It's week twelve, meaning Genius Hour is over! I have enjoyed this project and am a little sad it is over. I believe I have made a lot of progress from the first week, and I have learned a lot. I wanted to do this project because it gave me a reason to learn Italian. I have wanted to learn Italian for a while, but I never had the motivation to do so. Genius Hour gave me a reason to learn, and I am very grateful for it. My Italian is not perfect, and I still have a lot to learn, but I feel like I have improved over the twelve weeks.
At the beginning of the project, I said my goal was to be able to introduce myself and have simple conversations in Italian. At this point, I can introduce myself and say some things, but understanding other people in conversations is where I struggle. The words I have learned are not all helpful in regular conversations but are still beneficial to know. The things I focused on in this project were basic grammar skills instead of conversation words. I felt it was more important to understand the basics behind the language before I jumped into harder things. That being said, I still learned a lot that is helpful in conversations, and I hope to build on that going forward. Looking back, I wish I had done more with my mom rather than Duolingo because that is what helped me the most. When I would talk with her, I was able to make sure I was saying things correctly, and she taught me a lot. If I could do the project over again, I would spend more time actually talking and having conversations with people like my mom rather than doing as much Duolingo. All of the things I used were helpful, and I still learned a lot, but I think these things could have made me even more successful. I believe that I did reach my goal, but there is still a lot to learn. I can have very simple conversations but would not be able to survive if I went to Italy. As I move forward, I want to continue learning Italian and be able to learn more and improve on what I already know. The things I learned throughout this project will help set a base for me to learn more, and hopefully, I can be fluent in Italian one day. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to spend these twelve weeks learning Italian, and I can't wait to learn more.
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We are at week 11, meaning there is only one more week till the end! It is crazy to think that there is only one more week and we will be finished. I am looking back over all the things I learned, and I'm trying to get a good idea of how much I learned. I am not fluent yet, but I feel like I have made a lot of progress. Next week is the final blog post, and then I will explain in more detail whether or not I reached my goal. For this week, I want to focus more on the final presentation.
Near the end of this week, I started to work on my final project. I haven't done much on the actual presentation, but I have thought a lot about it and have ideas for it. I continued with Duolingo every day, but last week and the week to come will be focused on the presentation. I have a lot to do with little time to do it. I know what I want to do in my presentation, but I haven't had time to start it. At this point, I am mostly done with new material, although I plan on continuing with Duolingo. Right now, I am just reviewing and coming up with the final presentation. These past few weeks have been stressful with it coming up to the end of the year, so I have had much less time to work on my Italian. Because of this, I have worked on my presentation and will finish that in the coming week. It is surprising to see how fast this semester and this project have gone by. I plan on continuing with learning Italian after this project, but this was a good start for me. In my next blog, I will talk more about everything I learned and whether or not I have reached my goal. It's week 10, and it is time to start thinking about the final presentation. I continued with my usual routine of learning, but I started thinking about how I wanted to do my presentation. I have not started the actual presentation, but I have thought about how I want to do it. The end is coming soon, and I need to prepare myself for that. I want to continue learning, but next week I want to start to shift my focus more toward the presentation. It was a busy week, but I managed to learn a lot.
I started this week by doing Duolingo every day, and I have gotten to a 74-day streak. I understand the topics well now, and I am continuing to study them. At this point in the project, it is crucial to go over the things I know instead of just cramming a bunch of words. I have been learning fewer new words but taking time to review while still learning small things. This week I have focused more on weather words and words to use in conversations. I learned words like "cool" (fresco) and "hot" (il caldo). I also learned how to use words like that in a sentence, such as "it's cold" (fa freddo) or "it's too hot" (Fra troppo caldo). Words like these can help in conversations and make simple conversations easier. This week was simple and focused on words involving the weather to make conversations easier. It was a simple week, but I still learned things that will help me. I have taken it easy this week and have thought a lot about my final presentation. The end of this project is coming very close, and I need to start getting ready for it. I will continue learning to the end and beyond, but for now, my focus will be on my presentation. I am almost through with the project, and I feel that my goal is still within reach. I don't know how good my conversation skills will be by the end, but I have made it a long way. I am proud of what I have learned so far, and I look forward to continuing my journey of learning Italian. It's week 9, meaning we are three-fourths of the way done with the genius hour project. It feels like we started the project only days ago, but now we are almost done. This project has gone by and is going by fast. I have made progress from the start, but I still have a ways to go with only a short amount of time. I have gained more confidence with my Italian over these past few weeks, and I enjoy talking in Italian with my mom. I don't know enough to have full conversations yet, but that is what I am practicing for. It is nice to have someone to talk to and give me feedback on my Italian, and it helps me beyond what learning on a website or a book can do.
This past week has been different from others in that I did Duolingo, but I only reviewed past material. This week I decided to do a book lesson in place of my Duolingo lesson. The book gives me more practical phrases for getting around and beginning basic conversations. The section I did this week was about going beyond the basic skills and expanding upon them. This lesson taught me about time and things relating to what time it is. I learned how to ask "what time is it" (che ora é) and ask "at what time" (a che ora). These are both useful things to know how to ask, and I also learned how to say times so I can ask what time it is and understand the time. Lastly, I learned a phrase that could be very helpful to me, non capisco, meaning I don't understand. This phrase is small but could be very helpful to me one day if I am in a situation when I don't understand another person when they speak Italian. This week seemed to be a successful one, and it was nice going beyond the basics. Learning more phrases that could help me in a real conversation is nice. It is important to start with the basics, but it is always good to go beyond that and build upon what you already know. As I continue through these last few weeks, I hope to continue to build on what I know and learn new words or phrases. It is crazy to think that it is already week 8. Only a few more weeks and we will finish the project. These eight weeks have gone by very quickly, and I am looking back to see where I am toward my goal. My goal was to be able to have simple conversations in Italian by the end of the twelve weeks. I think this goal is still attainable, but it will be a lot of work to get there. I have been working hard and trying to learn new things, and hopefully, I can still reach that goal.
This week has been a little bit different in terms of my schedule. I did not do a book lesson this week, but I still did Duolingo every day. This week was different because my mom was in Switzerland for a wedding, so I used that opportunity to speak Italian with family members. We called multiple days, and I tried to talk with my family members who speak Italian fluently. I had a difficult time understanding them, but it was nice getting to hear Italian used in real-life situations, and this was something that helped me a lot. Even though I needed help with translation, it was nice to be able to listen to some Italian in real life. The last thing I did this week was work on conjunctions. I learned connecting words such as and (e), but (ma), and or (o). These words are simple and easy to learn but can get trickier as you advance to more difficult conjunctions. When you get to a word like both (sia), you have to add it before the first word and then between the two words using both. There are many other options like this, and that is where it gets more complicated. Overall, the things I learned this week were not too difficult, and I learned a lot. I enjoyed being able to talk to my family in the little Italian I know, and I hope to be able to continue towards my goal for this project. Week 7 is here, and it has been a long week. It is the week before spring break, and my motivation to study has been much lower than in other weeks. I have been much less motivated to do things like Duolingo or a lesson in the book. Because of this, I decided it would be best to take a week off from learning new material and review what I have already learned. Throughout this week, I have gone over the earlier things I learned, such as words and grammar I learned early on. It will help me as I try to continue and learn more complicated things.
My main objective for this week was trying to memorize all the things I had learned. I did this by practicing on Duolingo and by looking through my notebook. I also would try to talk to my mom and ask her for help on the things I did not understand. A tip that Mr. Barker gave to me was that a way to know if you've memorized or understood something is to pretend like you have to teach it to someone else. If I could teach these concepts to someone else, that means I probably understand the concepts well. If I could not do that, I probably needed to study more. It is a method that has been helpful for me to see where I am in learning Italian. Over these seven weeks, I feel that I have made good progress. Taking a week to review has helped me. I feel much more confident with Italian, and if asked to teach someone else these concepts, I think I could do it. It was beneficial for me to take this week to review, but I plan to learn new material in the coming weeks. It is getting much more complicated, but I am excited to continue learning and hopefully be able to have simple conversations soon. It's week 6, and we are halfway through Genius Hour! It is surprising how fast this first half has been. I might be halfway, but I still have a long way to the end. I have learned a lot of words, but I still am not very good at conversations. It seems as if I am learning many words but none to use in regular conversations. It is still difficult to speak or think of sentences quickly, but I understand the grammar much better than when I started. I am still learning, and I have quite a way to go if I want to be fluent in the language.
Week 6, out of all the weeks, has been the hardest. Colors were not hard to learn and were straightforward. It was the present tense words that were difficult for me. The colors were bianco (white), giallo (yellow), rosso (red), rosa (pink), azzurro (blue), marrone (brown), arancione (orange), grigie (gray), nero (black), and verde (green). Those are most of the colors and are easy to remember. When I got to the present words, I had a lot of trouble. It was words like gives (dá), make (fai), wants (vuoi), and many more. These are all in the grammar form of saying that you are doing it. These words were difficult to keep apart because I'm learning so many at once. The words themselves are not that difficult, but I struggled because I was learning so much at one time. If I continue practicing them, I will learn to keep them apart, and I can speak the language better. We are now at the halfway point, and I have made a lot of progress. I have learned many words, and although right now I cannot have conversations, I am improving a lot. I believe that my end goal is still obtainable right now, but it will require a lot of work. My end goal was to have simple conversations in Italian and be able to speak some with my relatives. I think I can still reach this, and all the words that seem strange to learn now will hopefully be beneficial in the future. I am making lots of progress, and I look forward to continuing my journey through learning Italian. I will continue to improve and see how much farther I can get throughout the next six weeks. It is now week 5 of genius hour, meaning we are almost half done. These few weeks have gone by very fast, and it is strange to think we are almost at the halfway point. My progress has been steady, although I do not believe I am ready for any conversations yet. I still have much to learn, as I only know simple words and grammar rules. I have a long way to go, but I am making good progress in the language.
This week I have focused on learning words for clothing and questions. Clothing words have been straightforward, but the question words are very similar. Since the words are hard to tell apart, this has been hard to learn. Similar words include quanta (how many), quale (which), qual (what), and quando (when). These were the main words that I had difficulty keeping apart. The clothing words, on the other hand, were more manageable. The words that I have the most trouble remembering for clothing were camicie (shirts), tasca (pocket), and cinutra (belt). These are not particularly hard words, but they were the ones I had the worst trouble keeping apart. Besides those few words that I would get mixed up, I learned clothing quickly. This week was not a difficult one for grammar. However, I still had trouble mixing up a few words. The biggest challenge was the question words, but I know those will help me. Everything that I have learned this week and in general is all helping me get better at Italian. At times I wonder why I am learning these things, but I know that it will all help me get better. Some of the things I am learning seem strange or like I will never use them, but I understand it is all for a reason. That reason is helping me to improve in speaking and understanding the Italian language. I will continue with my routine, and each week, hopefully, I will get closer to being able to have a conversation in Italian. As I got into week 4 of genius hour, I had fallen into a good rhythm for getting my work done. I have been keeping to the schedule of doing Duolingo for at least 5 or 10 minutes a day, working on Wednesdays on my notebook and the website, on Saturday I do the book lesson, and then on Sunday, I write my blog. I have used this routine since the start, but it has gotten harder recently. I have gotten busier, which has made doing my daily Duolingo harder. Even though this is true, I have been able to continue my studies and learn a lot.
Most of what I have been doing this week includes learning about possession and plurals. I found both of these topics hard, especially the possession part of this week. The plurals were pretty straightforward. For most words, you just changed the article and the ending. Most of the time, the end would change to i or e. As for the article, it changed to le or i, which depended on the ending of the word. For me, it was easy to pick up and was not complicated. Then I got to the plurals, and that is where I struggled. It was not difficult to remember which words meant mine, yours, or ours, but it was the grammar that I found hard. For each possession word, there are 3 or 4 different words depending on the grammar. For example, the word mine is il mio, la mia, i miei, and le mie. I found it hard to keep these words apart and remember when to use each. I eventually realized that depending on the end of the word it described, that was the form to use. It is complicated and was difficult for me, but I will continue to learn it and get better at it. While this was difficult content for me to learn, it was helpful. I learned a lot about grammar this week, but I still have a lot to learn. By using these possession words more, I will be able to better understand them and when to use each word. Having these hard weeks will make my Italian much better, and I need these weeks to be able to learn. I am still learning and will continue to improve, but I am thankful for the hard week so I can get better at speaking Italian. Week 3 of Genius Hour has been much easier for me. I have been able to find a schedule that works for me and allows me to learn easier. During the week, I work on Duolingo daily whenever I find time, and I write down all I had retained on Wednesday. Then, on the weekends, I do a lesson in my Italian book, and I use all that I learned that week to write a blog post. Having this schedule allows me to do it when I need to, helping me retain everything better. At first, figuring out how I wanted to do everything to fit around my schedule was not easy. Once I found something that worked, learning Italian became much easier. It is nice having this schedule to stick to, and hopefully, I will stick with it throughout the whole project.
This week was a very productive one. I mastered multiple lessons on Duolingo, and I did a chapter in "Italian Now!". On Duolingo, I mostly learned about food and animals. I learned words such as orso, which means bear, and cipolla, which means onion. I learned many more words than that, but those are just a few. I also can use these words to make sentences. I can say the monkey is in the zoo, which would be la scimmia é nello zoo. This sentence is not one that I would use often, but it shows that I can put more words into sentences. Not only did I learn this, but I also learned more greetings in the book. I learned words like "come, cosi, and dove". These words mean how, so, and where. I can use these words to say things like how are you, where are you from, and many other things like this. These greetings are helpful and are going to allow the beginning of conversations to go much easier for me. Although I know this is just the beginning, and these small phrases are not much, I have made a lot of improvement since the beginning of this project. I have improved my understanding of the Italian language as well as the grammar and my pronunciation of Italian words. I hope that the words I have already learned will help me improve and become more fluent in Italian. During the second week of genius hour, I started to learn the basics of Italian. It was difficult at first trying to find a rhythm that worked for me. It was easy for me to do Duolingo, but I often didn't write down the words or forget them as soon as I did it. It was important that as soon as I learned something, I needed to write it down. To do this, I started a notebook that could contain all that I learned in both the book and on Duolingo. I could write down the grammar I learned, as well as all of the vocab that I had learned. This allows me to have a reference for later on, and writing it down helps me remember the words better. Once I found something that worked for me, it was much easier to learn some Italian.
I started by doing daily lessons on Duolingo. I started on Basics 1 which taught things like a girl, boy, man, and woman. I learned how to say I am and the grammar behind it. I have made good progress and have mastered Basics 1 and am now moving on to Basics 2 and Phrases. Along with doing those lessons on Duolingo, I did Unit 1 in Part 1 of the book Italian Now!. The book is laid out by "Parts" and "Units". The first part is titled Basic Skills, and I did Unit 1 in this section. Unit 1 was all about greetings and introductions. I learned how to say my name and where I am from in Italian. I also learned more grammar, including the masculine vs. feminine forms. I do not know all of these by heart yet, but I have everything written down so that I can review it and I can continue to build on the things I have learned. I must start with these basic skills. As I continue learning Italian, I can use these basics that I have learned to grow and build sentences on my own. It is difficult now, but learning simple phrases and words will improve my Italian so I can be more fluent in the language. Although I have not perfected what I have learned, I will continue to learn and work on my pronunciation as much as possible. I will continue making sure that I am saying things correctly and do all of my lessons to improve my understanding of Italian. For the first week of Genius Hour, my blog will explain what my project is, and how I plan on carrying it out. For this Genius Hour project, I will be learning to speak Italian. I have wanted to do this for a while but have never had the time to learn. I have never stuck with it before when I have previously tried to learn other languages, so Genius Hour gives me a chance to learn Italian. I wanted to learn Italian because I love the language, but mostly because my family is Italian, and I want to be able to talk to them. They only speak Italian, so it has been difficult for me to have conversations with them. Learning Italian is a way that I can get to know parts of my family better. I plan on learning using two strategies, the first being through a book titled "Italian Now!" I will also be using the app Duolingo. "Italian Now!" is a book written for beginners in Italian and goes through the basics. It goes by chapter, starting with simple words and introductions and progressing to more difficult sentences and grammar as you get further into the chapters. The app Duolingo also goes through learning Italian by starting with the basics and going on to other topics such as phrases, food, animals, and much more. The benefit of using both is that the book gives me all the words, but using Duolingo allows me to hear what they are saying. I can learn the words and mostly the grammar in the book, but I am learning to speak and hear Italian by using Duolingo. By using these two strategies, I hope to become more fluent in Italian, and by the end of the project, I hope to be able to introduce myself and have simple conversations in Italian. This is my end goal, and hopefully, I will reach it!
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