I have been studying "the italian" for about a year now. I am feeling really good about the progress that i am making however i cannot help but feel frustrated when i start to read articles and the writer throws in new verbs or words that are really descriptive, at first sight, i have no idea about what these are in almost every line of the article and it really throws off my enjoyment of reading, because i'm having to refer to wordreference.com all the way through it. I am content of knowing that i have so much to learn however just as i thought just as i was making progress, it's almost like the italian language slaps me across the face for getting cheeky! However then, i find some other articles written in simle italian and i'm totally fine!
I was wondering if anybody else was finding similar issues?
Let me suggest you to read short stories by some very good and not particularly difficult author, the choice could be among:
-- Dino Buzzati (please don't stat with 'Il Deserto dei Tartari', it is a novel that might appear as quite boring)
-- Italo Calvino (he also wrote or rewrote: Fiabe Italiane, that is a collecton of pearls)
-- Luigi Pirandello, you might find a very helpful bi-lingual text in this title:
Eleven Short Stories/Undici Novelle (A Dual-Language Book) (English and Italian Edition)
ISBN: 0486280918
A very good author that is not suitable is Umberot Eco, as he throws in hios papers dozens of words that, please believe me, make a Italian need in continuouis need of a dictionary.
-- Also the good old stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, with parallel bi-lingual text might be useful, although he was not an Italian author.
I am suggesting authors that stick their words to their true meaning, qwhich often does not happen any more with (for example) TV where the meanings are sometimes horribly stretched.
To add to your reading list:
In Altre Parole by Jhumpa Lahiri. Written by an American who is fluent enough in Italian to write books in that language without a translator! She has a very direct style and even if you don't 'get' all her words, the context is usually sufficient to figure it out. Besides, it is on a topic that is probably dear to your heart: the trials and tribulations of trying to learn Italian!
Scusa Juha, ma se ti piace il calcio perchè non leggi la Gazzetta dello Sport?
A costo di sembrare blasfema (per carità, nessuno mette in dubbio i premi Nobel) credo che a te interessi innanzitutto capire e parlare l'italiano come lo scriviamo e parliamo noi. Poi avrai tutto il tempo di affinare le tue capacità ed approcciare i grandi classici.
A me succede la stessa cosa: cerco di raffinare il mio inglese, usare la grammatica alla perfezione e poi magari sembro un marziano se parlo con un madrelingua. Insomma, chi ha voglia di conversare con un libro di grammatica??? La lingua è una cosa viva e si evolve anch'essa, per fortuna! Tra lo slang e Manzoni c'è una sana via di mezzo, grazie a Dio....
E ti rispondo in italiano così fai pratica!
In bocca al lupo con i tuoi studi, e non scoraggiarti, "a goccia a goccia si scava la roccia" (così impari pure i modi di dire :)
I am italian, you have reason because we don't use for example ''egli'' what third singular person, and we don't use ''passato remoto'' because don't exist the english concept of the difference action just finished / action finished years ago, so the past time more used is ''passato prossimo''. Besides, we don't use well subjuntive like ''se io avessi'', ''se io fossi'', ''se io parlassi''.
But, in my opinion, it is important for you to study regular and perfect italian from important books and after that you'll have a good preparation, you'll learn what speak with conversation into life with daily people.
I'm frustrated when I felt like I have gotten the hang of Italian tenses, and then I started to read some books and found this <em>passato remoto</em> that apparently people don't use in conversation but they do use it in literature. So yeah, new set of conjugation to memorize. What the... x_x
