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Original or Translated Novels | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| tea oolong Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4407 days ago 28 posts - 33 votes Studies: Korean* | Message 1 of 11 14 December 2013 at 12:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I started reading my second novel in years so I need some advice. With the last book I
read I looked up every unfamiliar word and jotted it down. However, the last book had nearly 300 pages and I averaged fifteen new words a page. Should I learn the 4,000 plus words before starting my next book, or move on to the next book, repeating the same process? Thank you. Oh, the topic: as an intermediate Korean learner reading high school level teen novels, does one suggest an original or a translated piece of work? thank you. Edited by tea oolong on 14 December 2013 at 4:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| bela_lugosi Hexaglot Senior Member Finland Joined 6445 days ago 272 posts - 376 votes  Speaks: English, Finnish*, Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish Studies: Russian, Estonian, Sámi, Latin | Message 2 of 11 14 December 2013 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think you should first read the novel in your native language and then read it in your L2, especially if the book is that long. I know from personal experience that if you stop to look up words every 30 seconds, it gets pretty boring after a while.
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4524 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 11 14 December 2013 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
At about my third Harry Potter book I stopped worrying about trying to learn all the words I came across as I was reading. The problem was that one book which takes say two weeks to read, gives about three months worth of words to learn in Anki (at 30 words/day). So I'd either have to wait until I learnt all the words before starting a new book, or have an ever increasing pile of words to memorize. I think it's much more valuable to keep reading and not worrying about learning every word. Overtime the words will stick as if my magic. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4512 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 4 of 11 14 December 2013 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Have you typed the words on the computer? If so, you could easily run them through a
frequency list and learn those which are among the X most frequent words. Nontheless, don't wait until you start your next book. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6894 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 5 of 11 14 December 2013 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Looking up every unfamiliar word and jotting it down would be too much for me. I may use it only for short texts/excerpts or for the languages I already know at a advanced level. The really useful words tend to be repeated. I look up only those that I really want to look up :), if that makes any sense. Using an e-book reader might be helpful to speed up the reading process. If I am using Anki (not at the moment), I add only those words which I feel like learning / which seem to be useful. Concluding, I wouldn't bother learning all the words, I would rather move on to the next book.
I am not a big fan of reading books I already know (or watching movies, for that matter) but that's very much a matter of individual preference. I find reading/waching stuff I don't know yet more engaging (I want to know what happens next :)), and more importantly, I tend to associate strongly a given language with reading/watching materials, and reading the same thing in another language (especially if it's a book I love) does not seem natural. Generally, translations should be easier than originals (I don't know the specific situation of the Korean language, though). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7196 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 11 14 December 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
J.R.R. Tolkein is also good because of the magic of elves and wizards. I have found translations to be easier to read, but there is a real beauty and elegance to a non-translated work. I find that to be magic for keeping my motivation up. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tea oolong Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4407 days ago 28 posts - 33 votes Studies: Korean* | Message 7 of 11 14 December 2013 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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First off, thanks for the responses (thank you too lurkers) It's great to hear from
ambitious people.
Well, with the last book, there wasn't a translation present so I trained myself to wait until I was done with the page before looking up each word ---- with these touch dictionaries installed on your iPad and Andriod, that's a snap!
I hope this is true. My resolution is to read 12 Korean novel length book in one calendar year.
So true. My last book was a memoir from Monica Macias. Although her reading was stilted , there were several idioms to be acquired from her book whereas this translated Darren Shan novel seems to follow every word of the original so it's great for grammar acquisition but it's not quite Korean. I'm refraining from using the dictionary this time around, hoping to get satisfaction from inference and be able to reread a novel period. Something I never enjoyed doing before. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4524 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 11 14 December 2013 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think it's definitely possible. You might want to consider doing the next Super Challenge (or half challenge). I am just about finished my Super Challenge (10000 pages - about 20 books) in German. I think there will be some discussion what worked by those who participated after the current Challenge is finished in January. What I think is very helpful is to get into a daily reading habit. I find it easier to set a certain number of pages per day (or chapters) rather than a time limit (e.g., 1 hour per day). Next year I am planning to do another 10000 pages, which works out to about 200 pages per week, which is doable for me. I would recommend not being too ambitious in the type of book you read. It's much easier when you read books where you mostly know the words, which unfortunately means the more interesting challenging literature may take a while to get to, but by the time you do, you have a very solid ground for much of the rest of the language. I originally read the Hunger Games trilogy and then switched down the much easier Harry Potter septology which I found really super-charged my reading. Book series are great, as authors/translators tend to repeat words and phrases so as you get into a series you a lot of repetition. Books which are told from the first-person perspective, and are very concrete in their language are a lot easier to understand, which is why HP (for instance) is good if you are at an intermediate level. The Percy Jackson books are pretty good and I think easier than HP. I'm currently reading the Sookie Stackhouse series, which is harder than any of the others but still relatively easy (and all written in the 1st person perspective). I don't how many of these are translated into Korean though. If you aren't already doing it I would recommend getting an e-reader with a pop-up dictionary and then just seeing what the words mean as you read, but don't worry about trying to memorize them or write them down. There is always a time trade-off between reading more and doing other things like making notes, and unless you are really going to learn all the words you make notes of you are better off just reading more. Edited by patrickwilken on 14 December 2013 at 4:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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