Ciao tutti. I’ve always managed my reviews pretty well but this week, mamma mia, I nearly drowned under a monumental avalanche; I’ve obviously been working too hard at some time or other;-)
So this seems as good a time as any to stop worrying about keeping my reviews tidy and just keep moving on and learning. Cosa ne pensi?
I try to balance my reviews with the mastered sentences.
I do a hundred sentences a day, half new, half review and a mix of various categories.
The balance so far: nearly 13 k sentences, 7 k mastered, 5 k scheduled for review.
I am a slow learner, so only fluency fast track wouldn’t work for me.
As a teaching professional I can only say, that there is no universal recipe.
Know your own learning habits. Do you learn by seeing, hearing or writing?
Know your goal. My goal is enjoying Italian literature.
I will have little opportunity for conversation.
Although this summer the Italian came in handy “con una gomma a terra in Saluzzo”.
Ciao @anon94972132, tks for such a positive post! I’m just happy to be learning and improving so I’m going to venture into a new regime. And speaking of literature our Italian Bookclub is currently reading “Le otto montagne” by Paolo Cognetti (brilliant) and on my own “Se questo è un uomo” Primo Levi (ditto!)
Before Covid I used to go to “school” regularly in Venice, Lucca or Florence instead of a holiday so I’m probably v rusty, but reading out loud is such a great way to keep in trim;-)
A dopo e stammi bene;-)
I balance typically unless I’m having a hairy day entirely.
50 new and 50 review. On a hairy day 40 new and no review.
Is the BookClub open to members (or on that other board)? I’d be interested in perhaps joining.
I’m reading “Sara al Tramonto” - a giallo for my own amusement, and a light fluffy book called “Per Dieci Minuti” for combo listening/reading practice. I wanted something with short chapters to listen, then read, then listen and read at the same time - and that fits the bill perfectly.
I’ve read Levi in English and he is brilliant.
Ciao. The “official” Bookclub (“Le otto montagne”) is on Life&Language.boards.net though one or two of us like to chat about it in our Italianduo.boards.net club. As you already belong to both, no prob, just join in.
Anybody else interested, just register and join in.
A dopo…
I used to do 40-50 new sentence a day, and clean the review queue, but lately, I cannot keep up with that pace anymore. For a while I only did reviews until I I finally caught up… then tried to do 10 new sentences a day plus the reviews.
Currently I feel I need to rest a bit, so I try to do about 50 reviews per day, plus 10 new sentences. Maybe I will regain a bit of energy in the future, and clean up my backlog again!
I think doing reviews is useful, but it can be boring. Maybe if the sentences in the fluency fast track start to appear overwhelming, it is time to try the 500 - 1000 most common words for a while, for example.
Since I am at it: review has (at least) two different meanings in English:
1 -“to do again an old lesson”, and
2 - “to give a critical opinion on something”.
In Italian we use different words for the two meanings: I would use “ripasso” in this case. “recensione” is the translation for meaning number 2 above.
@mike-lima You’re so right, I found I was racing through my reviews just to get them out of the way, all pretty exhausting. Am going to try quality over quantity for a while and really take in what I’m typing and hearing.
Enjoy your rallentamento;-) e grazie per “ripasso”.
Hi Floria7. I did have a problem in the past with my reviews. For some reason I thought I needed to clean them up. I don’t do this anymore in the avalanche sizes because I keep mine to 40-50 sentences a day and not every day. I have set up 0% mastered at 1 day, 25 % at 1 day, 50% at 10 days , 75% at 20 days and 100 % to never. This way the whole chart of my reviews is in my sight always. I know that there is nothing beyond that chart. On a good day I do a 100 new sentences a day from “transcribe” mode (hard mode). This way I listen and write. If I completely understand the sentence and can say it myself, I just “100 percent” it and move on to the next sentence. From those 100 new sentences a day I might have 10 to 40 sentences which I would want to see again. The hard ones are “favorited” and I can review them in the evening of the same day. The easier sentences will pop up the next day in reviews but in very manageable numbers. I am so over the “avalanche size reviews” .It was such a big turn off for me. BTW, a break from CM for a couple of days or even for months for me was a good idea too. Now I enjoy my pace because I manage it.
Ciao @barcarolle. Mille grazie for a very interesting post. It’s interesting how we all find a way to suit. I’ll certainly look at your set up tomorrow with a clear head.
Nel frattempo, thanks again and stay well!
Nice, I’m reading Luciano De Crescenzo’s “Il caffè sospeso” for basically the same reasons (nice, fluffy, short chapters).
Will def want to dive into book club and more substantial material at some point 
Ciao @sindaco. Keep us in mind;-) I prefer to feel the paper of a real book but go with Kindle whose translations are pretty good and helpful. Think I’d be lost without a good 
book.
Same here, I always prefer reading a paper version, but kindle-type e-reading can be very helpful for easy look-up of words etc. when reading books in another language or on the go.
I’m e-reading another book, but it’s not progressing quickly, because I only read it while travelling etc. “L’anomalia” by Hervé Le Tellier. There the translations come in very handy.
I read the synopsis - looks veeeery interesting!