I really hate the idea of waking up one day and discovering that I no longer speak Italian. It will hurt to admit that whatever I worked on so hard is GONE (like the French I used to speak quite decently or piano I used to play). My exposure to the language these days is limited to Adriano Celentano discography and email messages from Italian brands promoting their products.
I am a true believer that patience and regular practice can take you to a whole new skill level. This is applicable to practically everything – exercising, learning how to draw, learning math, etc. In other words, regular repetitions over an extended period of time will transform you.
So I decided that I need to do something and that something will be a 40 day challenge to enrich my Italian vocabulary.
How this will work:
- Set aside 20 minutes a day to read, listen or write in Italian. This can be listing to new songs, reading articles, watching a movie, anything! The key point here is 20 minutes (not more, not less) are devoted only to the Italian language and on minute 20:00 I have a list of new words.
- Carry the list with me and go over it during the day
- Keep track of a total of daily new words
Ideally, the number of words should be decreasing because as in any language once you hit x number of the most common words, non-common words will be showing up once in a while.
The challenge will run from tomorrow, May 14, 2015. I will be reporting back in this post on the progress.
If anyone tried something similar, please shoot me a message and share your thoughts on this.
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Day 1 (May 14): “Suzanna” by Adriano Celentano.
Total new words and expressions: 12
I spend more than 20 minutes today partly because I was reading up on Ticinese dialect mentioned in the song and watching a video clip. There is still an expression I don’t fully understand in these lyrics but I am moving on.
Day 2 (May 15): “La testa degli Italiani” by Beppe Severgnini
Total new words: 13
This is a book I was introduced to 2 years ago by my Italian language teacher in Studio Italiano in Tropea , started reading and then stopped. The book is a comical exploration of an Italian way of thinking. Today I read one chapter. Total time spend is around 25 minutes. I also started using Anki flashcards app for new words which I will review briefly in a couple of hours.
Day 3 (May 16): Continued with “La testa degli Italiani
Total new words: 15.
I spent, again, 10 minutes over the 20 minute limit. Extra 10 minutes were used to review flashcards in Anki app.
Day 4 (May 17): “Un regalo piu grande” by Tiziano Ferro
Total new words and expressions: 6
Spent about 5 minutes reviewing flashcards from previous days in Anki. Anki has its logic of how often I should be reviewing the same words, I kind of like it, so, some decks were considered too early to review this morning.
Day 5 (May 18): Continued with “La testa degli Italiani
Total new words: 12.
I overslept this morning. As a result my morning Italian session was moved to a very late evening – not a good thing! Now that I am tired I just want to be done with it. I spent 3 minutes reviewing flash cards and the remaining 17 minutes reading. I guess when you are tired you really stick with a minimum requirement:)
Day 6 (May 19): Anki words review
Spent about 3 minutes entering into Anki flashcards words from yesterday and then Anki told me that it is time to review several decks from previous days. That took all 20+ minutes.
On a side note I must admit that if not for this challenge I would have come up with a million reasons why other things appear to be more important today than devoting 20 minutes to my Italian. But no! The commitment is made, 34 more days to go. Keep pushing!
Day 7 (May 20): “Sole” by Negramaro
Total new words: 8
I am going to start sticking to 20 minute limit I set for myself. So, I started with flashcards review which took 8 minutes today – Anki went nuts today and have me 5 decks to review. The remaining 12 minutes I worked on karaoke version of “Sole”.
Day 8 (May 21): Anki + use of words in phrases
Anki has a mercy on me today and we reviewed flash card decks for 6 minutes. I noticed there were several words I am having difficulties remembering. Hence, I decided to see them used in other phrases in Wordreference’ forum. The words I managed to cover are insorgere, neppure and troglodita. There are 3 more for tomorrow: smarrito, aggirare and schizzare.
Day 9 (May 22): Anki + 3 verbs in expressions
Anki took 4 minutes today and 3 verbs (smarrire / smarrirsi, aggirare and schizzare) took the remaining 16 and resulted in 18 expressions.
Once again, never leave 20 minutes of Italian for the last. It was nearly midnight and I was pretty much passing out.
Day 10 (May 23): continued with “La testa degli Italiani” by Beppe Severgnini but without looking up new words to see how much of the text I can understand – quite a lot! 17 new words and 1 verb tense which i need to study (potrete)
Day 11 (May 24): looked up words from yesterday in the dictionary and entered them in Anki; reviewed flashcards from previous days. 2 minutes over the limit.
Day 12 (May 25): 8 minutes Anki flashcards and the remaining reading La Testa. Everything within exactly 20 minutes!
Day 13 (May 26): Anki flashcards (about 8 minutes). The remaining time I continued reading La Testa.
Day 14 (May 27): 7 minutes Anki flashcards review. The remaining 13 minutes I decided to read a newspaper article about Italian designers supporting victims of Nepal earthquake. Additional 2 minutes adding new words into Anki (total 7)
2 weeks into a challenge I must say I am very proud of myself for sticking to the commitment. At times I am so tired (like right now, I am yawning and ready to fall sleep) but I make sure I do my 20 minutes!
Day 15 (May 28): 7 minutes Anki + La Testa. Total new words: 9
Reading in Italian in becoming easier. I guess it is a matter of being getting more accustomed to Italian text. Yeah, I am making progress!
Day 16 (May 29): 7 minutes Anki + 14 minutes La Testa. Total new words and expressions: 13. Cool thing is that I am coming across words that I learnt a week ago and feeling happy recognizing them. Perla di saggezza (pearl of wisdom) – learnt this among 13 new ones and am definitely going to use it.
Day 17 (May 30): Today is my birthday! Happy birthday to me! 🙂
5 minutes Anki flashcards review and the remaining 15 minutes reading product description at www.archiproducts.it. Specifically, mg12 | Scaldasalviette, Fluttua letto and 36e8 weightless.
Total new words: 7
Day 18 (May 31): 6 minutes Anki + 18 minutes La Testa which covered a very interesting topic – how Italian cuisine became what it is today.
Total new words and expressions: 14 with consapevolezza di se (self- awareness) being super important.
Day 19 (June 1): 5 minutes Anki + about 19 minutes of La Testa. Continued my favorite topic of Italian food.
An idea that crossed my mind while I was doing dishes today was to find an Italian pen friend. That way I would be able to improve my writing and grammar (for now I am mainly working on grammar). I am going to do some research on the topic within a couple of days.
Overall I feel that since I am reading consistently every day I am becoming less intimidated by long texts in Italian. I also feel that without looking up every unknown word I can make sense of a reading which is great!
Day 20 (June 2): 11 minutes Anki (old words), 5 minutes entering new words and expressions and La Testa. Total close to 30 minutes, I got a bit carried away today and lost exceeded my 20 minute limit.
Day 21 (June 3): It was after I shut down my PC around 8pm that i realized that i needed to do my 20 minutes of Italian. I felt too lazy to turn it back on and voted for just reading from my Kindle.
So, I read La Testa, about 10 new words, no Anki for today – Anki and I need a break from each other once in a while 🙂 Buonanotte!
Day 22 (June 4): 16 minutes Anki words review and entering words from yesterday. The remaining 4+ minutes (rather 10 minutes with looking up new 5 words and entering them in Anki) I watched an interview by Davide Groppi at 2015 Salone Del Mobili. It is 8:38 am as I type this and I have a full day of work ahead of you. Buona giornata a tutti!
Day 23 (June 5): I started my 20 minute Italian ritual today before 7am. Anki was at lost and didn’t show me any flashcards as due to review, so, I just focused on reading La Testa. 20 minutes, 14 new words. Off to having a breakfast, a fabulous day to everyone.
Day 24 (June 6): 20 minutes – only new words from yesterday and review of Flashcards from yesterday. Almost 10 am, I am just about to have a breakfast. Wonderful weekend to everyone!
Day 25 (June 7): today i was really busy chilling and my 20 minutes with Italian is taking place past 23:00. Dead tired, nearly falling asleep, but in spite of this I did 12 minutes of flashcards review and the remaining 8 minutes listening to Pierro Lissoni’s interview from Salone del Mobili. Good night to everything, I am crawling to my bed…
Day 26 (June 8): 9 minutes Anki flashcards review and 2 interviews from Salone del Mobili 2015: an interview or rather a monologue by Michele de Lucchi and another one on MAT.ITA URL of which i forgot to make a copy of.
Day 27 (June 9): again 9 minutes Anki flashcards (I love the app and the logic based on which it knows what words I am struggling with) and 11 minutes La Testa. Total new words: 9
Day 28 (June 10): I woke up with “Se cerco lo vedo” line from Tizzano Ferro’s “Breathe gentle” song playing in my head. Thinking there was some hidden message for me in that song I had to make that song my today’s study song 🙂 Since Anki thinks it is too early to give me flashcards to review today, “Breathe gentle” is practically all in English I had to pick another song to meet my 20 minutes requirement. That song was “La paura non esiste” song from the same album “Alla mia età”. I forgot to set a timer and with all vocabulary and verb conjugation lookups i am around minute 45 for today.
Day 29 (June 11): 119 cards in 15 minutes using a real smart Anki flashcards app. Let me tell you why it is smart – every time you review a flashcard you mark how difficult that flashcard is for you as ” easy”, “good”, “difficult” or “again”. Anything that’s easy will be repeating in your reviews less often while “again” means that flashcard will be re-reviewed during a current study session. I am at the point when I mark a word from Day 1 of the challenge as “easy” and Anki tells me the next time it will show the word to me in 2.5 months! There are ways to adjust the study sessions but I am not going to look into that.
The remaining 5 minutes I spent with my old textbook reviewing direct and indirect pronoms.
Day 30 (June 12): not a word in Anki. I continued with direct and indirect pronoms and am so happy to say that they are finally starting to make sense! Total time spent is close to 40 minutes again.
Day 31 (June 13): 14 minutes Anki flashcards + about 20 minutes reviewing Imperative with pronoms. I am a living evidence that everything takes time, I should have seen their use a hundred times before so that I don’t search for logic in Italian grammar rules.
Day 32 (June 14): 12 minutes Anki + 9 minutes continued with exercises from “Progetto Italiano” on direct and indirect pronoms.
Day 33 (June 15): 7 minutes Anki and the remaining time reviewing prepositions and practicing them.
Day 34 (June 16): 9 minutes Anki + not sure how long I devoted to grammar review but it seems like I certainly exceeded my 20 minute limit.
Day 35 (June 17): No Anki, almost 30 minutes of reading and reviewing il condizionale semplice e il condizionale composto.
Day 36 (June 18): 17 minutes Anki (2 days review, i guess, since I skipped it yesterday) and 5 minutes La Testa.
Day 37 (June 19): reviewing words from yesterdays reading and continuing reading La Testa. No Anki today. Total time: 31 minutes or so.
Day 38 (June 20): Nothing but Anki since I missed it yesterday. Anki has given a notification that I have too many decks (over 20) and that’s not good for 2 reasons:
- By choosing a deck I chose what specific category words I am reviewing instead of being surprised and actually reviewing what’s due to be reviewed – not valid in my case because I review all decks where I have a notification that it is due to be reviewed
- Anki is not designed to support so many decks.
Off to having a breakfast. Good day to everyone!
Day 39 (June 21): 10 minutes Anki and not sure how many more minutes ( but definitely more than 10) reading Domus magazine.
Day 40 (June 22): 9 minutes Anki words review and 11 minutes reading a new sink by Hi Macs by LG Hausys Europe at www.archiproducts.it.
… and I just realized that I reached a finish line of my 40 day challenge. What changed? I feel more comfortable with the language given than my vocabulary is getting richer and richer. I don’t avoid Italian text thinking it will take more time than English text to read it, i just dive into it as if it is some puzzle – that’s confidence!. I am also quite happy envisioning myself speaking Italian years from now versus losing it in debris of other things that appear to be more important.
Now that 20 minutes have become a habit, I will carry on with the challenge for 50 more days but I will keep the records in Evernote. I will report back here as to where I stand on August 14th, 2015.