Buondì.
A quickie today, as I have lots of stuff to get through, including a Spanish conversation lesson mid-afternoon, before which I’ll try to find some time to listen to Spanish radio and glance through El Pais, to ‘tune in’ my ageing and sleep-deprived brain.
“How to choose activities/materials that complement and reinforce each other” is a topic I have on my ‘write about’ list, so here goes. Should be an easy one…
Suppose you want to improve your listening, so decide to have a go at live radio, picking one or more of the channels on the RaiPlayRadio.it page?
Or suppose you’d like to build your reading skills, scanning the news headlines on RaiNews.it?
Both are free, both are useful, doing either one regularly would really help your Italian.
But doing BOTH, in a logical sequence, would be even better!
This is what I do for my Swedish, French and Spanish (not Turkish, because I STILL haven’t learnt to read Turkish…) It works really, really well.
For example, I read this morning on the Swedish TV and radio news website (there are no good, free Swedish newspaper apps) that Israel had overnight been attaching Gaza with both air and ground forces. In the process, just by using my noddle, not a dictionary, I learnt the word for ground forces: marktrupper. In the context, it was unmistakable. And I’d seen ‘mark’ for ‘land’ elsewhere.
Later, in the car on the way back from taking our youngest to nursery, I listened to the Swedish radio selection of news extracts that I always try to squeeze in. That covered the same story, along with plenty of other exciting and not so exciting developments that had occurred since yesterday.
From the radio I learnt that what I had previously read was now being denied – marktrupper had not actually attacked Gaza but were preparing to. Which version is correct? No idea!
But think of the LEARNING SYNERGY involved here: I got an idea of the story and some key vocab from scanning the website text, then later heard a radio news report on the same topic. Did I understand everything I read/heard? Not at all.
But I got enough from the radio news extract to spot the difference between that and the text I’d glanced at, and certainly enough for what I was doing to feel like a fairly natural activitity (listening to the news on the radio while driving my car) rather than ‘studying’.
Overlapping, mutually-reinforcing, authentic sources of the language you’re learning, which emphasise different skill areas, which are inherently interesting, which are free, which can be looked at or listened to in moments when you’re not otherwise doing anything useful (waiting around, driving, cooking, cleaning up), and above all, which are habit-forming, equal a HUGE learning opportunity!
I’ve been reading and listening to Swedish for 3-4 years, which hasn’t involved much effort at all, other than the initial attempts to create the habit, and has resulted in a significant improvement in my level in that language (I’d say I’m a B1-B2 now), an outcome which can’t otherwise be accounted for by courses, ‘study’ or travel to the country itself.
I do this, or try to, for muliple languages each day, and not because I’m some sort of linguistic Stakhanovite but because I enjoy it, because it passes the time, because it’s free, and because I can see noticable benefits from doing so.
But you know what?
I don’t know anyone else – no one at all, not my students, not my colleagues, not my (all bilingual or multilingual) family, not club members – that does this.
People will tell me they tried once, didn’t understand, so didn’t try again (text, audio – same excuse).
I say, well use learner materials, like our free bulletins of ‘easy’ Italian news (‘easy’ because unlike with ‘real’ news, there’s a transcript).
Or use ‘graded’ materials (designed for your specific level) like the ones on the club website, or the ‘easy reader’ ebooks in our online shop.
But no – the response is always the same nonsense, something like: “I’m going to learn all the grammar first, and THEN I’ll read and listen”, “I need to memorise a lot more words so that I don’t have to be always looking things up in the dictionary” (just don’t), or even “I want to finish my app, first. I have a 200 day ‘streak’, you know!”
Regular skills practice (reading and listening) means loads and loads of examples of the most frequent grammar structures. Even if you don’t ‘study’, you CAN’T HELP but learn them, given enough exposure.
Ditto with the vocabulary: marktruppen, remember? I learnt it effortlessly, and so did you!
Skills practice that complements other skills practice is even better – read something and talk about it with your conversation partner if you have one, or vice versa.
If you can’t afford or don’t have access to a native speaker to speak with, the radio is full of them. Read, then listen to the radio. Or the other way around.
It’s obvious, once you’ve figured it out.
A lunedì.
Claire M says
I definitely find comprehension & vocabulary are improving with regular listening to easyitalian news, so I’m on Daniel’s side with this one
Auguste says
It took me half a year of reading these newsletters three times a week to finally start listening to the news (or other authentic material) in a foreign language. I had to read at least 80 times that this is what works before I was convinced to try it. I started with creating a new habit of listening while doing housework, jogging, driving, cooking, but it takes an extra action (to look for a podcast and/or connect my phone to a car/speaker/headphones) that I’m often too lazy to do. Then I found it effective to change the language of existing habbits. I used to listen to the news on TV in the morning in my native language. Half a year ago I have subscribed to France24 and now I do the same thing (turn on the TV), only that it comes in french, no extra effort. I have to admit that at the beginning I missed the news format I was used to but after a month or two I started enjoying the french version and all the different topics and points of view that come with it. The same goes for apps on phone – I needed some time to get used to the new layout.
I like reading, so I tried to take a book in the original language. However, after few books, I found that it was easier to read a translated text. Still full text in the target language, authentic material, but somewhat easier to comprehend. Same for TV series – I watched an american TV series with an Italian translation over and it was way easier as the sound was more clear and even. I am used to american TV series so more or less I knew what to expect and it was easier to guess the meaning. It seems like a smaller step in changing the habit, therefore it requires less motivation and effort.
I think parallel reading is a great way to start reading books in a foreign language especially if the language level is low. In this way one reads a paragraph of hardly comprehensible nonsense text and then – what a relief – a paragraph in a familiar language to make it all clear and keep the reader interested. One reads a book and understands everything with a bonus exposure to authentic text in a foreign language. Not understanding is stressful and with parallel reading it can be avoided.
The hardest part is finding interesting material that would keep me engaged. It takes time to find the right app, podcast, or youtube channel that would be interesting, of a desired leghth and easily accessible. I am planning to try watching local TV using the VPN as many live translations are not accessible from abroad.
Thank you for your letters three times a week – they did change how I see language learning.
Judith says
It’s true! I struggled to get this message, it just didn’t make sense, why would I listen to something I didn’t really understand? But eventually I gave it a go and after 18 months of reading every day and listening most days (I hate wearing headphones) I can now understand most of the Italian news. 18 months ago I was doing well to catch an odd word. I’ve probably gone from a struggling A2 to a confident B2? You’ll never know if you don’t try! Good luck and enjoy every little success on your journey.
The comment about reading translated texts is interesting, I’ve found exactly the same. Reading a book by an English or American author translated into Italian is MUCH easier to read than reading a book by an Italian author. I wondered if it might be at least in part due to the different dialects?
Daniel says
Great to hear about your level improvement, Judith! Well done to you, for trying, and for persisting! I’m proud of you!!
“Reading a book by an English or American author translated into Italian is MUCH easier to read than reading a book by an Italian author. I wondered if it might be at least in part due to the different dialects?”
The primary factor is likely to be that the translator has retained at least some aspects of the structure of the original sentences, and certainly the paragraphing and macro structure of the whole text, for example how the author choose chapter breaks. It’ll all be more familiar than reading something written by an Italian.
Another factor is ‘cultural knowledge’ – I learnt Italian by reading translations of American detective novels and John Grisham books, which were cheaper than buying the English originals but also familiar. I KNOW what private eyes are supposed to do in American fiction, and how a Grisham hero behaves. Whereas Italian detectives, legal system, police forces, etc. would have all been a mystery to me, so another layer of difficulty.
And finally, there’s ‘style’, which is both particular to the author and to the wider culture. When you get the hang of reading in Italian, ‘Italian style’ is just one more variation of the way that novels/fiction can be, but until then, it’s yet another unknown.