I Want To

Samantha. I'm in my second year of uni, studying English and Classics though I'd rather learn every language and travel the whole damn world. This is my side blog!

[themissinglastpage]

CIAO!

Ho ritornato...era un lungo momento ma, sono qui. Nel questo periodo, non ho praticato l’italiano tanto...solo un po’ con la mia famiglia. Ma, voglio diventare piu comodo con la lingua. 

Anche, voglio mettere ‘goals’ per il mio italiano, per il nuovo anno. Ancora non so CHE ‘goals’, ma se hai l’idea, dimmmiiiiiiii!

[foxlanguages]

Me: this is the year I will focus on my studies and see results!

Narrator: it was indeed her year

[therevisioneer]

To everyone learning a language, who is getting frustrated and impatient and maybe even thinking of quitting: remember how far you have come (not how far you have to go), remember why you started and remember how fantastic the end product will be. Learning a language is difficult and the journey can be long but it is rewarding and it opens so many doors. You are capable of doing this, you can do this… don’t quit now

[plurilinguismo]

Questi li avete letti?

Insegniamo tutti e due letteratura italiana all’università, e la domanda che ci fanno più spesso gli studenti riguarda i libri che potrebbero o dovrebbero leggere. Così abbiamo pensato di rispondere facendo un piccolo elenco non dei più bei libri della storia della letteratura ma solo dei libri, anzi di una piccola parte dei libri che ci piacciono molto e che pensiamo possano essere letti con piacere anche da altri, anche da lettori giovani (gli studenti delle superiori, diciamo). Leggi

Ottima lista, piena di tanti spunti

[plurilinguismo]

Ciao a tutti! Qui comincia il nostro percorso sull’analisi del sondaggio! A presto per le prossime parti!

[sayitaliano]

Some random Italian slang

Com’è? = how is it (going)? How are you? What’s up? Dai = come on / forza / please (according on the tone, i.e. “dai, dimmelo!” = please tell me! // “dai!!” = come on!!) Meno male = luckily Boh = Idk, whatever Magari = maybe / if only / I wish so! (according on the tone, i.e. “magari piaci anche a lui” = maybe he likes you back // magari piovesse! = If only it rained! // ti piacerebbe andare al cinema? - ma magari! = would you like to go to the cinema? - I wish so!/I’d love to!) Che palle = I’m so bored / Oh crap (i.e. “non so che fare oggi, che palle” = Idk what to do today, I’m bored // Che palle, pure la pioggia! = Oh crap, here’s the rain too!) Merda! = Shit! Che figata! = This/that is so cool!! (at times is used also ironically) Basta = Enough Piantala! / Smettila / Adesso basta! = That’s enough, stop it! (piantala = lit.: plant it) Che schifo = This/that sucks Bella merda = it sucks (lit.:nice shit) Mi fa cagare / mi fa schifo = It makes me sick, I’m disgusted (lit.: mi fa cagare= it makes me shit) Vai/Va’ a cagare! (vaffanculo) = go take a shit! , fuck you! Ma sei fuori/sei grullo/sei matto? = Are you crazy / our of your mind? Mollare qualcuno = To break up with somebody Mettersi insieme = To start a relationship, to become a couple (ex. Luca e Maria si sono messi insieme = Luca and Maria became a couple) Ricco sfondato = filthy rich (lit.: limitless rich) Con la testa tra le nuvole = with the head in the clouds Veloce come un razzo = (lit.: as fast as a rocket) extremely fast Amore a prima vista = love at first sight (=lit.) Guastafeste = party pooper, killjoy Gufare = to bring bad luck, to jinx (ex. non gufare! = don’t bring bad luck, especially in sports, you “gufi” the team you want to lose, by saying stuff like “tanto oggi perdete!” = you’ll lose today!) Pisolino = nap Saccente (sapone - masculine / sapona - feminine) = know-it-all, smartass (btw sapone is commonly used for “soap”) Non starmi addosso = Don’t push me / Don’t stress me / Don’t stay on me (=lit.) (i.e = allora hai fatto quela telefonata? - la farò, non starmi addosso = did you make that phone call? - I will, don’t keep asking me/don’t stress me )

Bella! = Hi! Raga / Regaz / Raghi = shorten for ragazzi = Guys ( even as “bella raga” = Ciao ragazzi - pretty famous especially some years ago was the sentence “bella raga tutto rego?” = ciao ragazzi tutto bene (rego = regolare)? = Hi guys is all fine?) Fra’ / Frate’ / Fratello = Bro’ / Brother Sore’ / Sorella = Sister (beware commonly “sorella” is used for nuns) Gente = people / guys

A fagiolo - (lit.:to the bean.) “to the letter.” Quattro gatti -  (lit.:four cats.) really few people. i.e. “nel pub c’erano quattro gatti” = at the pub there were only four cats Avere le batterie scariche - To have a run-down battery  Spettegolare - to gossip Botte da orbi - (lit.:barrels from blinds.) “a knock-down-drag-out.” Uccel di bosco - (lit.:bird of the woods) when you can’t find someone, that person cannot be reached/disappeared to not do something, i.e. if your mum cannot find you to help her clean the house she might say you’re “uccel di bosco” Non sapere che pesci prendere -  (lit.:to not know what fish to take.) to not know what to do. Piove sul bagnato - (lit.:it rains on the wet.) “when it rains it pours.” Cotto a puntino - (lit.:cooked to the little dot.) a meal cooked perfectly  Sei proprio cotto! = You’re so in love! / You are crazy in love! (lit.: you’re cooked for real) Innamorato perso = (lit.: lost in love) crazy in love Da cosa nasce cosa -  (lit.:from thing is born thing.) “one thing leads to another,” Pavoneggiarsi -  (lit.:to peacock oneself.) to show off

(Some more of these sayings can be found on our twitter page)

[langsandlit]

Ciao, me again. I'm about A2-B1 in my listening-reading comprehension in Italian, but I don't know a lot of grammar and I'm missing some basic vocab (which I recognise but can't EVER recall). What resources could you recommend? Even if it's just online dictionaries, I'm quite lost when it comes to Italian resources. ¡Millón de gracias!

Ciao! For improving/expanding your vocab I recommend using either flashcards (apps like Quizlet and Memrise will do too imo) or this method (by @allthingslinguistic).

Some useful links:

Italian resources (grammars (in English), websites, newspapers, apps)

here’s a list of topics to expand your vocabulary

basic vocabulary

I hope this helps :)

[souffle-trys-to-language]

Can’t wait for the day when I can read an entire book in my target language with no need to check a dictionary or without struggling to wrap my head around the grammar

Can’t wait for the day when I can have an extensive conversation with someone in my target language without worrying about my accent or vocabulary

Can’t wait for the day when I’ll know all I need to know to be “fluent”

Can’t wait my dudesssss

[svensklangblr]

hottest language learning tip

write a diary

literally

just write a diary, it has helped me sooo much and i dare say it has been the most developing thing i’ve done while learning french, nothing else compares

1. you’re exposed to the language daily

2. you quickly see which words are missing from your vocabulary

3. you learn to write about the things you think about a lot

4. learning to actually think in your target language

5. having to look up words and when reading the entry back a couple of days later you can’t even remember which words you didn’t know

6. going back to the earlier entries and seeing all the mistakes and knowing how much better you’ve become

7. when you’ve been writing for a few months and your target language becomes a natural way for expressing yourself

8. when you’ve been writing for a few months and you start seeing the diary writing as a way of self-expression and stressrelief, and the language learning aspect becomes natural and secondary

9. filling out a whole book using only your target language and physically seeing how much you’ve accomplished

[number1scrub-deactivated2021032]

law student thanksgiving

if ur not seeing your family for thanksgiving no worries i can give you a recap of what they would have said because this is my life:

- haha, so excited to have a lawyer in the family, so for when i get in trouble! haha - i always said you should be a lawyer, you always loved to argue! - *raised eyebrows* bet you meet a lot of boys at school  - requests for legal advice even though you are a law student and not a lawyer and those are not the same - joke about how lawyers are terrible - another joke about how lawyers are terrible but your uncle kinda drunk now so it’s more apparent that he actually has little respect for the profession - so are you planning to get married after school? or? (i am single & not looking) - comparisons how studying for law school finals is just like studying for their trade certification - “I would’ve been a lawyer but…” - *aunt says something sassy* uncle: now it’s your AUNT who should have been a lawyer *haha* happy thanksgiving real lawblr, i’m thankful for you guys and also

[langsandlit]

Hi, I am currently learning Italian by myself with the help of duolingo. I was wondering if you could explain to me about Italian Clitics? I've tried to google it and stumbled upon several posts, but it's still a mystery to me. Like, what are clitics? When do you use them? How do you use them? Thanks. xx

In Italian, clitics are words used as object pronouns. Depending on their position, we distinguish two types of clitics:

proclitics = the clitic stands alone before a verb (stressed form)

enclitics = the clitic attaches to the preceding verb (unstressed form)

Enclitics attach to gerunds, infinitives, imperatives and (less frequently) past participles, whereas proclitic object pronouns stand alone before the verbs they are the object of. An example would be:

Canto una canzone (I sing a song)

cantala (sing it)cantandola (singing it)cantarla (singing it)la canto (I sing it)

Italian distinguishes between direct (DO) and indirect object (ID) pronouns but, to make things easier and way less complicated, we can divide these pronouns into stressed and unstressed object pronouns.

Stressed object pronouns usually follow the conjugated verb without attaching to it as affixes, and are usually proceeded by a variety of prepositions such as di, a, da, in, con etc. that trigger the use of the stressed pronouns.

io - me

tu - te

egli (lui), esso - lui / sé (reflexive)

ella (lei), essa - lei / sé (reflexive)

noi - noi

voi - voi

essi/esse, loro - loro (rare: essi) / sé

amano te (they love you)non è tra di noi (s/he’s not between us)è venuta per te (she came for you)

Unstressed object pronouns always go with a verb, which they can either follow or precede. When they follow the verb (enclitic), they are glued to it as in guardami (look at me),  but when they precede it they stand on their own (proclitic).

io - mi

tu - ti

egli (lui), esso - lo (DO) / gli (IO) / si (reflexive)

ella (lei), essa - la (DO) / le (IO) / si (reflexive)

noi - ci

voi - vi

essi/esse, loro - li

Bear in mind that we use different 3rd person pronouns based on whether we’re talking about a direct or indirect object. For example

scrivigli una lettera (write him a letter) [IO]gli scrivo una lettera (I’m writing him a letter) [IO]scrivila (write it) [DO]la scrivo (I’m writing it) [DO]

What happens when you join both direct and indirect personal pronouns? Consider the following example:

mi ha mandato la lettera (s/he has sent me the letter)me l’ha mandata (s/he sent it to me)

Here la lettera is the direct object, while mi is the indirect object. In the second sentence la (l’) is the direct object pronoun meaning la lettera, while me is still the indirect object.

When both the direct and the indirect object are present in the same sentence, the indirect object changes form.

io - me lo / me la / me li / me le

tu - te lo / te la / te li / te le

egli (lui), esso - glielo / gliela / glieli / gliele

ella (lei), essa - glielo / gliela / glieli / gliele

noi - ce lo / ce la / ce li / ce le

voi - ve lo / ve la / ve li / ve le

essi/esse, loro - /

la zia ha regalato un libro a Giulio (the auntie gave Giulio a book)gli ha regalato un libro (s/he gave him a book)gliel’ha regalato sua zia (her auntie gave it to him/her)

I hope this helps, but if you’re still confused feel free to send me another message. Also you can check my personal pronouns tag! :)

[kingdomstudies]

Italian Resources Masterpost

GRAMMAR

iLUSS- produced by Italian teacher with years of experience.

Life in Italy- You learn not only about the language, but the culture. 

Conjugation- Regular and Irregular

Italian Accent Marks- The orthographic marks

VOCABULARY

A Crossword-  you have to place the Italian translation into the puzzle

Linguee-  Dizionario inglese-italiano

Dictionary- Dizionario italiano-italiano

Memrise- Useful Vocabulary

Quizlet- 1000 Vocabulary Words

READING

First Italian Readings-  the best method of learning to read… is to read.

Pride and Prejudice- and any Jane Austen novel. Italian on one side and English on the other

More Bilingual Parallel Texts- Great Classics

LISTENING

Learn Italian through songs- Musicals, folk and a list of Italian musicians.(My favorite is Laura Pausini).

TEDx Talks in Italian- Extra learning!

Audio Books- Free Public Domain Audiobooks & eBook Downloads

[italiano-inglese]

Just what I need

[cyberscully]

as a procrastinating overachiever i feel like i don’t necessarily “half-ass” things, it’s more like a “3/4 ass”. like overall did i do pretty well? yeah. did i reach my maximum potential though? i think the fuck Not.

[studiousbees]

[App Review]—Beelinguapp

Is this more of an app review or a book review? Today I bring you a review of Beelinguapp, an audiobooks app for language learners.

Sometimes studying can be a boring drag and you just want to do something a little less tedious than drilling grammar or a ton of vocab flashcards. Maybe you want to get into reading books in your language of choice, but you’re worried that it might be too hard to just pick up a book written in your chosen language and read it without guidance. In that case, I could recommend this app to you!

As I already said, this is an audiobook app. There are free stories and paid ones both available to choose from. There are stories of all different types and difficulties, including classics and even sciency stuff, as you can see in the above image! The cool thing is that when you choose a story, you can also choose which languages to download it in! So far, I’ve downloaded all of my stories in English, Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. When you go to listen to a story, you can choose what you want your learning language to be and what your reference language is. When you listen to the book, it will be read and displayed to you in the learning language, and you can do split screen so the learning language is on top and the reference language is on bottom. You can mix and match languages, so you could even have two learning languages up at once!

There are a lot of things you can play with as you read. As I already mentioned, there’s the split screen option, and there is a night mode, text magnifier, voice speed control, and text highlight that follows the reader. The text highlight sometimes isn’t timed correctly, however, and of course if the languages you have set as your learning and reference have different word order or other major grammatical differences, you won’t be able to really use the highlight to, for example, match words you don’t know. Still, the highlight does make it easier to follow where the speaker is in the text with your eyes even if the timing is a little off.

As for the actual audio quality, I’ve found it to be passable in all the stories and different languages I’ve tested so far, though some aren’t the absolute best quality. That isn’t to say the audio is bad, just that you can expect to hear some noise in some recordings. I’m assuming that the audio quality will be better with stories that you have to pay to download, but I’m too cheap so I haven’t tried any of those yet :B Anyway, in all of the stories I’ve listened to so far, the narrators speak at reasonable storytelling speeds, and if you aren’t super picky about audio quality, there should be no big problem.

The major downfall of this app is, in my opinion, the lack of a dictionary function. You can long-press words to add them to your own dictionary in the app… but then you have to add a meaning for the word yourself, which is obviously not too helpful at all if you don’t already know what the word means! Sure, maybe you could take a look at the reference language text to see what the word means, but these stories aren’t translated word-for-word and sometimes matching up words between different versions of the same text could be hard. What I think this app really needs is an easy-access dictionary that, if you long-press a word, it pulls up a dictionary entry for that word. Of course, since there are so many stories in so many languages on this app, providing dictionaries for all of them might be hard…

Verdict:

Ultimately, I think this is a pretty good app with a few flaws that, if fixed, would make this a really excellent language-learning tool!

PROS:

Multiple languages available

Can read along as you listen to the story

Can choose your display languages so you can even study more than one new language at once

Lots of little options to play with to optimize your experience

CONS:

No integrated dictionary :<

Audio quality is decent but a little lacking

Text highlighting sometimes isn’t synced properly

As always, happy studying <3

[freakyfeatures]

hey, so are we on a “tu” basis or are we still pretty “vous”

[vronsk-aya]

Harry Potter Italian Vocabulary

The philosopher’s/ sorcerer’s stone – la pietra filosofale.

The chamber of secrets – la camera dei segreti

The prisoner of Azkaban – il prigioniero di Azkaban

The goblet of fire – il calice di fuoco

The order of the phoenix – l’ordine della fenice

The half blood prince – il principe mezzosangue

The deathly hallows – i doni della morte

School of Witchcraft and Wizardry – scuola di magia e stregoneria

Wizard – mago

Witch - strega

Gryffindor – grifondoro

Rawenclaw – corvonero

Hufflepuff – tassorosso

Slytherin – serpeverde

Albus Dumbledore – Albus Silente (imagine my 6-years-old self finding out Silente wasn’t Dumbledor’s real name)

Minerva McGonagall – Minerva McGranitt

Muggle – babbano

Wand – bacchetta

Cauldron – calderone

invisibility cloak – mantello dell’invisibilità

Marauder’s Map – mappa del malandrino

I solemnly swear I’m up to no good – guiro solennemente di non avere buone intenzioni (literally: I swear I don’t have good intentions)

Butterbeer – burrobirra

Sorting Hat – cappello parlante (literally: speaking hat)

Scar – cicatrice

Knut - zellino

Chocolate Frogs – cioccorane

Triwizard Cup – coppa tremaghi

Heir – erede

Dementor – dissennatore

Hedwig – Edvige

Snowy Owl – Civetta delle nevi

Crookhanks – grattastinchi

Red cat – gatto rosso

Werewolf – lupo mannaro

Mermaid - sirena

Moaning Myrtle – Mirtilla Malcontenta (literally: Not-Happy Mirtle)

Nearly Headless Nick – Nick quasi senza testa

Whomping Willow – platano picchiatore

OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Levels ) – GUFO (Giudizio Unico per i Fattucchieri Ordinari)

Owl – gufo ;)

NEWT (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests ) - M.A.G.O. (Magia Avanzata Grado Ottimale)

Time-Turner – Giratempo

Jinx – malocchio/fattura

Dumbledore’s Army – esercito di silente

Forbidden forest – foresta proibita

Great hall – sala grande

Room of requirements – stanza delle necessità (literally: room of necessities)

Hospital wing – infermeria

Greenhouses – serre

Defense Against the Dark Arts – difesa contro le arti oscure

Transfiguration – transfigurazione

Potions – pozioni

Care of Magical Creatures – cura delle creature magiche

History of Magic – storia della magia

Astronomy – atronomia

Herbology – erbologia

Arithmancy – artimanzia

Charms – incantesimi

Golden Snitch – boccino d’oro

Bludger – bolide

Quaffle - pluffa

Seeker- cercatore

Broomstick – manico di scopa

Wormtail - Codaliscia

Patfoot - Felpato

Moony – Lunastorta

Prongs - Ramoso

Platform nine and three quarters – binario nove e tre quarti

Apparate (/disapparate) – materializzarsi (/smaterializzarsi)

Knight Bus – nottetempo

Portkey – passaporta

Pure-blood – purosangue

Parselmouth – rettilofono

Parseltongue – Serpentese

[mschvs]

Survive a whole day of classes

This doesn’t have to apply to just a full day of classes, but also early classes, long single classes and possibly boring classes.

Make sure you bring a bottle of water. You’re going to crave it

If it’s early in the morning, I suggest getting a travel mug for morning coffee or tea so you don’t end up paying for such a thing every single morning.

Make sure to bring a portable charger or just a charger if you have a place to plug it in. It’ll make sure that you have some battery left by the end of the day.

If you usually use a laptop during classes, if it’s a whole day of classes, figure out some when you could easily use pen and paper to let your eyes rest.

Bring food, some snacks. If you have time to go out and get something proper to eat, do it, but if not snacks or a pre-prepared lunch are always great.

Use the breaks to their max. Not just to go to the bathroom or change the classroom/lecture hall, but to also rest your mind a little.

Play a little game or something that will distract you during those breaks, especially in between different types of classes.

If you don’t have to be at the lecture, it’s alright sometimes to miss the last ones, especially if you’re extremely tired or don’t feel well.

Otherwise try to stay till the end. It always pays of, and who knows, maybe there won’t be many of you and the professor decides to give you bonus points.

You don’t have to stress about writing everything down when your so tired, just try to pay attention as much as you can.

When you have early classes, prepare everything the night before.

If you have lectures all throughout the day, but have 1-2 hours of breaks between them, use those times to eat a proper meal or to read a book. Don’t focus too much on classes unless you really have to.

Don’t carry too much stuff with you on such days because it’ll feel ten times heavier by the end of the day. Just carry the most essential things.

Read up on materials for the classes, especially those later in the day. When you’re tired it’ll be harder to pay attention, but understanding a few things before hand will help.

If you want to really pay attention to class, try not to sit close to those that cave into boredom or fatigue and aren’t able to pay attention so they do distracting things.

It’s also good to sit with someone that is also determined to pay attention so you can exchange things you’ve accidentally missed.

Bring your headphones because if it’s a class where you have to do practical work, music or podcasts or TED talks could keep you awake.

In the warmer seasons, make sure to bring something to put on  if it gets cold in the evening.

Deodorant and wet wipes (and other essentials) will help you freshen up.

Don’t forget lip balm.

At the end of the day, make sure you’re get your rest, both mental and physical.