Language Rhythm

The more I learn Italian, the more I get this idea that maybe each language has its own...rhythm. by rhythm I mean..the way the languages has, that thing that goes beyond pronunciation. French sounds a certain way, Italian sounds a certain way, English sounds a certain way, etc. and the more you learn the language the more you learn the language's rhythm. I know this might not be making any sense, but I this idea came to me yesterday when I was in Olive Garden, which is an Italian restaurant. some of the words on the menu were in Italian and I was working out how they would sound in Italian, when it came to me that I am starting to learn the rhythm that Italian has. again, this probably makes no sense at all, but it does to me, which is why its on here.

Testing Email Blogger

Testing Email Blogger

I am testing this feature on my blog. if it works, i'll be able to post by sending emails to mmg07a.italiano@blogger.com. it this is a post, it means it worked!

Tools Update

This will be a super duper quick post, just a few sentences. when I took Mandarin at ACU, the professor suggested we buy this App from this language learning software, BYKI. They offer different languages apps, so they have a BYKI Greek, a BYKI Italian, a BYKI Mandarin, etc. they have lots of languages! its  $8.00, but its really worth it. it gives you a good head start and you learn basic phrases that would need to get around, to travel, in restaurants, meet and greet, etc. its really good! it's so good that I decided to buy the Italian version,  and I'm very excited about it! that's all!

Too Easy?

I've mentioned this in past posts before, but learning Italian, I'm finding, is easy for me. not that I'm halfway to being fluent or anything, but I'm picking it up fast because it is so close to Spanish and because it has some French mixed in. I love that I'm picking it up fast, and it gives me excitement and energy and confidence in myself and that helps me with the other languages I'm learning. however, I am finding that I feel like...like I'm cheating because it it so easy for me to learn, like I'm not really learning it. of course that's not true. a language doesn't have to be hard for it to count as you learning that language. but for some reason, that's how it feels to me. that I'm not really learning Italian, or that I'm cheating somehow. maybe its because Mandarin is so challenging to learn, as well as Biblical Greek. so in comparison to those, Italian is easy, and my mind is not used to that you know? sometimes, I have this crazy thought that maybe I'm meant to learn Italian for some reason. I love Italy, it was so beautiful when I went there, and I'm even thinking about going to teach English in Italy after I finish graduate school. if I can, Italy is kinda competitive when it comes to Teaching English jobs, but there are lots of programs outhere, and who knows? if not Italy then somewhere in Western Europe. who knows? maybe I'll decide to go back to China. with a Master's in English, I would quality as an expert and get a higher salary. but for now, Italy after graduate school or doctorate after graduate school is the plan. I do hope I get past this "Italian is too easy" feeling. is it cheating? am I really learning this language?its so close to spanish, that it feels like it doesn't really count for me.

I'm Getting It

I don't want to sound like I'm bragging or being over confident in this post, so if that's the way I'm coming across, then I am sorry but this is my blog. I have not spend a lot of time studying Italian, nor any of the other languages I am learning, but the few times I have sat down and worked on it, I have found that I pick it up quickly. The software program I'm using, I'm on Level 1, disc 1, and in the numbers category it teaches you to count to 20, and I worked on that and I got it! I will admit that I have a bit of problem in numbers 11-20, especially 17-19, but I know how they sound. its pronouncing it that is the problem. but I can understand the numbers 0-20 now, and I can for sure count to 10, all the way up to 16 actually. not bad for 2 hours or so of work. I know that this is the baby stage, the learning of words, but I'm excited that I am picking it up fairly easily. it is close to Spanish and french and so I suppose that gives me a big of an advantage, like I've said in previous posts. I know that I'm just learning words, but it makes me feel good about myself to know that I am off to a good start on this journey. someday,I will be able to have conversations in Italian, and be able to read books in Italian(albeit not as fast as I do in English of course). I am very excited. I do have a bit of a confidence issue sometimes, and I love it when I do something well.

at this point, I am starting to realize that understanding Italian wont be as hard as speaking it. when I work on my Italian with the software, I learn to recognize the sounds and the words quickly, and memorizing and learning to say them takes  a bit longer. I suppose that makes sense in a way. in my language, culture, and communication class, we learned that the way we naturally learn a language(as seen when we are first learning to talk)is we learn to hear first, to recognize the words, and then we learn to speak, and then read, and then write. with that in mind, it does make sense that I can understanding the words in Italian and know what they are, and saying them is the skill that comes after that. I love it that I get to experience what I learned about language learning first hand. granted, learning english counts but I was 8 when I did and at that age, it is so easy to pick up a language that within 6 months I was speaking it. so it counts but...in a different way. so far I love Italian and I cannot wait for that day that I read a book in Italian or have a conversation in Italian. years and years away but...it'll get here.

Baby Steps

I have started my study of Italian and right now, I can say maybe half a dozen words: milk, right, left, Ladies restroom , men's restroom, bye, and water and a few other words. and I can count to 4! :) it's so dorky but it's a start. a small start but a start. the thing that I love the most about teaching myself Italian is that I can do it my way, as slow as I want. I am not forced to learn at the speed someone else is teaching me at and I don't have to feel like I am behind or that I am not as good as everybody else because I learn slower than them. I am so proud of myself because I can say those myabe half a dozen Italian words, and I know  I can learn this! everytime I use my software to study, since I have not started Italian grammar yet, I get so excited and I get confidence. I know it may sound crazy, but learning Italian gives me confidence in myself. it gives me confidence that I am capable of  doing things and that I don't have to do them the same way everybody else does. I can teach myself Italian the way I think it will work best for me, and it works! it may not be in a classroom or with a tutor, but it is me and it works. it gives me pride in  myself that I can do this, even if it slower and will take awhile. it gives me pride and confidence that maybe I can do things and I can accomplish things, just maybe slower than other people, or at least at my own pace. maybe it is okay to do things my way and not just do them the way other people expect of me. I guess I am learning, besides Italian, that it is okay that the way things work for other people is not necessarily the way it works for you. maybe learning languages in a classroom, fast pace is good and works for other people, but it doesnt neccesarily work for me. or I suppose it does work for me, but the BEST way for me is at my own pace. so maybe it's more about the BEST way it would work for you. my way of self teaching is slow, it is baby steps and small amounts of information, but I believe that in the end, I will learn this language.

Brent Bailey turning me down, along with having no romantic experince at al and being turned down by every guy I've ever liked, and not even having been on a date, does hurt my pride and my confidence and makes me doubt myself and who I am. Italian, learning Italian is a good counteract to that. it gives me pride in myself and confidence. plus, it is such a sexy language and I LOVE it!!

Even More Tools

• Talk Dirty Italian: Beyond Cazzo: The curses, slang, and street lingo you need to know when you speak italiano 
• I know, why would I even want to read a book like this? but I want to read this book and I think it's a good source because in any language there are lots of phrases, sayings, swears,etc. that are not taught in schools and I want to learn Italian as best as I can. I know that Italian is not some picture perfect language without any swear words, curses,etc. I want to really learn the language and the day to day speak is a big part of that. I don't just want to learn the parts I love about the language and not learn the parts that aren't as fun or that I don't think are appropriate or that I know I would not say. I want to learn all of it. I LOVE all of it, not just bits and pieces of it.

• Speak the Culture: Italy: Be Fluent in Italian Life and Culture 
•  This is basically a book on Italian culture. I thought it would be fun and I think that culture and language are intertwine and knowing one will help and is almost necessary in order to learn the other. plus, I LOVE learning(and experiencing)new cultures.

• A Concise History of Italy (Cambridge Concise Histories) 
•  pretty self-explanatory. this book is about the history of Italy. I think it will be good to learn not only their  language and their culture, but their history as well.

Confidence

I just want to say that all of my Italian resources(except for the conversation flashcards)are here, and I am VERY excited to get started! I really have confidence that with work and time I can really learn this language. maybe not perfectly or fluently, though that's the goal(to be relatively fluent)but enough so I can read in Italian and have conversations with people and maybe even write. maybe at some point, I will be writing this blog in Italian :)
I can do this!

Italian Language YouTube Videos

L'Alfabeto Italiano

Easy Italian Dialogue(s)

More Italian Dialogues

Hard To Pronounce Italian Words

Italian Days of the Week and Seasons

These are a series of lessons on Italian, and they are not super long, about 5 minutes or so each(the last one is not part of the series but I included it because learning to say the days of the week is pretty important I think). To date, I have only listened to the first one but it seems really good and I liked it. they are YouTube videos, and I think YouTube is going to be a good resource for me in terms of finding pronunciations. granted While I'm in China I wont have YouTube, but hopefully they will give me a good idea of how the letters sound. the Italian alphabet has 21 letters(no: J, K, X,Y,W) and they do have H but it is silent. kinda interesting. in comparison to Mandarin, Italian will be a breeze! lol CIAO!

Italian Cookbook

in light of my recent decision to teach myself Italian, along with Italian food being my favorite kind of food (to date, when I go to china and get some real chinese food it might change) and with my newly found passion and commitment to cooking, I have bought an Italian cookbook!

• Bugialli's Italy: Traditional Recipes From The Regions Of Italy
• what I love about this book is that it includes recipes from all the different Italain regions, which is really good. I saw some of the customer reviews of this and it got good reviews, and they all say that is is not "Italian american" food but authentic Italian food. the layout of the book is the same as the way traditional Italian meals are served: the meal that comes before the main dish, the main dish, the dessert,etc. I am VERY excited and it promises to be a good book. :)

i want to have different cookbooks and recipes from as many different countries as possible. I want to find a cookbook with international recipes, from many different countries but it's proving hard to find. but I am WAY excited for this cookbook, and I can't wait to try it!

New Tools

This will be a short post, but I bought 3 new tools to teach myself speak Italian.

•  Italian Stories: A Dual-Language Book
• this is basically an Italian reader. it is english and Italian. it'll be awhile before I can really read this in Italian, but it'll be a good way for me to judge how much I'm learning. and it being dual language means that It is another way for me to learn Italian.
• Easy Italian Reader: A Three-Part Text for Beginning Students (Easy Reader Series)
• This book, from what I saw on the amazon inside peek feature, is one that has 3 stories, and each story is divded into small parts, and after there are vocabulary lists, and questions about the reading. it is all in Italian though, no dual language, so it will be a while before I can read this one but again, it'll be a good way for me to judge how much I am learning.
• Eleven Short Stories/Undici Novelle (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Italian Edition)
• this is another dual reader, a lot like the first.

Tools

I want to make a short post about the tools I have bought to teach myself Italian. I think that I bought some good ones. it's a good mixture of course books, audio cds, software, and flashcards. Like I said, this post will be really short but I want to record this newly discovered passion that I have found, and I think it'll be good if in years or months to come I can look back and see which of these tools helped, which didn't. and it'll be good to remember the tools I started off with.plus if somebody out there wants to learn Italian maybe this will be a good resource suggestion list for them to get started.

• Instant Immersion Italian Levels 1,2 & 3 
• this is a software that I bought. it's a lot like Rosetta Stone, but probably not as good as Rosetta Stone. however, it is cheaper! it's $50 or so, and it has all  the levels this specific software offers, which is tons cheaper than Rosetta Stone. I am worried it wont work on Windows 7, but it says it does so we shall see. my bible teacher, Anthony Ash, has this software and he says its mostly vocabulary and not really grammar things, which is fine for me. I'm really focused on Speaking the language and understanding it to be able to have  conversations in Italian. i do want to learn to read Italian and write in it and so I think this will be a good software. I do have books that explain the grammar and things so it's a good resource. 

• Italian Vocabulary Cards: Academic Study Card Set 
• This set is a lot like the Biblical Greek flashcards that I bought, but it's for Italian. it seems like a good vocabulary set and  it'll be good for me to take along and work on outside the apartment and so I'm excited. 

• Italian Conversational Flash Cards
• This set is by the same company that does the Vocabulary flashcards I mentioned above, except this one has conversational phrases instead of just words, so it's a good resource for me to learn Italian phrases and how to say and ask certain things, not just the words. 

• The Big Green Book of Italian Verbs (Book w/CD-ROM): 555 Fully Conjugated Verbs (Big Book of Verbs Series) 
•  This book is pretty self-explanatory. this is a book on Italain Verbs. it teaches how to conjugate them, and I looked at it on Amazon, and it seems pretty good. it contains exercises, and talks about the different kinds of verb forms, present, perfect, etc. I also love that it comes with a CD-Rom. it's a good feature because I'll be able to hear the verbs. 

• Italian Now!: A Level One Worktext 
• This is a work text. it's kind of a combination instruction book and workbook. It teaches you basic skills, vocabulary, and it also has exercises in it to really help you learn it. it's a good resource for me. I don't think it comes with the answers though, so that might be a bit of a challange. but I think it'll still be helpful. 

• Italian for Dummies (With Audio CD) 
• again, pretty self-explanatory. I wanted to get a beginner's Italian Textbook, but they are way expensive, so I settled for this. I loved that it comes with an Audio Cd so I'll be able to hear the Italian words. and this series is designed to make it as simple as possible to understand. 

• Italian, Conversational: Learn to Speak and Understand Italian with Pimsleur Language Programs 
• this is an Audio Cd course, and it's approach to teaching you a language is more along the lines of natural language learning. it emphasizes repetition and learning to speak the language before teaching you the grammar, and the verbs. after all, you could speak before conjugating verbs. It seems a different approach, and I like it. I like the emphasis on listening and repetition, which is super important in any language to really make it stick.my Language, Culture, and Communications professor was using this software to learn another language(other than Italian)and he said it was really good and really helped, so I have hope!

• Ultimate Italian Beginner-Intermediate (Coursebook) (Ultimate Beginner-Intermediate) 
• pretty self-explanatory. it's an Italian course. It seems good and I like the Beginner-Intermediate level, so I can go through to the intermediate level and not have to buy a new coursebook for intermediate. 

• Webster's New World Italian Dictionary: Italian/English, English/Italian

• I also bought an Italian/English dictionary, this way I can look up words.  

 as you can see, I am placing an emphasis on resources that comes with audio or cdroms, so I can listen to the pronunciation, and since I am self-taught this is an important aspect for me. I am VERY excited and I cannot wait to get started!

The First Step

The inspiration for my wanting to learn Italian is myself, Eat Pray Love, and no reason at all. I've always thought it would be cool to learn Italian, and I saw the movie and I'm reading the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and in it she starts learning Italian after her divorce and the relationship she started after her divorce was over. I really liked that, and so I thought I would take a page out of her book. but basically, there's no specific reason why I am learning Italian, other than I really want to. I would love to someday go teach English in Italy. my tutor from the ICAL TEFL course is a teacher of English in Italy, and so that's kinda cool. I would need my master's though, it's kinda...competitive to get Teaching English jobs in Italy. but that's what I am going to do after I get back from China: go to Southern New Hampshire University and get my master's in Teaching English and it will only take me a year and maybe after that get my Doctorate in it(if I can get in to a doctorate program). anyways, sometimes I like being single because I can do things like this. anyways, this came about because Brent Bailey, the guy I have been in love with for years, pretty much turned me down yesterday, and hence...we are here. when Daniel Grenier turned me down, I joined a gym for 3 months and bought myself a diamond ring(1/6K and $300). Brent Bailey turns me down(breaking my heart a lot)and I decided to learn Italian. on top of learning biblical Greek(although that is more translating Greek, not conversation learning so its different) and learning Mandarin(and most of that will really take place when I am in China).
I am VERY excited and I already ordered a learning Italian software and some books, so I am very excited. I'll do a blog post on those materials soon. hopefully someday I will able to say that I speak English, Spanish, Mandarin, and Italian, and can translate biblical Greek. Italian is very close to Spanish, so while it will be challenging I feel like I have a bit of a advantage. I'm SOOOO Excited!
the title for this blog has nothing to do with learning Italian, it's one of my favorite songs: Mambo Italiano(see the youtube video below) and I LOVE it! it's such a cool song and so I HAD to name my Italian Learning Blog after it!