Gli ostacoli dello sviluppo

Ciao tutti,

Obstacles of progress - the name of this post, was chosen on the basis that I'm feeling very inadequate at the moment. I really want to speak, to understand more clearly... but it's coming very slowly.  I think this is probably due to a lack of use of the language, and of solid memories of words associated with that use,  it seems like an apparition, coming and going as it pleases.

 I'm trying now to recreate the same frustrating environment of immersion as I would get abroad, I've made a playlist of songs on YouTube, I'm trying to read many of the numerous children's stories that I've found, i bought an Italian encyclopaedia for children going into middle-school there, I'm doing lots of grammar exercises (especially the ruddy pronouns) and meeting some people once a week for an hour. However even this isn't enough to get past a plateau.  It's hard when you're living by yourself (or even with other English speakers), you're cooking, cleaning, working a job, you want to relax or see friends... it becomes hard to find the time.

What I've realised is that I need two things... the first being better time management which involves looking at my schedule and trying to squeeze the last of the metaphorical juice out of it.  I'm starting to try and have some time in the morning for critical listening and imitating the pronunciation, whilst having breakfast. This only needs to be 20 minutes a morning, but if I add that up over a week, that's almost two and a half hours. The second is that I need to be forced to use the language. I need to need it, as nearly everyone wants to learn another language, but I need to need it.  There are plenty of people who go to another country and after years, they still don't know how to speak it and they are immersed, they have that advantage... . I know one guy who has been here for 5 years and still cant hold a basic conversation, and plenty of other people who're content with communicating badly after 3 or 4.  I don't want to be that person.  I recently got a request from some Italians to say at my place via CouchSurfing.   So this gave me an idea, I could host CSers from Italy as a way of providing some immersion, even if it's only temporary, more on this later.

Anyway, I'm going to keep working hard at it, and keep you updated on the progress. At the moment it seems negligible, but this is my update anyway.
Grazie per tutto il sostegno che mi date,
Rob



P.S.  Update on the pipes, my E note is too sharp so I've been wondering why it's been sounding really crap. I'm getting that fixed, also I've booked some one to one lessons so my playing is starting to fill out/take a better shape.