Rae of Light

My foray into the delectable language of Italy continues apace.  After months of staying at 34% I suddenly had a dramatic leap to 40%.  The main reason for this is that I adjusted the way in which I use the app. Every day it sends me an email reminding me to do my daily practice. This email presents me a topic to move on to.  Like every good student I obeyed my teacher and did this.  However, I would be in the midst of a revision exercise and come to a complete stop because I couldn’t remember vocabulary. So I decided to trust my instincts and redo units the app told me I’d already completed.  Now I ignore the instructions from the app’s emails and redo a unit until I’m confident I’ve retained both the vocabulary and the grammar.  If you think about it logically this makes absolute sense. In order for something to go from short term memory it has to be revisited and repeated so it can be stored in the long term. I find it incredibly easy t...

So, every year I set myself various challenges. This I do primarily to stop myself from getting bored and also to give myself something to do in between writing, reading, teaching and dancing.  This year, as readers of this blog will know, I’ve decided to learn Italian. Step 1:          Come down from my crazy Christmas high which was created by spending way too much time with fantastic friends, eating great food and generally imbibing outrageous quantities of mulled spirits. Step 2:          Run around the house screaming in panic as I realise I’ve set myself yet another insane challenge. Step 3:          Take several deep breaths of lavender aroma therapy oil then trawl through the internet to find a site to help me complete my challenge. There was of course Babble. I shied away – the biblical image the name invoked was too strong and made me envisage failure even before I’d b...