Continuing my lessons, the sort of sentence translations I’m dealing with now are like “I wanted to believe that you would have looked at me one last time.” which becomes “Volevo credere che mi avresti guardato un’ultimo volte.”
The other thing I’ve started doing is reading my first book in Italian. Some time ago I picked up a copy of Diario di una Schiappa, the Italian translation of Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I tried to make a start at it a couple of times, bit each time it was a real struggle getting through even a page or two of the text, because I hadn’t learnt enough verb tenses and conjugations to make it more than a few words without having to look something up in my Italian-English dictionary.
But now I’ve started again, and am making good progress. I can read roughly half the sentences without needing to look up anything, and in most others I only need to look up a new vocabulary word or two. Which is good, because it’s broadening my vocabulary a lot more than just doing Duolingo’s lessons. For example, some of the new words I’ve learnt include: scherzo (joke), uscire (to go outside), riuscire (to succeed), svegliare (to wake up).
Oh, and it’s a hilarious book, which is keeping me wanting to read more. I’ve not read the English version, so it’s discovering new funny things each time I read a bit. And because it’s a children’s book in diary format, it’s easy to read a relatively small section at a time.