fun" book, but it is a very valuable tool for those who are serious about learning Spanish. The best way to master a language and its "parts" is to practice practice practice, which is why I love these books. I went through this book after the PMP Verb Tenses one.

5) "Practice Makes Perfect: The Spanish Subjunctive Up Close"

For intermediate and advanced learners, the subjunctive in Spanish can definitely pose a problem. The best way to get over this hurdle is to have it clearly explained to you. You'll want to know when to use each of the subjunctive's four tenses and why. The book also lets you know when the subjunctive should not be used. This book (of course) also allows you to practice what you've learned. There are plenty of exercises and an answer key. Because you're actually doing many practice exercises instead of just reading about the subject you're very likely to retain most of what you learned.


6) "Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced Spanish Grammar"

After going through the books already listed I decided to pick up this one. And I got more than I expected. You'll learn how to phrase things in different ways, how to use conjunctions (practicing writing and reading sentences using words like : in spite of, despite, not only.. but also, however, otherwise, since, so, still/yet, therefore, when, while, for, both... and, either...or/neither...nor, besides, although, though, and, as, etc). There's a section on some/any and other determiners. There's a section on problematic prepositions, too. Also included is a chapter on idiomatic constructions which includes useful expressions that if directly translated to English would not completely make sense (eg."llover sobre mojado" refers to adding one problem to another problem but literally translated would be in English like, "To rain over wet".) There is a lot more offered but I wanted to keep this short. Once again, though, there are clear explanations, plenty of exercises, and an answer key at the back.

7) "Schaum's Outline of Spanish Vocabulary"

Great for high-beginner to high-intermediate learners of Spanish! There are certain words you just do not typically learn as a beginner in Spanish. Once you do have that "basic" foundation though, this book can help you expand your knowledge and be able to have more confidence talking and reading about 30 different topics. This book is full of exercises as well which is great because you can practice what you learn. I was not very sure how helpful this book would be as I had already studied Spanish (well, it was on and off) for a year and 10 months, and the topics seemed like they would be easy to talk about, like things around the home, in the restaurant, crime, sports, travel, etc, but after going through the book I realized how much I actually did not know and how much the book helped me. Answers are in the back which is nice and the book is very affordable.

Italian!

I ordered "Italian the Easy Way" quite a while ago (only had to pay a penny plus $6.50 shipping and handling! haha). I've gone through 8 of 18 chapters already and it's a good introduction to the language. It helps to have good pronunciation in Spanish although the book has a decent pronunciation guide, and every time I'm not absolutely sure how to say a word (in my head or out loud!) I check that guide and I also made my own notes about the things I have the most trouble with.

The book is pretty good so far, I like it as an intro. It gradually goes through more and more vocabulary and grammar. I find turning singular nouns into plurals interesting because it's much different from Spanish. (il figlio - i figli.....la figlia - le figlie...lo zaino - gli zaini, gli also used for "l' l'esame >> gli esami) There are also more ways to say this/that/these/those and I have to be patient while learning even these "simple" things. I think even with pronunciation, unlike in Spanish, many Italian words do not have accent marks above the letters where there is an irregular stress ... I'll have to learn to pronounce those properly. In Spanish it's easy to tell where to stress because it's marked if it's irregular. The book helps by marking a little dot under the letter.

I'm still learning present forms of verbs, I'll need lots of practice to get used to this. Sometimes Spanish verb forms will pop up in my head and I have to ignore them!

I'm learning who/what/where/when/why questions and how to make basic sentences. There are often sections in the chapters that will ask you to create your own little story paragraph thing that includes certain things that they list...basic ideas or sentences in Italian. I try to make it a bit long and look up words I don't know! Here's one!:

Nora e Giovanni sempre vanno insieme al cinema ma oggi decidano andare al Bar Roma. Giovanni sempre (I wrote siempre but I'm correcting it here!) prende un cappuccino la e Nora sempre prende un espresso ma loro non sanno cosa vogliono oggi, cosi tutti e due vanno a casa di Dina, l'amica di Giovanni. Giovanni sempre prende qualcosa da mangiare e da bere ma Nora non conosce Dina e non sa che cosa prendere.

-Nora and John always go together to the movies but today they decide to go to the Bar Roma... John always orders a cappuccino there and Nora always orders espresso but they don't know what they want today, so they both go to Dina's house. (She's his friend) John always has something to eat and drink but Nora doesn't know Dina and doesn't know what to ask for.

Boom shakalaka.

Lately I haven't had the motivation to study... or desire, I think I may have to focus more on French though now even though I'm taking both Italian and French in September... French will be more difficult for me I think.