[Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers

Mon Mar 19 17:52:48 EST 2007

The program that Best Buy sells has levels and then quizzes...it is fun to log into my program and see scores (or maybe it is total score) and then to go back and try to do it again and find it takes practice. Leigh S.C.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Jay Cloidt 
  To: Russ Crum 
  Cc: idyllchat 
  Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 3:59 PM
  Subject: Re: [Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers

  Rosetta Stone kind of works like that. They show you pictures, say a phrase, and you to pick the picture that matches the phrase. They have it written out as well. That's the basic exercise. It engages looking, listening, and reading all at once. Then you can do it with just the audio, or just the written words. 

  Then they have a voice comparison where the native speaker says a phrase (with the picture of it up) and you repeat it. It shows their voice print and your voice print. And you can listen to both afterwards. It's kind of cool. Just on the first lesson, I realized that there are voice stops in the German language I never notice before. 

  They don't concentrate on grammar. They sneak it in on you they way you learned to speak as a kid.  They give you different situations and the correct forms to use in those situations. It's interesting.

  I'll write back in a couple of months and let you know how it went.

     - Jay

  On 3/19/07, Russ Crum < rrcrum at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
    Jay,

    It will be interesting to see what you think of Rosetta Stone. I have seen it advertised.

    We tried "Before You Know It", from Transparent Language, for both Spanish and italian and liked it.It is a flash card system for learning words and simple phrases, not really "learning" a language. That is the approach we have used in the past anyway except with flash cards we made up and an after dinner exercise. An additional thing I liked about BYKI was that they have a Palm program component so your list can also be on a Palm PDA, which was handy rather than having to be at our computers. 

    Russ Crum
    rrcrum at sbcglobal.net

    On Mar 19, 2007, at 11:23, Jay Cloidt wrote:

      Langenscheidt's is a great dictionary. I used it studying Italian and never needed a bigger one until I tried to read literature. I got turned on to it when I was studying Russian. Their Russian/English dictionary is excellent. 

      I'm experimenting with Rosetta Stone for studying German. We're going to Switzerland, and I know from being there that most people speak English, but I want to try to learn some German. We'll be in the Swiss Heartland which is German speaking, then we're going to Ticino where I can use my Italian. 

      I've never had a problem in an Italian restaurant. We went to a little local restaurant in Milan once where no one spoke English and I had started studying it yet. It was a small neighborhood restaurant that catered to locals. We still managed to get seated and order a 3 course meal with no major problems using a limited number of Italian words. 

        - Jay

      On 3/18/07, haggart <haggart at moscow.com > wrote:
              Marcia

              Welcome to UnTours. You will love the experience and you will love Italy. We were in Tuscany and Rome several years ago and plan a return trip to Tuscany and Venice this fall. 

              Getting from place to place is, in fact, reasonably easy to do. Be sure at the orientation to ask if they have a local map. We did this a got a very good one that had a lot of secondary roads not on the other maps. 

              Gas stations are easy to find and the ones that we used had an attendant who did the filling up and took the credit card. But that may have changed and you may run into self serve near the larger cities. Orientation folks can tell you what is available in your area and what their times of operation are. 

              Never used a tour guide in Italy.

              Language is not a big barrier. We have never actually learned the language of the countries we have visited in Europe, but we do take the time to learn a few useful phrases and of most important to learn to ask in Italian if the person you are speaking to speaks English. People like to have you at least try to speak their language. We also take a phrase book wherever we go and in Italy found a little yellow book called "Langenscheidt's Universal Dictionary" in this case "English-Italian/Italian-English" - which we actually bought in a shop in Italy, but I am sure is available in the USA. It is small enough to fit in a pocket, but is packed with words. This is useful when driving and reading parking signs to make sure that you are parking legally and won't get towed off! Anyway, we found the dictionary to very helpful during our travels. I think this company publishes them in several languages. Check with your local book store. 

              Lastly, look at the trip logs at the Idyll web site to get insights on what places people found interesting.......... but most of all take your time and have fun!

              Pete

              Peter and Margaret Haggart
              haggart at moscow.com
              -------Original Message-------

              From: Marcia Waffner
              Date: 3/17/2007 3:42:54 AM
              To: idyllchat at lists.untours.com
              Subject: [Idyllchat] ? for tenured travelers

              Hi
              We're planning our first trip to Italy in the fall. Untours sounds just 'up our alley' since we don't want to be with large groups and on tour buses, however we were wondering if we can hire guides or ask for recommendations from this group on the 'who, what, where and when' of getting around.  Some questions: 1.  is getting from place to place reasonably straightforward   2. are gas stations easy to find  3.  can we hire tour guides on our own and if so, how 4.  is language a huge barrier if our Italian is limited. 

              Thanks for any help...
              Marcia

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