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Harry Potter | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4879 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 51 14 September 2011 at 12:23am | IP Logged | ||
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I love the idea I've seen here of using the Harry Potter series as a text, and the books on Amazon aren't too expensive (though the audio CD's are over $100!). Even the titles sound cool: Harry Potter a l`ecole des sorciers ... y las reliquias de la muerte ... E il Prigioniero D'Azkaban ... Ve Ates Kadehi ... E O Enigma Do Príncipe ... I want to read them all!
Back in reality: I'm trying to judge when I'll be ready to "switch over" - e.g. start reading the books without having to look up every fourth word in the dictionary. So for those of you who have any of the books (in any language), could you post a short excerpt so that we can judge what level it's written at? Also, it would be kind of fun to see all the different versions. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5056 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 2 of 51 14 September 2011 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I have Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal (Spanish) and I'd say that I can understand maybe 70% of what they're
saying after several years of Spanish classes in school. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| t123 Diglot Senior Member South Africa https://github.com/t Joined 5601 days ago 139 posts - 226 votes Speaks: English*, Afrikaans | Message 3 of 51 14 September 2011 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I was able to read it in German after about 7 months or so, though I gave up after 3 chapters because it was too boring and read the Bourne
Identity instead. Before that I read 2 Famous Five books and the first book of the Narnia series. I can't give exact numbers but I think I added approximately 800 words to Anki for the first FF book, 500 for the second and 200 for the Narnia one. For the Bourne Identity I added 300 words, but considering that it's at least twice as long as the 3 previous books together, not too bad. The next book was volume 1 of Wheel of Time, and I added less than 100 words, and after that I pretty much stopped adding altogether. The first book you read is always the toughest, after that it gets considerably easier. The trick is really to just do it, once you've finished your course start reading. In my opinion the reason is this: most courses seem to aim for around a B2 level and around 2000 words, no matter how many you do you'll only ever get to B2 and learn around 2000 words. Only once you move outside of that comfort zone will you really start to learn the language, you may have to refer back to your course or whatever, but languages are more about experience than memorisation or artificial constructs. So yes, for book 1 expect to look up every 4th word, especially in the first few chapters. By book 2 it'll probably be only every 10th and book 3 every 20th or even less. I recommend an electronic dictionary, ideally find the text floating on the internet and use a popup dictionary, or create a parallel text. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4971 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 4 of 51 14 September 2011 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I've used Harry Potter in both Spanish and German as my first book in each language. If you've already read it in
your own language, want to learn some fun vocabulary, and are not too judicious with your dictionary then it can be an awesome experience. I don't look up words at all. Nothing. Not one single word. For me it's all about the context. If Harry is buying something in Ollivanders', then it's clearly a wand! If he's flying on something while playing Quidditch, well then that's a broom.. etc... So I ensure I've studied enough to understand a good proportion of the text, let's say 70-80% , and then just go into it whole-heartedly with an eye to enjoy and feel good within the language. I brush off parts I don't understand, enjoy the bits I do and always use contextual learning to move forward. It took me two years in Spanish, and two years in German to reach this level, which is studying frequently but not everyday, and doing one year-long class in each. It's fun, try it, and see what you think =) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6347 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 51 14 September 2011 at 2:53pm | IP Logged | ||
For the Harry books, why bother with a dictionary, you can just follow along on the corresponding sentences in the English versions of the books. My favorites are: Harry Stone and the Sourcerer's Pottie and Harry Chambers and the Pottie of Secrets My apologies if "toilet humor" is not allowed on here. ;-) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kagemusha Newbie United States Joined 4914 days ago 35 posts - 42 votes Speaks: English* | Message 6 of 51 14 September 2011 at 3:05pm | IP Logged | ||
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I just got the Harry Potter French Junior edition. Written for 8 - 12 year olds. About
150 pages I think. When I get through that, I can probably move up to the standard edition. I also have the standard edition in Japanese. That will take a little longer because of the kanji. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4879 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 7 of 51 14 September 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Any chance any of you can post a small paragraph of text? It'd be nice for the rest of
us to know what level we're aiming for! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4971 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 8 of 51 14 September 2011 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Taken from 'Harry Potter und der Stein der Weisen':
Ein Junge überlebt Mr. and Mrs Dursley im Ligursterweg Nummer 4 waren stolz darauf, ganz und gar normal zu sein, sehr stolz sogar. Niemand wäre auf die Idee gekommen, sie könnten sich in eine merkwürdige und geheimnisvolle Geschicte verstricken, denn mit solchem Unsinn wollten sie nichts zu tun haben. Hope that's legal.. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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