Learning a second language as an adult


learning italian

I am learning to speak Italian

I have been at it for the past year.

Many people have asked me: What are you doing? How are you doing it? How is it working? What programs or tools are you using? What works best?

So I’m dedicating this blog to answering that question for anyone who is interested. I’ve include links throughout to all the resources I am using.

It’s kind of a long article, so if you are not interested, I’ll be back next week with another piece on business leadership and productivity.

But if you are interested in learning a language, Andiamo! (here we go)

Summary:

In general, right up front, a handy acronym to describe my experience so far is KMN. (kill me now) It’s really hard!

Here’s a summary of my efforts so far…

One-time things I’ve completed

  • Rosetta Stone – 4 levels
  • A 2 week immersive language course in Italy

Things I try to do every week (for the past 1 year)

  • Work with a private tutor for 1 hour every 1-2 weeks
  • Self study courses for grammar and comprehension
  • Skyping with a new friend in Napoli who also wants to practice English
  • Watching movies and TV shows in Italian
  • Writing in Italian to learn words, conjugations, and grammar

Things I try to do every day (time permitting, not all, every day)

  • Reading to learn new words
  • Electronic Flash Cards to study and remember new words
  • Listening/comprehension exercises
  • Talking to myself out loud to get more speaking practice
  • Reading out loud things written in proper Italian to train my mouth

Glaringly missing from this list, I realize, that would the most useful thing to do… is to go somewhere in Italy where no one speaks English. I will do this at some point.

What was my starting point?

It was a cold start!

And I’m not one of those people who naturally picks up languages, just by being immersed in it. I have no early childhood experience with a second language.

I find it fascinating that science is showing that the language learning part of the brain pretty much shuts down at around age 8!

It’s WAY easier for children

If you learn a language before 8, you have total, priority access to a very small, special-purpose, super-optimized part of your brain. You can learn language easily and you can pick up the proper accent and talk like a native. If you learn a language after age 8, (or decades later), that part of your brain is literally no longer available.

It then requires the non-optimized use of your your whole brain (which is really painful) and most people are never able to get the accent to sound totally natural in the new language.

If I had kids, I would make sure they started learning a second language immediately, and maybe a third when they were around 6. That’s when their brains can do it. I think parents are afraid that it’s too difficult, and hesitate to put that pressure on their kids — because for parents, it is too difficult! But for children, it isn’t!

My experience so far as a student

And I am finding learning Italian to be the most difficult thing I have ever tried to learn, and that includes thermodynamics. I don’t think that I’m particularly terrible at languages, but I’m certainly not a natural either.

And as an American I am learning a second language, which means that I am really learning about language for the first time. I am realizing, that your native language, if you only ever know one, is so much taken for granted that you really don’t have an appreciation for, or a sense of what a language is. (more on this later)

Resource #1: Rosetta Stone

rosetta stone

I started with 4 levels of Rosetta stone and studied for about 3 months.

I really made an effort. I took it very seriously and reviewed, studied and practiced things I didn’t get right away. I have always been an excellent student and I brought the full force of “Patty Azzarello as a student” to the endeavor.

I really thought that I after my 4 levels of Rosetta Stone, I would be able to go to Italy, and have some basic conversations. It turns out — I was not even close!

Rosetta stone is very good for learning useful words, and a lot of common nouns and verbs.

I found it provided a good foundation for my later learning because I had learned these words really well, but it did not make me even a little functional for listening or conversing. And I found Rosetta Stone to be a complete non-starter for grammar.

Rosetta stone does build grammar into their flashcard approach, but the point and click technique just does not give you enough information when they start throwing grammar around. So you really only learn the nouns and the verbs and the pictures.

Grammar is really hard, but you need some.

You make think you don’t care about grammar, but what I am talking about is the ability to say. “I want a hat like yours. Can you get it for me?”

Without grammar you can say: To-want hat. You to-get?

That is leagues better than saying nothing at all, and if you said that to someone, they would probably understand you. But if they then say to you, “Do you want me to get it for you?” You won’t have a clue what they are saying without learning some grammar.

So after my 3 months and 4 levels of Rosetta Stone, I went to Italy to take it for a spin.

The result: Someone working in a store would say a million words to me in Italian, and I would understand none of it.

Then my Rosetta stone training would allow me to respond, “The dog is running down the hill”. Or “The sandwich is on the plate”. So I was back to “I’m sorry I don’t speak Italian”.
(KMN.)

Resource #2: Immersive Language School in Italy

So then I decided to go to an immersive language school in Florence for 2 weeks, 9am-3pm, 5 days a week. I thought, surely after this, I’ll be able to talk to people in shops and restaurants in Italian. Again, I brought the full, excellent student experience to this endeavor.

This was SO hard. I was put in a Beginner Level 2 class not because my 4 levels of Rosetta Stone qualified me for Level 2, but because Level 1 was not on offer that week! In this class I had my first experience in my whole life being the slowest student in the class! That was a valuable learning unto itself, but is topic for another day…

The rest of the class was populated with Swiss 20-something’s learning a 4th language. (KMN)

classroom

But the view was nice!

Learning the Structure of a Language

Here is where I began to learn what I refer to the “structure of a language”.

This concept of “structure” is totally my word. It is not official term for anything.

What I mean by structure is to develop the ability to put together necessary working phrases. Things like:

I want, I need, I like, I prefer, I have, I must…

Or things like: now, later, before, after
Or: over, under, up, down, inside, outside, to, from, between
Or: fast, slow, win, lose, big, small, cold, hot
Or: come, go, run, walk, sleep, wash
Or: Enough, a lot, too much
Or: Nothing, anything, either/or

I refer to these things as “structure” because if you learn these basic constructs you can start constructing useful phrases with them by plugging in nouns and verbs as you learn them. It’s where you start to learn a new language. I never appreciated this functional aspect of English. I find this very interesting.

I will say that Rosetta Stone is also pretty good for learning these structure words.

After 2 weeks of immersive language school, I thought for sure I would be able to communicate a little bit in shops and restaurants, but when people started talking at full speed I could still understand nothing.

On my last day in Italy, I went into a high end clothing store where I was the only one there, and the sales lady offered to speak really slowly, to help me to learn and practice my Italian, but I just couldn’t do it yet. There was not enough there. We once again resorted to English. (KMN)

Resource #3: Online Self Study

Screen Shot 2015-04-13 at 1.31.23 PM

When I returned home, I could not bear to waste the effort I had put in so far — so I started to explore self study options. I found an absolutely wonderful set of resources from a webstie called CyberItalian.

They offer 60 self-study lessons, 20 each in beginner, intermediate and advanced. I’m about half way through the intermediate lessons right now. Each one offers listening and comprehension exercises, grammar lessons, exercises to learn and practice the grammar, activities to practice more, and a test.

The way they have the grammar resources organized is the best I have found anywhere. I find myself doing screen captures of tables and lists because they are presented so well, and printing them out to become part of my workbook that I carry around with me always.

Resource #4 – Private tutor

CyberItalian also offers private tutors. I have been working with a wonderful teacher called Benedetta for almost a year now. We skype every 1-2 weeks. She helps me with grammar, comprehension, and conversation.

I prepare writing which she corrects, and then she challenges me to discuss different topics in the past, present, and future. Benedetta is in Italy. I talk with her from 8-9am my time. As the clock strikes 9, I can hear the church bells ringing in Rome. I love this!

Getting a private tutor through Cyber Italian is about $40/session. I have found this to be invaluable.

CyberItalian also offers a more intensive 8 week “Coaching Program” where you get to have 1-1 private lessons with the owner and founder of Cyber Italian, Maura Maria Garau. I’m adding this note to this post, as I have now had experience also with this program and it is outstanding. The coaching program helps you advance from functional conversation to getting comfortable being able to truly express yourself. Maura is an outstanding and encouraging teacher!

Resource #5: Frequency Dictionary

Italian Frequency Dictionary

There is this thing called a frequency dictionary. This is a pretty cool concept. For any language, you can find a frequency dictionary. It contains a list of the 2000 most frequently used words in a language.

It is said that if you learn 2000 words, you’ll be able to understand about 75%.

Here is where I finally had a breakthrough, not so much in learning but in better understanding my frustration about how I could put in so much effort and get so little return!

Because, still, after all this effort, I was not be able to watch a video in Italian and understand it.

Here is the reason I still was struggling so much.

In addition to the fact that people speaking natural language are speaking too fast for a beginner to understand, and that they are mumbling, and using local dialects and idioms, what I finally realized is that:

While it seems like being about to understand 75% is pretty good, in reality it is terrible! 75% is not anywhere near enough.

Here is what I mean. I have taken a paragraph out of the current news and blanked out all the words that are not on the list of 2000 frequently used words. Have a go at understanding this. It’s like torture by mad libs. (KMN).

This state has ___ many a ___ before — and ___ the ___ who have ____ ____ the death of the California dream — as it ____, often ____, from the ____ of ____, an ____ crisis and, most recently, a ____ ____ that ____ years of _____ ____ in spending. These days, the economy is ______, the population is growing, the state _____ is in _____, and _____ is ____ from Silicon Valley to San Diego; the _____ of it can be seen in the construction ____ _______ the ______ of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

But even California’s biggest ______ are ______ if the ______of the _____now in its fourth year, is going to ______ a change in the way the state does business.

Here’s the whole paragraph if you are curious.

This state has survived many a catastrophe before — and defied the doomsayers who have regularly proclaimed the death of the California dream — as it emerged, often stronger, from the challenges of earthquakes, an energy crisis and, most recently, a budgetary collapse that forced years of devastating cuts in spending. These days, the economy is thriving, the population is growing, the state budget is in surplus, and development is exploding from Silicon Valley to San Diego; the evidence of it can be seen in the construction cranes dotting the skylines of Los Angeles and San Francisco. But even California’s biggest advocates are wondering if the severity of this drought, now in its fourth year, is going to force a change in the way the state does business.

Appparently to understand 80% you need to know 5000 words, to undertand 85% you need to know 10000 words, and exponentially up from there. (KMN)

So now onto the task of learning more words….

Resource #6: Word Reference Forum

word reference forum

Wordreference.com is an outstanding site to help you really learn words. It is a very robust and totally free resource.

It gives you all forms of the word and shows them in context. It also shows all the conjugations for all the verbs. For many words they also have an audio clip to help with pronunciation. I use this site day in and day out to look up words and to learn new words. It’s excellent!

You really have to learn all the words!

I think that I always had the thought that after a certain amount of time studying, you would in an instant, like walking through a portal, suddenly be able to understand everything.

But sadly, I have realized even once you understand the structure of the language and master the grammar enough to get by (Which I think will take me 2-3 years) you still have to learn all the words!

There are so many basic words hiding in clear view…like:

Picture Frame, Dog leash, Grout, Sturdy, Pruning, Thaw, Customary, Gravel

Oops, you really didn’t learn enough about that word…

Another thing about words and comprehension is that you think you have learned a word, and then you find that there are so many other ways to say something that you still haven’t a clue. For example, I was listening to a news story in Italian that I knew was about someone who had won an election. But for the life of me, no matter how many times I listened, I could not find the word “win” in any form.

So I dug deeper and realized the word they used was more like “triumphed”. Just to illustrate this issue, here are bunch of words for “win”, and if you want to understand the spoken language effectively, you eventually have to learn them all. (KMN.)

Win:

Vanquish, Defeat, Dominate, Come out ahead, Conquer, Achieve a victory, Be ahead, Claim the lead, Sweep, Triumph, Gain ground, Attain, Bring about, Trounce, Prevail, Overwhelm, Take the cake, Best, Blow away. Carry out.

And then there’s the verb conjugations…

I was listening to two other news stores both of which the main point was that people died. Again, I knew the word for Die, but for the life of me I could not find it in the news stories.

Verbs can sound very different when they are conjugated. Think about how different the words “Go” and “went” sound. They are the same verb, but if you don’t know that, they sound like totally different words.

In many European languages including Italain, “die” has something to do with the sound “Mort”.

But in one news story when I finally found the death (sorry this is an unpleasant example!) it was “Muoiono” because the story was about many people dying in a helicopter crash and the conjugation of the verb “mortire” for many is “muoiono”.

In the other news story the key phrase was was “ucciso a colpi di arma da fuoco” meaning (was shot). I did not know at the time that Uccidere meant “to kill” (Mi uccidete ora) (=KMN)

Words with lot’s of meanings…

Word reference forum is also excellent for unraveling the different meanings of words that you can’t translate directly. For example when you look up the word “get”, here are the versions of the word “get” that it offers translations for.

Get:
Obtain (We need to get stuff)
Receive (I get stuff)
Catch (I get allergies)
Fetch (please get this for me)
Have, possess (I’ve got new stuff)
Persuade (I will get you to do this)
Arrive (I get there)
Understand (I get it)
Have the opportunity (I get to go)
Become (I get nervous)

Until I started learning a second language, I had no appreciation for this type of word, and how many new words you need to learn in a new language just to cover one simple word in English.

Resource #7 Ankisis: Electronic Flashcards

anki flashcards

So, as a mentioned… you really need to learn A LOT of words to become sort of functional.

I figure, if I can learn 5 new words a day, for say, 300 days per year that will be 1500 new words per year. If I do this for the rest of my life, I may someday get my comprehension over 90%!

But I also realized that learning words, and remembering words are 2 very different things.

I found another marvelous resource online to help with this which is totally free.

Ankisys is a flash card program. It’s very simple to use.

I do two things with Ankisys.

1. I found in their public share library, a flash card deck that someone else has already made that has the most frequently 2000 used words in Italian. I use that deck to review what I know and to fill in the gaps that I do not know.

2. I created my own: “Italiano di Patty” deck. Every time I learn a new word, I make a flash card.

I have two experiences making flash cards.

1. You can do it in 2 seconds if you just type a word or phrase on the front and back.

2. If you take the time to make a flashcard and add a picture, and your voice recording of the word in the new language, that the act of making the flash card really reinforces your learning of the word. Once you do all that, you’ve pretty much learned the word forever.

Then, everytime Anki presents you a card, and you guess the answer, you can select if it was easy, hard, or if you need to see it again right away. Then the system automates when it presents you the card again next. It works really well. And you never lose forever a word you have learned.

This leads me to tell you about another resource I find really useful:

Resource #7: Old google image search

This is a link to the old google image search engine. This old version shows images with captions. This is so helpful for learning a new word. If I come across the Italian word “tramonto” for example, and type it into this image search, the picture below is what I get.

tramonto search

When your brain sees this, you really get it that tramonto means sunset. Then you can grab one of these images and put it on your flash card. Also you can read all the captions and if you don’t understand them, you can use this a source to learn new words. Seeing the word associated with all the photos in the captions really helps your brain lock it in.

Resource #9: Pocket Calendar

OK, here is one of my Patty Azzarello, low tech things. In addition to making a flash card when I learn a new word, I also record it in a pocket weekly calendar. This helps keep me on quota for learning 5 new words a day, and it also helps my brain to write down the words with my hands. Also, I can just open to any page and give myself quick tests if I’m ever waiting around.

weekly words calendar

Resource #9: News in Slow Italian

News in Slow Italian

Bravissimo!

This website is awesome. I almost never use the word awesome, but I’ll make an exception for this site. This website gives you exactly what is says on the label. “News in Slow Italian”. They offer this for Spanish, German and French too.

Every week you get 4 new news stories. There is a presented story (spoken very slowly and clearly) and then a discussion about the story between two people. The total for each is about 5-6 minutes.

Below is an example of a what a story is like on this site. This story is about a 100 year old Japanese woman who broke a record for swimming 1500 meters. First it says she was at the top of her age group. It then goes on to say that she is the only one in her age group of 100-104!

newsinslowitalian

A wonderful feature of this site is that when there is dialog that is either advanced, or idiomatic, you can mouse over the highlighted phrase and it instantly translates it to English.

So each week I do four things with News in Slow Italian

1. First, I listen online and mouse over anything I don’t know
2. I download the stories and listen to them over an over again while I’m driving
3. At the end of the week, I read the stories out load, and capture any words I still don’t know in my calendar and Anki flash card deck
4. Finally, I listen to each story once at full speed — another great option they offer.

This service costs about $100 per year. This is a god send for me.

By separating the challenge of understanding natural language from the challenge of natural language moving too fast, I’m finding that my comprehension is improving greatly.

Resource #10: Amazon.it

Nemo

For the longest time, I wanted to get some videos to practice listening and comprehension. I kept searching online for things to download and kept coming up dry.

Finally it occurred to me to just go to Amazon.it and see if I could order stuff.

This works so easily! I can even use my US Amazon.com login and account to pay with no extra steps. Shipping to the US take about 3 weeks and costs about $10.

So far I have purchased a few movies and TV series. I’m finding that the media companies are doing a marvelous job with the dubbing.

I also find that navigating the Amazon.it website in Italian, and working through their shipping and order update process in Italian is also good practice and a good source of learning new words.

I watch without subtitles, because I learned along the way, that when you watch with subtitles it really doesn’t have much of an impact on your brain learning the language. You are just reading a story. I’ve also been told to choose drama over comedy, because in a comedy even if you understand all the words you probably still won’t get the joke.

Also, I opted for shows that I am a big fan of and already know inside and out. Knowing the plot before hand is really helpful because then you can concentrate on the words and you don’t have the additional stress of figuring out what is going on.

I watch the same things over and over again. At this time I understand less than half, but each time I pick up on a few more phrases, and I hang on to the belief that it is all benefiting my brain and my quest!

Resource: #11 Wikipedia

It’s a bizarre and marvelous thing that someone out there has summarized the plot of pretty much every episode of every movie and TV series known to man on Wikipedia! Before you watch in your target language, you can just go to Wikipedia to review the plot!

I’ve also found it interesting that when I watch an Italian movie, vs. an Italian dubbed American movie or show, the Wikipedia summary is in Italian. So that is another excellent source of new words to learn.

Resource #12: Multi Region DVD player

multi region DVD

When you get DVD’s from another part of the world, a regular, US based DVD player won’t play them. I bought this multi-region DVD player from Amazon for $44. It works great.

Also, so far I have found that EU-based Blu-Rays play on my US-based blue-ray player, but I’m not sure that is a guarantee.

Resource # 13: A new Italian Friend!

Practice Conversation!

I find conversation to be a totally different thing than listening to other people talking on the news or on a show. There is a kind of panic that sets in for me when someone starts talking to ME in Italian.

I am very grateful to have been introduced to a new friend, Rosa, who lives in Napoli. Rosa is a truly lovely person who is interested in practicing English. Her English is far better than my Italian, but she is very kind and patient when we talk in Italian. We skype a couple of times a week. I love this. I have met her family and I also had an opportunity to watch her and her daughter cook dinner in their kitchen one time while they talked to me!

For me simply getting over that panic is an important part of the process. My teacher, Rosa, and Rosa’s husband who overhears our conversations sometimes, all say, “Patty, you need to relax more!”

Practice Speaking!

What I am finding is that right now, I feel like know a lot more than I can get out of my mouth!

Being able to bring forth the right words when you need them, in the moment, and then get the verb conjugated and get the person right continues to be a herculean effort for me.

For example I have a friend who walked around Prague all day saying in perfect Czech to people, “I’m sorry, you don’t speak Czech”! Someone finally told her in English what she was saying, and taught her how to say, “I’m sorry I don’t speak, Czech”!

One thing I try to do every day is to narrate the events of my day and voice my thoughts out loud in Italian. I find it surprisingly helpful to just get in the habit of speaking. Speaking requires a lot of practice, and I realized that I could do this by myself.

I was caught once on a bike ride with a small group talking out loud in Italian when we got split up. (le mie gambe sono stanche).

Pimsleur System

I recently added Pimsleur to my efforts (a few months after I first published this blog). So this is a quick update.

I was able to start with Pimsleur Level 4 of 5 and do just fine with it! Woo hoo! Some progress finally!

I can’t comment on how it would be to start your learning journey with this system, but what I can say is at this point, for me, it is a wonderful resource to get me speaking more correctly and quickly.

It’s an audio-based system, where you are asked to say various things like, “I need to meet with her tomorrow morning to review the marketing plan”, and then they only give you enough time to say exactly that without any extra time to think about it first.

I find that this, “SAY THIS RIGHT NOW” pressure is helping me speak more fluently and easily. Also, once you try to say the phrase, the presenter comes back and says it perfectly, so then you have a second opportunity practice your pronunciation.

The people I speak Italian with noticed a marked improvement in my speaking after I started practicing with Pimsleur level 4.

Resource # 15: Italian Language Blog

Italian Language BlogThis Italian Language Blog is one of many language blogs on offer from Transparent Languages

I find the articles in this blog to be entertaining and useful, and to provide insights on both language and Italian Culture. The posts are very varied and there is always an interesting nugget to take away.

Still to come…

I’m happy to report that I have reached a state where I can communicate pretty much anything I want to say… IF you’ve got the time! …A lot of time!

The patience of my tutor, and my friend Rosa staggers me. Sono grata. (I am grateful)

My writing in Italian is pretty good (understandable but not correct), but my spoken language is so slow and so tortured. Italian is such a beautiful language… but not when I speak it!

But I’m really proud of myself that I have got to this point. I can communicate. Now I just need A LOT more practice!

I am realizing that when I started this exercise, I underestimated the task by about two orders of magnitude! But I am going to keep at it, and hopefully, get an opportunity to go to Italy for awhile someday and truly get across the goal line.

What’s your experience?

I know there are many people out there trying to learn another language. I’d love to hear about your experience.

Please leave a comment on my facebook page..
And please share any other useful resources you have discovered!

Grazie!

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About Patty
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Patty Azzarello is an executive, best-selling author, speaker and CEO/Business Advisor. She became the youngest general manager at HP at the age of 33, ran a billion dollar software business at 35 and became a CEO for the first time at 38 (all without turning into a self-centered, miserable jerk)

You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or facebook.

And make sure to read her book
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The answers to your career struggles and your next promotion are in it!

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You can find Patty at www.AzzarelloGroup.com, follow her on twitter or Facebook, or read her books RISE and MOVE.


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