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First book with no available translation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4243 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 1 of 6 07 February 2015 at 5:04pm | IP Logged |
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So, my current passive understanding in French is such that I can follow and enjoy most native material without translation, but sometimes I only get the gist and I'm not always understanding it in detail. So I usually restrict my consumption of native media to stuff I've already read or watched before in English, or that has an English translation available that I can check if there are difficult portions.
I also have a French film textbook I really want to read, but there exists no English translation for it, nor any electronic version which I could machine translate. I'm sure if I picked it up and started reading it now I would understand most of it, but I've been putting it off because I want to understand all of it in detail, and not simply get the gist of any difficult parts. I realize there's probably no single best answer, but I'd be interested to know how others make the transition from media that has translation available to media that doesn't have any translation? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6571 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 2 of 6 07 February 2015 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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I've never really made that transition. I generally only read stuff I haven't read before. When I can, I prefer to read with a popup dictionary. Otherwise, I look words up on my phone. With TV/cinema you just have to accept that you won't understand 100%, but with a book you can always use a dictionary if you want to understand everything. And there's no rule against reading it twice. You could read it now, get most of it, and then reread it in the future when your French is better.
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| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5855 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 3 of 6 07 February 2015 at 5:28pm | IP Logged |
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If you can make a good quality scan to PDF of the book, you might be able to get a good
optical character recognition (OCR) version and translate it with Google Translate. Google Docs has a free on-line OCR capability but it only works well with high-quality scans. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5251 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 6 07 February 2015 at 5:33pm | IP Logged |
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Making a transition from having a translation available to reading without it is always difficult at first. That's how you learn. My advice is to delve in and start that book. Obviously, you're interested in the topic. Since you are so keen, I advise you to read it intensively at first. I'm assuming the book you have is in hard copy format. Keep a notebook handy and write down words and groups of words that give you trouble on the first two pages. Try to read at those two pages without looking anything up. Then look up the unknown words that you've written down and reread those two pages with your notes handy. Next, move on to the next two pages and repeat the process. Try to get through a chapter doing this, it will be slow going, no doubt about it. Then I'd go back and read that chapter over again with my notes alongside to consult before I move on to the second chapter.
The point of all this going back and re-reading is two fold for me. One is to solidify the unknown vocabulary/constructions in context and the other is to be able to experience a smoother flow of reading once the unknown words are defined. I can just glance over at my definition without having to break the flow too much. I'll bet that after the first chapter, the second chapter won't be as difficult and the third chapter won't be nearly as hard. Words tend to repeat, especially in a textbook. The key is in accepting your limitations and not getting down on yourself because you are having to consult the dictionary, google or linguee "too much". By continuing to march you build momentum. The unknown words come up again (now with a definition) and they start to click. That's how I would approach it. Of course, this is significantly easier and quicker to do in electronic format with a popup dictionary. Still, it can be done with hard copy. You have a great chance at success with this book because the topic is something that motivates you. Try it, but if you feel like you really are hitting your head up against the wall, STOP. Just don't give up because it's uncomfortable. Stop because it's just not possible. Breaking it up into manageable bits helps me to come to that decision, or overcome it. This is something I would do for myself. Some people have no tolerance for a process like this and that's ok. You can always study more and read it later. Edited by iguanamon on 07 February 2015 at 5:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6586 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 5 of 6 07 February 2015 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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You won't know unless you give it a try. You can just browse the book and find a typical difficult section, and see how bad it is. Do you just need to look up a few words? More than a few, but still worth your time? Or is it seriously above your level? Of course a problem here is that random stuff from the middle of the book may not make sense now but perhaps it will when you get there.
One more option, especially for non-fiction, is to read anyway and mark the difficult parts. You can return to them later, and especially those from the beginning may be easier by the time you reach the end of the book. I generally base my decision on whether I can read comfortably at the level of detail that I want. I'm currently reading Gulp by Mary Roach in Spanish, and while I do look up a lot, it's quite effortless, and much of the time I just have my guess confirmed. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4243 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 6 08 February 2015 at 4:09pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the advice everyone. I think I'll start by trying to read through it more casually to evaluate how difficult it will be and also perhaps write down any unknown words I see repeated a lot. Then based on that I'll decide if I want to go through it again more intensively with a notebook and dictionary or perhaps put it aside to try again in a few months.
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