How does this look for Italian III?

[Hunter's Moon]

So I kind of hit a wall this past year when it came to Italian III. About half way through I decided to take a break and work on memorizing grammar. Still working on it and will continue to throughout the year because I know learning Italian will be much easier once I know the grammar cold.

 

So, for Italian III, I don't have a specific book that a student would use in class in a high school course, but I think as long as my Italian learning is being furthered I can call it Italian III. Here is what I plan to do.

 

15-20 minutes/daily of grammar drill (especially the irregular)

15-30 minutes/daily of listening (today, I'm watching Biencaneve e i sette nani on Youtube, so more than 30 minutes, but also Audiobooks)

30 minutes at least 3x/week of Italian reading (Abridged Piccole Donne & another I haven't chosen yet)

15 minutes at least 3x/week of Italian news w/La Repubblica online

 

Does this look good and worthy of a credit? Would you add something? If so, what? I can't use Skype, unfortunately, because we are having Paypal issues that I don't see being resolved anytime soon and there are no local Italian tutors.

 

Thanks :001_smile:

[Ester Maria]

Grammar drills - good, but take care not to make it an overkill, those things can easily begin to frustrate you. Are you using any materials for it, or online resources? Do you have a kind of a plan of when do you go through which parts of grammar, according to what you need? If no, do you need help making that plan? :) Or would you overall prefer to keep it loose and flexible, orienting yourself based on what you think you need to study in which period?

 

Listening - great, especially if combined with watching (films, cartoons, whatnot), since that way you get a lot of additional visual clues which enhance your learning and intuition. I can suggest an additional exercise now and then, if you feel it would help you: try transcribing what you hear, if there are no subtitles. Limit yourself to a few minutes of it, without it overwhelming you, listen to those few minutes attentively and multiple times, stopping the video / audio to write. Then have somebody (;)) check it. This would help you on many levels - from comprehension, paying more attention to detail, to some grammar issues which can easily be revealed and corrected that way. It is basically a kind of dictation. Again, no overkill with this either, pace yourself as you find comfortable.

 

Reading - yes, this is important. I suggest you to combine active and passive reading: pick some parts (again, no overkill - as small chunks as you find comfortable) to analyze (find unknown words, really study those parts to the best of your ability), and some go through trying to get the most you can get out of it without stressing the details. The balance will help you to learn, but without getting too caught up with the details to see the big picture. Reading can be exhausting in a language you do not know very well yet, so be prepared for some frustration along the road, but the more you do it, the better you get at it.

 

Repubblica is good, however, I warn you - newspaper Italian can be incredibly syntactically intricate. I am warning you so you do not wonder what is wrong with you if it happens that you cannot understand "a simple newspaper article", because those tend to be often written in a surprisingly complex fashion, with a whole bunch of subordinate clauses and stuff; in fact, in many aspects you might find it more difficult than reading abridged books / graded readers. It is good for cultural exposure, current news and such stuff. Also, try googling things you are interested in so that way you can get to more articles - if you learn the language via content which interests you, it also goes much more quickly as you retain more.

 

You can try listening to some music and studying the lyrics, too. Not sure what is your taste in music, and I am not very savvy of modern Italian music that teens listen to, but I can probably find something you might like if you give me some general directions.

 

What else... I think this is a solid start. Careful not to overwhelm yourself, add more content you are interested in to make it overall more pleasant, and you will be good. Let me know if you need help in organization / fleshing out grammar / etc.

[Hunter's Moon]

Grammar drills - good, but take care not to make it an overkill, those things can easily begin to frustrate you. Are you using any materials for it, or online resources? Do you have a kind of a plan of when do you go through which parts of grammar, according to what you need? If no, do you need help making that plan? :) Or would you overall prefer to keep it loose and flexible, orienting yourself based on what you think you need to study in which period?

 

Listening - great, especially if combined with watching (films, cartoons, whatnot), since that way you get a lot of additional visual clues which enhance your learning and intuition. I can suggest an additional exercise now and then, if you feel it would help you: try transcribing what you hear, if there are no subtitles. Limit yourself to a few minutes of it, without it overwhelming you, listen to those few minutes attentively and multiple times, stopping the video / audio to write. Then have somebody (;)) check it. This would help you on many levels - from comprehension, paying more attention to detail, to some grammar issues which can easily be revealed and corrected that way. It is basically a kind of dictation. Again, no overkill with this either, pace yourself as you find comfortable.

 

Reading - yes, this is important. I suggest you to combine active and passive reading: pick some parts (again, no overkill - as small chunks as you find comfortable) to analyze (find unknown words, really study those parts to the best of your ability), and some go through trying to get the most you can get out of it without stressing the details. The balance will help you to learn, but without getting too caught up with the details to see the big picture. Reading can be exhausting in a language you do not know very well yet, so be prepared for some frustration along the road, but the more you do it, the better you get at it.

 

Repubblica is good, however, I warn you - newspaper Italian can be incredibly syntactically intricate. I am warning you so you do not wonder what is wrong with you if it happens that you cannot understand "a simple newspaper article", because those tend to be often written in a surprisingly complex fashion, with a whole bunch of subordinate clauses and stuff; in fact, in many aspects you might find it more difficult than reading abridged books / graded readers. It is good for cultural exposure, current news and such stuff. Also, try googling things you are interested in so that way you can get to more articles - if you learn the language via content which interests you, it also goes much more quickly as you retain more.

 

You can try listening to some music and studying the lyrics, too. Not sure what is your taste in music, and I am not very savvy of modern Italian music that teens listen to, but I can probably find something you might like if you give me some general directions.

 

What else... I think this is a solid start. Careful not to overwhelm yourself, add more content you are interested in to make it overall more pleasant, and you will be good. Let me know if you need help in organization / fleshing out grammar / etc.

 

PM'ing you as I don't know if you'll check back in with this thread :001_smile:

[Sahamamama]

PM'ing you as I don't know if you'll check back in with this thread :001_smile:

 

But I've subscribed to this thread :D, so I hope you discuss Italian here. :D

 

We are not, alas, studying Italian (yet), but I value anything that EM has to say about learning languages. We would like to focus on French (while the girls are little) and German, then add on Latin and Greek later.

 

This sounds so ambitious, it makes me tired to type it. :001_unsure: Time will tell...

[Hunter's Moon]

But I've subscribed to this thread :D, so I hope you discuss Italian here. :D

 

We are not, alas, studying Italian (yet), but I value anything that EM has to say about learning languages. We would like to focus on French (while the girls are little) and German, then add on Latin and Greek later.

 

This sounds so ambitious, it makes me tired to type it. :001_unsure: Time will tell...

 

I'm sorry :blushing: I know Italian isn't one of the bigger languages here so I didn't think anyone would miss it :001_smile:

 

The only thing I PM'd her was about what I've already learned and just asked a few questions of her techniques.

 

The answer she already gave is brilliant, though!

 

I do have a favorite thread of mine that she answered in. I don't know if fluency is one of your goals for Italian, but it could work for other languages too (though she does suggest some great Italian grammar books and dictionaries).

 

Here is the thread I am speaking of.

 

The biggest pain in the behind with Italian (and really any similar language) is the grammar. I didn't spend enough time focusing on it in the earlier years and it's really caught up with me now. It's amazing how quickly I can think of the past or future tense for a word in English (obviously because it is my native tongue), but with Italian, I stall, feel like my head is going to explode, and then it finally comes to me when I'm on the verge of tears. (Okay, so a bit dramatic, but you get the point.) So, memorization is what I'm working on now. If I had worked on memorizing in the beginning, I'm sure I would have been at least a bit further along.

 

That's about all the wisdom I got on language learning :tongue_smilie: I'll leave the wisdom to EM and others who are more language-oriented.

 

:001_smile:

Edited June 22, 2011 by BeatleMania

[zillymom]

I'm sorry :blushing: I know Italian isn't one of the bigger languages here so I didn't think anyone would miss it :001_smile:

 

We Italian language lovers have to stick together! :D

 

The biggest pain in the behind with Italian (and really any similar language) is the grammar. I didn't spend enough time focusing on it in the earlier years and it's really caught up with me now. It's amazing how quickly I can think of the past or future tense for a word in English (obviously because it is my native tongue), but with Italian, I stall, feel like my head is going to explode, and then it finally comes to me when I'm on the verge of tears. (Okay, so a bit dramatic, but you get the point.) So, memorization is what I'm working on now. If I had worked on memorizing in the beginning, I'm sure I would have been at least a bit further along.

 

oh yeah, I can definitely relate to this feeling! :tongue_smilie:

 

For me, blogging in Italian has helped a lot. I have a lot more fun to work on grammar writing about things I like to talk about while also getting some interaction with native speakers. I do this on an Italian blogsite (Splinder) and have a request permanently posted in the sidebar for readers to correct my mistakes (which they do!). Sometimes I'll write with a specific grammatical goal in mind - say, past tense, as a simple example - so that I'm not mentally hopping all over the place.

 

(just thought I'd throw that out there in case you're looking for ideas)

[Hunter's Moon]

We Italian language lovers have to stick together! :D

 

 

 

oh yeah, I can definitely relate to this feeling! :tongue_smilie:

 

For me, blogging in Italian has helped a lot. I have a lot more fun to work on grammar writing about things I like to talk about while also getting some interaction with native speakers. I do this on an Italian blogsite (Splinder) and have a request permanently posted in the sidebar for readers to correct my mistakes (which they do!). Sometimes I'll write with a specific grammatical goal in mind - say, past tense, as a simple example - so that I'm not mentally hopping all over the place.

 

(just thought I'd throw that out there in case you're looking for ideas)

 

I like this idea!!

 

Thanks for the site name, I'll definitely be doing it :D

 

Would you mind if checked out your blog? If you don't want it public, you can PM it to me. If not, that's alright. :001_smile:

[rieshy]

I can so relate to the comment about wishing that you had nailed the grammar early on. I learned German in Vienna from my teenage friends while living there for one of my Dad's year long sabbaticals.

 

Never learned grammar formally. Every time I tried to take a class it was so frustrating- I didn't need to be taught greetings and vocabulary. The years passed and what I did know became garbled. Ughh.

 

I've been working on learning it from the ground up this past year.

 

I started by reading the whole Twilight series- not my normal taste- but because I could cheaply get my hands on them. About the time I finished the the first book I ran across Ester Marie's earlier post on learning Italian. I've been following her method ever since.

 

I love the idea about blogging in German. I need to put myself out there and make mistakes:tongue_smilie:

[Hunter's Moon]

For the blog, I signed up with libero but I like the looks of Splinder too.

 

My first blog post is horrendous :tongue_smilie:

 

"Ciao! Mi chiamo Stephanie. Ho dicciasette anni. Io sono una studentessa americana che studia (or is it studio??) italiano. Io studiato italiano per due anni. (I wasn't sure which tense to use since it is still on-going).

 

Prego, correggo i miei errori saper imparare (I know this sentence is completely wrong)."

 

No, none of the English in parentheses is in the actual post.

 

Anyone want to take a stab about corrections? :D

 

At this point in the game, I can understand a lot more than I can actually express, and while it's frustrating, I know it's normal. Just gotta keep plugging along.

Edited June 22, 2011 by BeatleMania

[Ester Maria]

Ciao! Mi chiamo Stephanie. Ho dicciasette diciassette anni. (Io) sono una studentessa americana che studia l'italiano. (Io studiato) Studio italiano (per) da due anni.

 

Vi prego (correggo) di correggere i miei errori (saper) perché io possa imparare.

1. Diciassette - in all of the words which contain the root related to the number ten there is a single C (think dieci, undici ... diciassette, diciotto). Sette is written with two T because of an old 'rule' of transformation of Latin -pt- into -tt- (septem loses the final M and then -pt- assimilate into -tt-; same thing happens with octo which becomes otto and in many other words). The reason why S is doubled is because the words are merged, and often when you merge two words into one the initial consonant is doubled in writing:

 

dicia (dieci) + sette = diciassette

sopra + tutto = soprattutto

a + bastanza = abbastanza

a + rivederci = arrivederci

ecc.

 

2. Da due anni - when you have an ongoing process which has been happening for X period of time, you use present (NOT past like in English) + da + the period of time

 

IF you wanted to say the sentence in the past, without it being an ongoing action (i.e. to say that you have studied, in the past, something for X period of time), you use per + the period of time (Ho studiato... per due anni.)

 

3. Vi prego di + infinito is a cute way to avoid using direct imperatives in general, though you could have said Vi prego, correggete too. However, make sure to use vi prego DI, not vi prego CHE, because that would often require a subjunctive, and never an infinitive, and you do NOT want that right now. :tongue_smilie:

 

4. Do not let this one creep you out, you have not studied that yet. The last one is a subordinate clause which states a goal or an intention, and when you have that, you need to introduce that subordinate clause by perché or affinché (there are other possibilities too, but let us focus on the basics now), followed by a subjunctive which you did not study yet, and in this particular case it sounds a lot better if 'aided' by the verb potere, so you get ... io possa (subjunctive present 1st-3rd person of the verb potere, you add io to remove the possibility that it is 2nd or 3rd person) and then you add an infinitive of what you actually want, i.e. imparare.

 

You are NOT supposed to know this (4) yet, so do NOT freak out, but it is not good to reinforce your mistakes, so I am correcting it anyway.

 

By the way, there is something you did very well, and many learners do not: una studentessa che studia

Brava, I was relieved. :D Many people would put chi there, as the equivalent of the English who, but that is NOT correct and do NOT do it - it is a relative clause and it has to be introduced by che, regardless of the fact we are talking about a person and not a thing. This is one of those common mistakes which make my skin crawl.

[Ester Maria]

We are not, alas, studying Italian (yet)

I like this casually added 'yet'. :D

[Ester Maria]

I love the idea about blogging in German. I need to put myself out there and make mistakes:tongue_smilie:

A word of caution to you guys though: if you do not have somebody systematically correcting your mistakes, you will be reinforcing them. Which is not always a good idea, as the misuse will start cementing in your brain and then you will shocked upon learning that things are, in fact, not said the way which has always made perfect sense in your mind. Blogging makes sense on advanced (and I mean ADVANCED, not even intermediate) levels, where with time you figure out how to self-correct, simply via interaction with much written text, reading more, etc. But before that, an explicit feedback on most everything you write is your best bet.

 

Personally, when pointed to them by somebody, I skimmed a few blogs by Italian language learners who think, who genuinely think, that their Italian is good. It is not only not good, those are some of the most illiterate pieces of writing I ever went through (and I am not posing ultra-correct standards, but standards for somebody average being able to say, "okay, this is good Italian", even if not perfect in all of its aspects) which perpetuate basic mistakes, because those were not corrected on the initial levels. People are thrilled because they can make themsleves understood, but there is such a big difference between being able to make yourself understood, and knowing the language remotely well. I am always reluctant to break somebody's bubble (really - I am much kinder than the impression I leave on these boards :D), so I usually just bite my tongue and surf away, but really, do not allow your mistakes to cement. Self-correcting with time happens only on comparatively advanced levels, not really before.

 

This is not to discourage anyone from blogging - if you have somebody willing to break your text to pieces and point to you what exactly and why is wrong in it, that is a GREAT exercise - but just to remind that there is the other side of the medal too when it comes to blogging as a learning method.

[rieshy]

This is exactly my problem Ester Maria. I know that my Austrian friends are far far too kind. When I email or chat they barely correct any mistakes and they always say my German is wonderful. Which I know is not true. I think it's just that their expectations from an American are so low to begin with.

 

I either risk cementing mistakes or stop trying to learn. I've not found native speakers in my area, not a lot of options. I choose to continue to try.

 

I also choose to continue to try and teach my children. My 16 yo is in language school this summer in Vienna, staying with an Austrian family. Surely that will help her overcome any shortcomings I passed on:).

[zillymom]

Ester Maria, those are strong, important points that are worth a good bit of consideration.

 

I either risk cementing mistakes or stop trying to learn. I've not found native speakers in my area, not a lot of options. I choose to continue to try.

 

I'm in the same boat, and I love this perspective. :iagree:

Edited June 22, 2011 by zillymom

[Rosie_0801]

PM'ing you as I don't know if you'll check back in with this thread :001_smile:

 

 

Did you really think she could keep herself away?

 

:p

Rosie

[Sahamamama]

For the blog, I signed up with libero but I like the looks of Splinder too.

 

My first blog post is horrendous :tongue_smilie:

 

"Ciao! Mi chiamo Stephanie.

 

Hello! My name is Stephanie.

 

Ho dicciasette anni.

 

I am seventeen years old.

 

Io sono una studentessa americana che studia (or is it studio??) italiano.

 

I am an American student who is studying Italian.

 

Io studiato italiano per due anni.

 

I have been studying Italian for two years.

 

Prego, correggo i miei errori saper imparare.

 

I beg (please), correct my errors so I am able to learn.

 

How did I do?

[Sahamamama]

I like this casually added 'yet'. :D

 

Just to give you some idea of how uncommon Italian study is around here...

 

My 16 year old nephew has been studying Italian in school for the past two years, because he was attracted to the language, all on his own. When he made the switch to Italian after four years of Spanish, his parents said, "Italian?" His grandparents said, "Italian?" I said, "Oh, Italian!"

 

My nephew smiles at everyone and keeps learning Italian. He simply says, "I like it." :D My husband and I have the best grasp on French, so while our girls are small we will start with French.

 

Sigh. EM, you and your children are so, so blessed to be multilingual. I hope you impress that on your daughters, how fortunate they are to be made to learn languages. An impoverished American can have a noble goal, but in a monolingual context, truly bi/multilingualism is hard to achieve.

 

But, IMO, any language study is better than none at all. :001_smile: Diligence.

[Hunter's Moon]

1. Diciassette - in all of the words which contain the root related to the number ten there is a single C (think dieci, undici ... diciassette, diciotto). Sette is written with two T because of an old 'rule' of transformation of Latin -pt- into -tt- (septem loses the final M and then -pt- assimilate into -tt-; same thing happens with octo which becomes otto and in many other words). The reason why S is doubled is because the words are merged, and often when you merge two words into one the initial consonant is doubled in writing:

 

dicia (dieci) + sette = diciassette

sopra + tutto = soprattutto

a + bastanza = abbastanza

a + rivederci = arrivederci

ecc.

 

I always make this mistake. At least in 4 months when I turn 18 I won't make that mistake as often :tongue_smilie: My favorite word, so far, in the Italian language is diciotto :D

 

2. Da due anni - when you have an ongoing process which has been happening for X period of time, you use present (NOT past like in English) + da + the period of time

 

IF you wanted to say the sentence in the past, without it being an ongoing action (i.e. to say that you have studied, in the past, something for X period of time), you use per + the period of time (Ho studiato... per due anni.)

 

I was looking everywhere in my books for this (bolded) to be explained but I couldn't find it. Glad it is cleared up now.

 

3. Vi prego di + infinito is a cute way to avoid using direct imperatives in general, though you could have said Vi prego, correggete too. However, make sure to use vi prego DI, not vi prego CHE, because that would often require a subjunctive, and never an infinitive, and you do NOT want that right now. :tongue_smilie:

 

It's a good thing I'm going through English grammar more intensely this year because I have no idea what direct imperatives, subjunctives, or infinitives are. :blushing: I probably shouldn't have been allowed to even begin language learning until my English was down cold.

 

4. Do not let this one creep you out, you have not studied that yet. The last one is a subordinate clause which states a goal or an intention, and when you have that, you need to introduce that subordinate clause by perché or affinché (there are other possibilities too, but let us focus on the basics now), followed by a subjunctive which you did not study yet, and in this particular case it sounds a lot better if 'aided' by the verb potere, so you get ... io possa (subjunctive present 1st-3rd person of the verb potere, you add io to remove the possibility that it is 2nd or 3rd person) and then you add an infinitive of what you actually want, i.e. imparare.

 

You are NOT supposed to know this (4) yet, so do NOT freak out, but it is not good to reinforce your mistakes, so I am correcting it anyway.

 

This actually makes sense. I hear Spanish quite often so the "perché" when stating a goal makes sense to me.

 

By the way, there is something you did very well, and many learners do not: una studentessa che studia

Brava, I was relieved. :D Many people would put chi there, as the equivalent of the English who, but that is NOT correct and do NOT do it - it is a relative clause and it has to be introduced by che, regardless of the fact we are talking about a person and not a thing. This is one of those common mistakes which make my skin crawl.

 

I'm relieved to know I did something right :D

 

I used a dictionary online to look up the different forms of "who" and chose "che" vs. "chi" based on the example sentences given. "Chi" is more interrogative while "che" is more used for subject or object, correct?

 

Thank you for taking the time to break it down for me!

[Hunter's Moon]

Did you really think she could keep herself away?

 

:p

Rosie

 

:lol:

 

How did I do?

 

That's exactly what I was tryingto get across. I actually had a section on my schooling. Let me see if I can come up with it again. I typed it out (took me a good 20 minutes or so) and then the blog ate it :glare:

 

Io vado scuola a la mia casa. Prima, sono andata scuola pubblico per dieci anni. Studio matematica, scienza, l'inglese, historia, e l'italiano.

 

I am not sure if there is a word or phrase for homeschooling, and I know how to say "I go" so I just said that. It seems a bit awkward though, considering I don't actually go anywhere. :tongue_smilie:

[Rosie_0801]

It's a good thing I'm going through English grammar more intensely this year because I have no idea what direct imperatives, subjunctives, or infinitives are. :blushing: I probably shouldn't have been allowed to even begin language learning until my English was down cold.

 

Ugh. When you find a workbook that teaches that level of English grammar, let me know. I'll need something like that once I'm done with AG because it doesn't go that far. *sigh*

 

Rosie

[Ester Maria]

Io vado scuola a la mia casa. Prima, sono andata scuola pubblico per dieci anni. Studio matematica, scienza, l'inglese, historia, e l'italiano.

 

I am not sure if there is a word or phrase for homeschooling, and I know how to say "I go" so I just said that. It seems a bit awkward though, considering I don't actually go anywhere.

Technically, homeschooling is called istruzione parentale, though you can often hear other made-up terms (scuola familiare, ecc.) or even the English word. When you want to say that you are homschooled, you can simply say studio a casa, that solves the problem with terms.

 

Prima, ho / avevo frequentato una scuola pubblica per dieci anni. (Careful about the noun - adjective agreement: scuola pubblica).

Studio matematica, scienze, inglese, storia e italiano. (You have either omit all articles when you enumerate things, either write them all, not selectively.)

[cathmom]

Infinitives in English are just "to" plus verb: ex. I want to eat. "To eat" is the infinitive. In Spanish, and I assume Italian, the infinitive is just one word.

 

An imperative is when you tell someone to do something. I assume by "direct imperative" EM means directly telling someone to do something, ex. Please correct my mistakes.

 

The subjunctive is really not important in English. Have you ever heard something like, "I wish I were a pirate." The "I were" part is subjunctive. Normally "was" goes with "I", right? But few people know this and so then you commonly hear, "I wish I was a pirate" and it doesn't even really sound wrong.

[kiana]

Ugh. When you find a workbook that teaches that level of English grammar, let me know. I'll need something like that once I'm done with AG because it doesn't go that far. *sigh*

 

Rosie

 

I really like the English Grammar for Students of ____ series for this. I've only used a couple but it did seem to help with transferring knowledge from English over as well as learning it in the first place.

[Rosie_0801]

I'll have a look at that, thanks.

 

Rosie

[cuckoomamma]

I completely disagree that one should hold off doing something until they have a certain masterly of a foreign language. I believe that's one of the reasons so few americans speak a foreign language at all. There's a tremendous fear of looking foolish, compounding mistakes, and on and on. Absolutely anything that gives a person any type of love of a language is the key to learning it. Mistakes will happen no matter what, and mistakes can be undone or self-corrected at any point. If someone has given up on the language, what's been gained?

 

I think blogging is such a wonderful way to meet native speakers and to encourage writing. I just can't find fault with that at any level. It would be like saying that a young american child shouldn't write a story in English unless it was being corrected by a native speaker or the child could self-correct. I know there are those who believe that. We're just a family that firmly believes in nurturing love above perfection. There's plenty of time for self-correction later on. My children's penpals don't correct the letters that are written to them in any language.

 

Reading anything and everything, listening to anything and everything and writing anything and everything is fantastic if it captures the passion of the student. It's all about passion, not perfection. The perfection follows the passion.

[Ester Maria]

Mistakes will happen no matter what, and mistakes can be undone or self-corrected at any point.

It is extremely difficult to unlearn a whole system that is set up the wrong way from the beginning. It is like learning an accent - if the proper nuances are not distinguished at the beginning, years and years of improper speech will be very difficult to conceal in one's voice even if one learns to distinguish between those sounds later, because there is such a thing as muscle memory too. Accent, however, is a minor issue - the problem is that you can apply the same principle to morphology and especially to all those elusive nuances of syntax.

 

Of course, I am writing all of this with the assumption that you want to be literate and sound like an educated person when you speak - daily chit-chat in a dialect and asking for directions is picked up comparatively easily, but I am not quite sure it is desirable to attain only that level. I "speak" German like that and I would not dare to list it on my CV or to officially claim any knowledge of that language. On the other hand, learning a language or two rather well (albeit imperfectly, of course) makes you quite aware of how these things work and far less likely to overestimate your skills. It also makes you far less likely to buy into an idea that it is all about passion and that as long as people are passionate they will be fine. Sorry, but they will not be fine in all cases, and if you are in any way professionally into this camp, you have probably come across it too - so much hopes, love, great intentions, but paired up with so poor results. It is not about obsession with perfection, it is about a realistic stance which recognizes that quite often "love" is simply not enough if you want to be remotely proficient. Perfection may follow the passion in some cases, but the chances are it will not happen without direct involvement with that passion.

 

And THAT is the real reason why so many people remain on so low levels of learning (anything, not just languages) - wishful thinking, paired up with some laziness, paired up with some intimidation or a particular psychology prone to it which makes learning at least a bit more difficult than it would normally be, and you have the deadly combination. Sorry if this sounds brutally honest, but that is exactly what my experience has pinpointed to me, I can almost compose a formula.

 

It is not correcting things or striving to learn correctly from the beginning that somehow "kills the passion" - it is that they fool themselves they are much better than they actually are (and then get a coooold shower when they figure out they are not - and instead of learning from it, they give up, which is a personal failure, not the fault of whoever made them realize a thing or two), then when they hit intermediate levels they seem to be eternally stuck there as they just cannot bother to learn advanced grammar, they fool themselves they will just "pick it up" (FEW do, not all), overall, it is because they are consistently buying into this fairy tale that things will "work themselves out". NO, they will NOT, for the vast majority of people - they will for a handful of very intelligent and usually very specifically talented people with extraordinary attention to detail and equally extraordinary ability to not only infer big things, but also to infer subtleties.

 

If you are interested in doing sufficiently well to fulfill a foreign language requirement none of this applies - just do whatever is your course and call it a day. Each of us has our "check off" areas that we are not particularly interested in, and that is legitimate and fine.

However, if you are interested in actually learning a language, to a comparatively high level, using it in life and scholarship, being literate and sounding like an educated person, I really do suggest you to rethink some of these things.

[Ester Maria]

It would be like saying that a young american child shouldn't write a story in English unless it was being corrected by a native speaker or the child could self-correct. I know there are those who believe that.

And one more thing - the dynamic of learning one's first language, or the dominant language of the society one lives in, is NOT equivalent to the dynamic of learning foreign languages. This is not a good comparison. Young children "reconstruct" those systems and are in a perfect position to do so regarding the engagement (parental, societal, etc.), lots of TIME on their disposal, native speakers around them, and so forth. "Copying" that atmosphere to foreign languages is pretty much a proven failure unless you "copy" the parameters too: lots of TIME, immersion environment (not quite doable at home), formal education in the language, and THEN one can learn the language in a similar fashion in which they learned their native one.

 

Otherwise, it is a great idea to maximize INPUT (high quality, native input), but maximizing OUTPUT without enough proficiency may actually be detrimental in some cases, if one does not limit oneself to the situations and things they are sure they can handle linguistically and/or in those that they cannot, if they get as immediate correction as possible, and explicit teaching is very desirable too.

[cathmom]

One also has to remember that it takes about ten years of full-time immersion plus instruction in one's native language to be able to handle all four skills with confidence.