Milano Mall

I'm away, so I will just be giving you some cool photos to look at!

Right next to the Duomo is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which I am told is the world's first mall. This is a photo from the Duomo square, looking into the mall.



The central roof of the mall is a big dome. When we were there the holiday lights were still up! The central motif is the crest of Milan.



The floor of the mall is mosaic. Near the central dome is this famous bull:



You have to spin on your heel on the bull. It's good luck if you can make a full turn!

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 1

I finished Unit 1 of Italian 1. That took a long time. I am not enamored of Rosetta Stone. I think the charges generally leveled against it, that it's a vocab exercise that doesn't develop conversational skills and good grammar, are a little harsh.

At the end of the unit, they give a "capstone" exercise which I found both helpful and frustrating. Basically you have to speak dialog for a scene. The problem was, the main character was often asking the questions, so it was easy to come up with something that worked but wasn't right. When I was responding to questions, I was pretty competent at answering them.

All in all, Rosetta Stone is a big time sink, but I think I will continue on with it.

Missoni Decisions and More Pimsleur

I am going with:

The shoes.
The two short dresses.
The black and white swimsuit.
The sweatshirt when it arrives.
The impostor tights.

The multicolored swimsuit didn't fit as well as the black and white one. The woven part just was to stiff. I did like the long dress, but it didn't fit me quite as well as I would like, and with the whole knit and under-dress thing, it seems awful warm for a summer dress. I can't tell, maybe it is a fall and spring dress? It's just not quite doing it for me.


Pimsleur Italian 1, Lesson 14: Numbers up to 19! Diciannove! This lesson was all about the vendor-customer interaction. "Give me..." Mi dia... It's a pretty natural progression from the last few lessons. So far so good!

In Wine Country

Well, today I am off for California, for my cousin's wedding in Napa. I won't have a lot of internet access while I am there. I will set up a few posts to publish this week but they will be just random Italy stuff...

I got an old microphone from Ross's parents that I am using for Rosetta Stone. While the speaking component isn't as exciting as I hoped it would be, it's definitely an improvement for a few segments. I realized that part of the reason the Rosetta Stone lessons feel long is that they are really long! I was looking at the times quoted at the start of each unit, 30 minutes, which is actually the time for the first core activity. That core activity is followed by eight or ten shorter activities, which are quoted at 5 or usually 10 minutes each. So adding this up, each lesson is supposed to be around two hours long. No wonder they feel long! I got the impression that I was supposed to be doing a lesson at a go, but now I don't feel bad breaking it down into smaller sittings!

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 1 Lesson 3

The pace is picking up a little. This set of vocab includes adjectives, which is fun. Though, one thing that is killing me, "egg" uovo is masculine in the singular, but "eggs" uova the plural is feminine. This really threw me off with the pronouns and the adjectives. The adjectives this lesson were all colors, which was a pretty good idea since it includes adjectives that have singular forms that end in "e" and ones that can end in "a" or "o". I have gotten to the point where I skip through some of the activities, since they are just too repetitive. I feel like the immersive stuff is working for me in terms of improving my understanding, but I think my conversational speaking is not quite going at the same pace.

Oh, and the only microphone I have, my cell phone hands-free, does not work with Ross's desktop, so I guess I won't be finding out about that part anytime soon!

Rosetta Stone Italian 1 Unit 1 Lesson 2

In Rosetta Stone, each course is broken into units, each with several lessons. I'm on Unit 1, the language basics unit. Later units in the course are on pretty standard topics, greetings, introductions, shopping, etc. I just wrapped up lesson two of the first unit. Ugh, the going is slow. There is so much repetition that I get lazy by the end. There are a bunch of activities within the lesson. Some of them are listening based, where you hear a phrase, and match it to the picture. Some have you typing in the spelling of the words, some just have you matching words to pictures, and some have you selecting words from drop-down boxes to complete the phrase as you hear it. There are a few more variations. The issue is that you go through each of these activities with the same set of words and phrases within a lesson. And on top of that there's repetition within each activity. Like, one page you might be matching "the man runs" (l'uomo corre), "the woman runs", "the girl runs", "the boy runs", and on the next page you match "the girl runs", "the girl walks", etc. So, needless to say, the repetition is high. And, in this second lesson, in addition to the new material presented, you redo some activities from lesson 1. There will be some more variety as there is more back-material to draw on, but as it is, I can barely stand to do a whole half-hour lesson in a sitting. I'm going to stick with it a little more, in the hopes that it picks up the pace.

At this point, I feel like this is in essence a vocab and grammar building exercise. I need to try the next lesson using a microphone, since there is apparently some cool voice recognition and matching stuff that Rosetta Stone has to offer. You know, improve my pronunciation. Maybe it will be really cool and it will have you answer questions by speaking...

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lessons 12 and 13

More counting, up to sedici "sixteen". And the verb "to have" avere. That one has funny conjugation. I have is ho, you have is ha. I have got to read up on verb conjugation in general. One of the things about Pimsleur that I am a little not in love with is the lack of familiar you verb conjugation. This set of lessons uses paying a check at a shop or restaurant, with asking about how much you owe. Quanto le devo?

Anyway, I am enjoying Pimsleur, but I think I am going to try to catch up on the Rosetta Stone stuff, too.

(Oh my god!) Shoes.

My Missoni shoes came in the mail today. Oh my god! shoes.

I am very happy with the pattern placement on the toes. Also, these are incredibly nice for Target shoes. They have leather soles, and the uppers are multi-layer under the knit. Very nice.

Also, H&M has these faux Missoni tights now. I bought a pair. Think I can wear them with the tights, or would it be overkill?

The title of my post refers to this Kelly classic:



"I think you have too many shoes." Mildly not safe for work, language.

Missoni Whoa

My stuff came today! All except the hoodie, which is apparently in a separate shipment from another facility. And whoa, the swimsuits are actually knit! It's just hard to tell on the site because the knit is quite fine... Damn, I may have to keep both of them after all...

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lessons 10 and 11

The lessons are getting to some of the regular stuff I like to learn. Numbers, from l'una a le dieci. Today oggi and tomorrow domani. The conversational practice has been about finding good times to have dinner and lunch with a friend. This I imagine myself doing in real life, so that's good!

Also, one of my Polimi friends is helping me practice my Italian emailing. This is obviously a lot easier, since I can use translation tools to help me pick words. But I am crafting the sentences myself, not just plugging English into google translate or something! One of the real disadvantages of learning through audio lessons is that I don't know how to spell a lot of the words. For example, I was surprised to figure out how to spell anche "also" or "too". I guess that's totally in line with how it sounds, but I was thinking of it as "anke" in my mind, though that is not very Italian!

Pismleur Italian 1 Lesson 9

Finally, we get to the stuff like numbers, at least a little bit. Here, we are talking about telling time. A che ora? "At what hour?" This time, the conversation is about trying to get a woman to have lunch, dinner, or a drink with you. You keep asking her if a certain time is OK, she keeps saying no. I like the expression for "I'm not OK with that." Non sono d'accordo! See what I was saying about Pimsleur? Weird!

One Thing I Am Sure To Keep

So there is one Missoni purchase I am pretty sure I will keep:

It's loud, it's crazy, and I love it! But I am a hoodie person in general, so any hoodie I get I will probably end up wearing a ton.

(I should also mention that all of these Missoni photos are copyrighted to Target, not me.)

Missoni Swim

I also ponied up for the two Missoni 1-piece swimsuits:

Apparently the black and white one has been more popular, but I think the multicolor is more likely to look good on most people. I will not be publishing pictures of me in these swimsuits to the blog :D

The cut of these suits is very high in the back, which is pretty appealing, actually. The only bummer is that they are just prints, rather than the textured knit/crochet swim wear that Missoni often designs. They do appear to be fully lined... Another good thing! Even at Target prices, I will probably only keep one of the two. I admit to being satisfied with $15 swim suits for casual beach wear most of the time.

More Missoni

These are the other three Missoni dresses I ordered. I like the top two the best, but I really like the cap sleeve on the last one. Again, I have to try them on and see how I feel. In person, the few of these knits I did get to feel were very nice, heavy weight, heavy enough to wear without worrying about coverage, though I can definitely see the first two with light button down shirts underneath. Also, I have to watch out for the length. If I totally love any of these, I might use one of them as my second dress at the upcoming family wedding.

Anyway, I want to wear more dresses. The problem is actually, believe it or not, the shoes. I am really a sneakers person, and that don't work with dresses. Though, it Milan, it will be hot enough in the summer that I will probably go with sandals a lot during the summer, and plenty of mine are cute enough to support dresses.

Rosetta Stone, Italian 1

So, I tried my first Rosetta Stone lesson. Apparently, I need to get a microphone! These are interactive, picture-based lessons. The first unit of the first lesson focuses on distinguishing between single and plural, masculine and feminine. There's some basic vocab included, but basically as a support of the concepts. This is pretty much a no-explanation immersion learning style, as opposed to the explained, constructed style of Pimsleur. There is lots of repetition. Too much, in my opinion. Maybe that's just the first lesson? It will be very complementary to the style of the Pimsleur stuff, I think.

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 7-8

Well, here I am, rolling along with the Italian. I haven't had a conversation with a real person yet, but I have practiced a few of the Pimsleur lines with one of my Italian-speaking friends. I have trouble getting up to the speed they have even in the Pimsleur lessons, nevermind actual Italian speed, but I have a feeling it will come in time.

The Pimsleur lessons just keep building. I like what they are going through now: question words. Che cosa is "what", quando is "when", dove is "where", chi is "who". You can make questions without using these words, just by taking a sentence and using a question intonation, but that sort of only gives you yes-no answer questions. "You'd like to eat." versus "You'd like to eat?", basically.

Missoni

I am certainly not the only person who is blogging about the Target Missoni collection, but I am still excited about it. I didn't make it to the Target by my house quickly enough to get most of the clothes I wanted, but I did make it in time to the website to get some of the clothes I wanted. Here's the dress I did get:

The other thing I really want is the flats... We'll see if I can get them on ebay for a not outrageous price.

I want to wear Italian fashion in Italy! This is my chance! I'll be asking people here and in person which of the looks I bought I should keep, and which I should return. I'll put up pictures :D

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 6

Wow, I wasn't kidding about the picking up chicks theme. This lesson has "Do you want to have something to drink at my place?" Apparently in Italian men are a little pushy. On the plus side, they are also teaching women to dodge. Io non so. "I don't know." Piu tardi. "Later."

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 5

I think I have finally identified an underlying theme in Pimsleur: picking up strange ladies. Lesson 5's conversation focuses on asking for directions from a young lady (a review of lesson 4) and parlaying that into asking her if she wants to get a bite to eat or drink. This one has been a little tough, I had to listen to it twice to get the verb volere. The lesson introduces using the verb in the conditional, which is a little out there.

The Pismleur approach is very much conversational. I am used to trying to learn a language with a stronger written basis. Especially the verb conjugation. I feel like I should dive into another language course that has a workbook. While I am think the conversational part is working for me and I can form appropriate sentences with the parts the lessons are feeding me, my vocab is incredibly limited. I mean, I think a very common situation in another country is reading a menu. I want to be able to figure out a menu and order from it, but Pimsleur is definitely not focused on the written. Also, it hasn't yet done basic stuff, like numbers, days of the week, telling time. These things are probably coming, but I could stand to get started on filling out that vocab.

More Duomo Insanity

I'm catching up from spending this last weekend in New York... Here's some more cool Duomo photos to tide the internets over!

Fellowship Application

I worked on my fellowship letter last week, and sent it to my future advisors in Milan... I want to submit it next week, since the fellowship program supervisor will be returning from her vacation then. What I need for my application package:

1. My letter of intent.
2. A letter of support from one of my hosts at Polimi.
3. A letter of support from one of my MIT advisors.
4. My resume.

4 is easy, I just finished up a first draft of 1. Gotta convince everyone else to write up their parts!

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 4

Oh, the unit on asking for direction. I knew it had to be coming soon. I expect a unit on ordering food in a restaurant to appear soon. I had to look up the spellings of "here" and "there", "qui" and "li", to really get it. I hope they get into more specific directions stuff, too. Right, left, how far, stuff like that. But I guess that's an advanced topic.

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 3

OK, now we've gone over "Lei capiche l'italiano?" and "Io sono Americana." and "Prego". It seems like one simple conversation of concept each lesson. The first was "do you understand...", the second was about the different kinds of "are" as in "how are you?" and "Are you American?", the third was all about the basic greetings and pleasantries. I think I need something with a little more of a reading component, I feel like seeing the spellings will help me a bit.

Question for an Italian Speaker

So... In the Pimsleur lessons, they are big on pronouns. Do people usually use "io"? Like do people actually say "Io sono Americana"? Or would you just say "Sono Americana"? Also, they are big into the formal tense in Pimsleur, which I have to imagine is not how people talk to each other all the time...

Pimsleur Italian 1 Lesson 2

So, the pace has picked up a little already. The second lesson incorporates the words and phrases from the first lesson in a relatively natural way. I still dislike the "partial word" pronunciation sections. Another subway drawback, there's a reading section! On the other hand, I find the reading section irritating, since they don't actually go over the meanings of the words. So it's just pronunciation practice thing, not even vocab. Lame!

The Beginning of Pimsleur

People have recommended all sorts of Italian learning things to me. One of my friends suggested Pimsleur, and I listened to the first lesson today, on the subway. It goes pretty slowly. In a half hour, this lesson went over a five line conversation with a few variations. There's a narrator, who tells you what you are about to hear, and what to say. I hope the pace picks up a little as the lessons go on. Otherwise I may die of boredom. (Or ditch it in favor of a different language learning system...)

It seemed like listening to the lessons on the subway could work out. It's sort of lost time for me anyway, since I have a lot of walking, not quite enough time to do real reading or even really enjoy a GameBoy game. But, I am probably shortchanging this stuff by not really being able to work on my pronunciation out loud! I felt a little awkward even just mouthing the words along. I don't want to be one of those crazy people on the subway...

Have you ever used a language learning system, and did you like it?

More Duomo

There's actually a lot of photos of the Duomo from my last trip. The inside is quite lovely. When I visit a cathedral, I like to leave an offering. It seems to work the same way in all the churches of Italy. You donate a Euro or two, and light a candle as an offering.

Oh, I found a link with the pricing and hours for visiting the Duomo:

Info on Visiting

The Wikipedia page for the Duomo is pretty good, actually. (Duomo just means cathedral, but the one in Milan is usually the one people mean if they are just saying "the Duomo".)

Here's a roof-top pic:

Duomo Inside

Oh yeah, I do have a photo taken from the inside of the Duomo when the stained glass lights are on:



And here's one taken around dusk from the outside, when the lights are on. I think we had just climbed down from the roof at that point. (They let you go up there, there's an elevator and stuff. I'm not Spiderman!)

Duomo

So, Milan is a place I have been before. Actually, a couple times. The last time was in January of 2010, to visit a good friend who was working on her PhD at Polimi... We didn't stay too long but we saw the major sites, like the Duomo.



I loved it at night especially. The stained glass glows at night, they have internal lighting so that you can enjoy it when you are around the building.

Maybe Milan

It's looking more and more likely that I will be going to Milan, to work at the Politecnico and ITIA. I just emailed with my potential future boss about putting together my fellowship application letter. Basically, I have to write a letter detailing why I want to go to Politecnico, and I need a letter of support from a faculty member at Politecnico and another from an MIT faculty member. That's the core of the application!

So, for me, I basically have to get cracking and write this letter. Once I finish it up, I am thinking that it will be time to get some Italian lessons.