The Italian Self-Study group is coordinated by Matt Dunford.
| Group Overview | |
|---|---|
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The Italian Self-Study group is dedicated to improving our Italian by
short, weekly assignments. It is a very informal, online course. All
levels of proficiency are welcome. All submissions are also
anonymous.
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| Assignments | |
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Assignments are due every Wednesday at about
midnight Eastern Time (9pm Pacific).
I say "about" because I usually do not collate the assignments right
at midnight, but you should
have them to me by then. Send them to me at
zoot@zotikos.com; do NOT
post them to the Italian list.
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| Assignment schedule | |
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Current Assignment: #124 (due March 5th, 2008) Past Assignments:February 27th, 2008: #123 collation February 13th, 2008: #122 collation February 6th, 2008: #121 collation January 30th, 2008: #120 collation January 23rd, 2008: #119 collation January 9th, 2008: #118 collation Archive for 2007, 2006 and 2005 | |
| How to Join the Group | |
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There really isn't much of a signing-up process. To do this, here's all you have to do: | |
| 1. | First, pick a 3-letter set of initials, preferably your own, but you can make them up too. Mine are MAD. Once you've done so, let me know what you've chosen so I can put you in the database and check for duplicates. |
| 2. | Next, please make sure that you join the mailing list where the list is hosted (the "Italian" list). That's where assignments and collations will be posted, and where discussion about the assignments (if any) takes place. To sign up, follow the instructions here. |
| 3. | Send in your assignment to my email address, zoot@zotikos.com. Assignments are due each Wednesday night at midnight Pacific Time. The assignments are not cumulative in any way (other than the same way any story or letter would be), so you can start at any time. |
| 4. |
The format of your assignment is VERY important.
Please make sure you read this to get it right. Our assignments must follow a special format because they're collated by means of a very
useful Perl script created by Kirk Lougheed.
Each assignment is collated one paragraph at a time. Put your initials, followed by a space, at the start of your translation of each paragraph. Please don't include the Italian you're translating in your assignment! The collation script can't tell the difference between Italian and English, so it gets very confused. You may be as literal or as smooth in your English translations as you wish. I find that, in a given group, it is often useful to have people who do both - both fairly literal translations, and looser, more colloquial English translations. It takes all kinds to make a world. |
| 5. |
Make sure to use a subject line on your email that
looks something like this:
Self-Study Jul 13th assignment (XYZ)where "XYZ" are the 3 initials you picked in step 1. This makes it easier for me to pick out the emails of people taking part in the group (and is used by my email program to automatically sort mails into folders). Other emails about the assignments should also have the word "Self-Study" in the subject line. This is good list citizenry, and allows other people on the list (of whom there are many!) to easily read or ignore our group's mailings. You'll appreciate other people doing this after you've been on the list for awhile! |
| Honorable Mentions | |
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Here is a list of sites that have mentioned the collation: | |
| 1. | About.com's Italian section: click here |
| 1. | In the newsletter of a very helpful blog: click here |