As I mentioned in Friday’s article ‘How to end the summer language-learning hiatus‘, the trick to getting started again with self-study is to make a specific decision to study, and then to actually do so!
Making the initial commitment takes just seconds, and so isn’t hard.
I decided to spend an hour studying Swedish on Sunday morning (after a break of more than three months…)
I was worried I’d have forgotten everything and would find myself, depressed and angry, right back where I’d began in January.
But apart from that sense that it would easier just to forget the whole idea, making the decision to study again was a snap.
Come Sunday, though, suddenly I found I had plenty of other things to do.
We woke up late, which didn’t help.
Then there were some ebook orders to send… Can’t keep customers waiting!
And of course there was lunch to prepare.
As it was Sunday, that meant a ‘primo’ (tagliatelle with a garlic and spinach sauce) and a ‘secondo’ (baked breaded slices of chicken and augergines, served with roast potatoes).
All that kept me busy until aperitivo time at 12.00.
We opened a bottle of cold beer and sat in the sun for a few minutes, before getting up to lay the table for lunch.
And ‘lo’, the morning had gone.
In the afternoon I remembered an urgent need to visit our local supermarket to stock up with vegetarian alternatives for the week ahead (one of my kids doesn’t eat meat or fish).
And to kill two birds with one stone, I decided to walk there and back, so getting more than an hour of healthy exercise!
By 4 p.m., though, I was back at my kitchen table and had run out of excuses.
Here’s where the second part of the ‘I’m going to study’ decision comes into play: keep your commitment limited in terms of time and complexity, which makes it much easier to face!
“It’s just an hour” I told myself, fetching my pile of books from the garage where they’d been gathering dust all summer.
The easiest option seemed to be to read a children’s book that my Swedish mother-in-law had given me months back.
So I opened ‘Hus är gott, sa Oskar’ (‘The house is good, says Oskar’).
It’s a crazy tale of a Swedish toddler who, refusing more conventional foods, discovers a liking for construction materials.
“When Oskar’s mamma comes out of the shop she drops her shopping bags, so surprised does she become. For in the pram sits Oskar, gnawing on a brick…”
You get the idea.
Personally, I’m not a fan of using kids’ books for language learning.
While you’d imagine them to be simple, they’re actually not.
They tend to contain a wide range of (often fairly useless) vocabulary.
For example, bricks, floorboards, wallpaper, mixed screws, roof tiles and so on, all featured in Oskar’s diet.
And at one point his amazed mother comes out with an expression that even Google couldn’t help me with:
“Kors i Göta kanal – Oskar äter hus!”
“Cross the Göta canal – Oskar’s eating a house!”
My best guess was that it was one of those very polite subsitutes for a coarse exclamation that women of my grandmother’s generation would use to avoid seeming vulgar.
If any Swedish-speaking club member wants to write in to help with that, please feel free!
But anyway, children’s fiction at least has the advantage of being short.
So in an hour and a quarter I’d finished the book.
The time had passed rapidly, my worst fears (of having forgotten EVERYTHING) appeared unfounded, and I’d even enjoyed myself!
One thing remained to do, before putting the books back in the garage.
To create momentum, I needed to decide the day/time of the next session!
Monday, too busy.
Tuesday I’m teaching, so won’t have time or energy.
Wednesday… well, I guess I could do an hour on Wednesday…
Decision made.
A week or two of this and, hopefully, I’ll have created a study habit and so will be back on track.
Watch this space.
So, what about you?
Did you study Italian this weekend???
Leave a comment on this article to let me know, and to share your views and experiences with the two or three thousand club members who are likely to read this.
Click this link, scroll down to the end of this article, and fill in the form with whatever you want to say.
If you haven’t commented on the club website before, your contribution won’t be published immediately (so don’t assume you did something wrong…)
I have to moderate it first to check for spammy links.
But once an initial comment has been okayed, subsequent ones should be visible without a delay.
Click here to comment.
Or visit the club website to find something to study!
Final days of Italian/English Parallel Text offers!
A reminder – the offers on Italian – English parallel texts end on Tuesday night.
Until then, the three new ones are priced at £5.99, which is -25% off the usual ebook price.
While there’s an ‘old’ parallel text, one that’s suitable for beginnners or near beginners, priced at just £1.99!
All four ebooks have free sample chapters available – why not download one or two to see how they look on your computer, tablet or phone?
The .pdfs can be printed, or studied directly on your device.
You’ll find instructions on how to view the Italian and English texts side by side in this FAQ.
Remember, both offers, for the three new titles and for the old one, end tomorrow (Tuesday) night.
Click the links above or browse all of our ebooks for learning Italian, new and old, here.)
A mercoledì!
Kirsten Kjems says
I actually have studied italien yesterday. My italien course starts this afternoon and I needed to look at some of the vucabulary BUT I have also read a lot of Italien in the last few month while we had a break from school.
Anyway I am afraid of that I have forgotten a lot. It is alsways easier to read Italien than speak it and in our class we are speeking more than we are writing down. My teacher always says that it is important to speak the language because the grammar will come afterwards anyway. I am a though a little bit better in grammar than in speaking. Boh….
Off course both things are important. So, I hope it will go ok this afternoon.
Best regards.
Kirsten from Denmark
P.S.: I have studied Italien for two years now.(in total 16 month).
Daniel says
Good luck with your class today!
Remember also that ‘speaking’ is not just about what you say, but how much you understand and so how effectively you are able to interact.
So listening practice (and reading too, for the vocabulary) can really help you prepare for situations in which you have to communicate face to face.
Josie from Connecticut says
Studio l’italiano da tre anni e ancora non parlo come voglio perché sempre devo fermare a pensare. I would love to be able to exist only in Italian without thinking first in English. They tell me it will come!
Daniel says
It might, Josie. But acquiring fluency, whatever that is, takes a lot of hours. Think how many hours, days, weeks, months, years you’ve spent practicing your mother tongue. Personally I think it’s more likely that you’ll get used to being more limited in your second language, and learn to work around it.
Arguably only bilingual people truly feel equally able in both languages, and then if you actually put it to the test, you find that there are plenty of gaps.
Still, from the way you write, you’ve come a long way in just three years of what I presume is part time study. Brava!
Andrew Postance says
Does loafing in the Valley of the Temples absorbing the magnificent Sicilian atmosphere and listening to the native speaker guides count? I hope so. We are also attempting some conversation with our Italian hosts. .. some success there I think.
Daniel says
Certamente!!
Marcia Bailey says
My Italian classes have just begun again so, yes, I was in class last Friday for three hours. Studying is easier for me when I have a structure and a deadline,. We have a language school, non-profit group, which offers Italian, French and Spanish during the school year. Most all teachers are native speakers.
We have reached a point in our class where we read and discuss a book or other topics chosen by the class. Grammar is now dealt with as needed, After more than 10 years, one month of which was spent at Madrelingua (yeah!) I find my listening and reading skills are much better. I am happy to say there does come a time when the brain doesn’t have to “translate” but just seems to understand. Speaking still is difficult as I want the grammar to be perfect. Yes, I know it never will be, but….
Mi piace molto la lingua di Dante., anche l’Italia, la terra, dei miei nonni.
Daniel says
Ciao Marcia,
Thanks for joining us! Lots of people find the structure of regular lessons to be helpful. Personally I’d rather teach myself… You know what they say about doctors making the worst patients. Maybe it’s that.
By the way, will you do me a favour and spread the word about our French and Spanish ebooks at your non-profit? There are two free ones for each language. Any help would be much appreciated!
Daniel
Marcia Bailey says
Will do, Is the web-site I should give them? We have better than 200 students and Italian is probably the smallest group. You can access them at if you are interested.
So wanted to get back to Bologna this year but my travel plans won’t allow it. Hope you all are doing well. My best to all. I have great memories of my month there. Congratulations on your new “digs.”
Marcia Bailey says
I don’t know why but the comment section removed the two web-sites that I included La Causerie site is lacauserie then add dot org. Maybe that will fool it.
Daniel says
Hi Marcia,
I checked out your organisation’s website ( lacauserie.org ).
It seems like a great deal for anyone in the Kansas City area!
Note that there’s an error in the wiki site’s menu, here: http://lacauserie.wikispaces.com/
The menu item ‘Italian Website’s’ should probably lose the apostrophe…
Worse (!), when I click on it to view your reccommended ‘Italian websites’, there’s no mention of our club….
Sad face.
Daniel
Julie Kibby says
Sono stata in Italia questa settimana. Non ho studiato, ma ho parlato molto.
Daniel says
Ma anch’io! Ero in italia, e ho parlato molto. Che mondo piccolo.
Liz says
No Italian but this week I have a lot of catching up to do. Guess an hour per day will get me in the swing of things.
Daniel says
That’s ambitious, Liz. Good luck with it!
gene says
Oh, yes I did…! And I felt good about it, too. Woo, Woo!!
Jennie Bell says
Yes, I meet a group on Monday. This motivates me on what to focus my Italian learning on over the next week. Plus I have a grammar book with the aim of one chapter per week.
When these lessons pop up on email they capture my attention to complete.
They take me ages to translate, but well worth it, as I find bits are sinking in.
Some days I despair that I seem to lose all I’ve learnt.
Learning Italian is not as all as easy as I thought it would be.
Laura says
Ok Ok,I started again 🙂 thanks 🙂 I live in italy so am always practicing but I can get lazy with the grammar and new verbs and revision.
I need morework with my listening also.
Enjoying your easy reader books particularly the ‘ll ristorante’ do you have anymore of that style for A1-B1? The style with chapters and key words and questions?
Daniel says
Ciao Laura,
You mean the ‘easy readers’ with glossaries and comprehension questions? Yes, we have lots, more than 60 I think. Start from this page and browse. They go in level order from easiest to hardest.
Daniel
Patricia Berridge says
Ciao Daniel
I have been trying to learn Italian for ages, however, I haven’t taken any classes this year, as we have been away such a lot. My progress is extremely slow! I enjoy reading your texts, however, when it comes to listening, I don’t seem to have progressed at all, with either the speaking or listening, very, very frustrating! My commitment is ok at the moment, ie I would do 30min – 1hr 4 -5 times a week., since returning, 3 weeks ago. Not sure how long I can keep bashing my head up against a wall!
Trish
Daniel says
Ciao Trish,
That’s an easy one to fix!
Usually the problem is that people don’t do enough practice. If it’s not that, then it’s ALWAYS that as you get practice, your expectations of what you ‘should’ understand are increasing, so you end up just as unhappy with your listening as you were when you began.
The solution is to set an objective baseline (benchmark), then measure your progress against it. You could, for example, start with listening material (ebooks, exam practice or the free stuff on our site) at a level below your current one. Find some way of measuring how much you understand, practice at that level for a bit, then move up a level and repeat the benchmarking and practicing.
With some sort of ‘objective’ system of measuring your progress you’ll soon feel reassured that you ARE in fact improving.
And one way to be absolutely sure of that is (after a couple of months) to go back and redo material at the level you started from. You’ll be amazed how easy it seems!