At first I was just compiling a list of all the wonderful places I wanted to see in the 7 days I would be in Italy. Quickly I realized that there would need to be 10 of me to spend half as much time in these places as they deserved. Then came a very tough decision, one I will likely wrestle with for a long time to come still as I still have 8 months of planning to go. This decision was to see only a few places but thoroughly enjoy them or see lots of places and feel I have missed out on truly great things. This decision is full of all sorts of consequences either way. The first you feel like you've missed so much of what Italy has the offer and the second you spend so much time traveling between places that you feel like you did nothing but travel.
Completely changing subjects here. I have now completed the first unit of the first level of Rosetta Stone Italian. I realize how confusing that sounds so I will explain. Rosetta Stone courses are split into levels these are the major divides that you purchase. Then within the levels there are units and there are 4 of these per level. Then within each unit there are 4 lessons. Then you want to further subdivide there are like sections but you will rarely see me write about a single section.
So if you managed to keep up with that you now know that I am one quarter of the way through the Italian Level 1. What does this mean? Well that I know how to use about 50-75 words and I'm beginning to be able to form sentences that might actually be used in every day conversation. I have learned a few things that will be beneficial to my journey but at this point I still lack the required skills to even navigate out of the airport lol.
Now my thoughts so far on Rosetta Stone. I have been for the most part very impressed with Rosetta Stone as a product. The way the lessons are taught allows me to retain great amounts of what was taught. Enough so that if I run across a word that I'm not comfortable with in the exercises I am surprised. Now this comment may need adjusting moving forward but for the time being I am retaining massive amounts of Italian.
However as good as most of the aspects are I would be remiss if I didn't talk on the short comings. My primary language is English and I have taken some French in the past but for the most part I have only spoken in languages without masculine and feminine words. Moving now into a language that almost every word depends it's own or another words for lack of a better word gender is very difficult. This is compounded by the fact that this is not reinforced early in the course. I have since had to go back to previous lessons and memorize a word's gender. I do not know if there is a method to the madness that is gender words but I have yet to find one.
Another issue I have is the exercises that are supposed reinforce your knowledge of newly learned words can often be solved with words learned in previous sections thus nullifying the ability to reinforce your knowledge. For example in the previous lesson you learned the words for boy, girl, man, and woman and in your current lesson the one you need practice with you learned the words for run, walk, eat, and drink. Rosetta Stone with often show 4 pictures and they will be a man, a woman, a boy, and a girl and then it will ask you to match there actions to the pictures the problem is they will say "the boy runs" and without even knowing the 4 new words you could match the picture by the previously known word. This continues with the other 3 as well.
I can see how this is beneficial because it continues to reinforce the words acquired before I just find myself wanting to really learn the new words without the helping hand of material I am already comfortable with.
My next post will encompass my broad goals for my trip to Italy and what I hope to achieve while and I will speak on a few of the ways I am going about planning.
Bryan
