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Harry Potter the really magic method | ||
Tags: Book | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| cymro Triglot Groupie Wales Joined 6445 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes  Speaks: English*, Welsh, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 1 of 41 27 May 2007 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I know this technique has been mentioned several times on this forum by other people but I am just so delighted today that I really had to make this posting.
I'd be really interested what other people's reaction is and whether they have found it useful. Just three and a half years ago I enrolled on a Welsh beginners class but determined to learn fast I also did some studying on my own and I discovered a magic method of learning. A few weeks after I started I decided to try something I purchased a copy of the first Harry Potter Potter book in a Welsh translation and started reading it alongside the English version. I found it an amazingly magical way of learning vocabulary and no doubt grammar. After three months I joined a choir that uses only Welsh and found that nobody felt the need to speak English to me. I had mastered basic fluency very quickly. Now the choir is planning a trip to Catalonia and I am just preparing for an assault on Spanish before I try Catalan. I have about 6 months to do this before we go. I have been assembling my materials for the initial assault. My free Michel Thomas CDs from a newspaper give away. A dictionary, a small grammar guide and of course my magical Harry Potter books. ( The first two) I now have everything and I am starting the Michel Thomas tonight. But I am jumping for joy at the Harry Potter books. I made a half hearted attempt at Spanish for a few weeks ove a decade ago before I really learned the short cuts in learning but learned almost nothing. But these books YIPPEE!I CAN READ THEM ALREADY!!! Well nearly anyway. My French and the Latin vocabulary in English makes them very comprehensible. I am now looking around for copies of the Audiobooks in Spanish. The interesting bit is going to be how to assimilate the grammatical rules and actually speak the language! Edited by administrator on 27 May 2007 at 11:53pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cisa Super Polyglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6410 days ago 312 posts - 309 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Hungarian*, Slovak, FrenchC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin, SpanishB2, RussianB2, GermanB2, Korean, Czech, Latin Studies: Italian, Cantonese, Japanese, Portuguese, Polish, Hindi, Mongolian, Tibetan, Kazakh, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew | Message 2 of 41 27 May 2007 at 1:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cymro, this is great!! :-)
Well, I didn´t learn any language from the Harry Potter books, but I´ve started reading full-size novels with Harry Potter. Not to make an even bigger fuss around the book, but if you can get a foreign language copy of it it´s perfect for a start! You know what you´re reading about, the language in it is clear and not complicated and it is also an amusing and enjoyable book. I really recommend it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aru-aru Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6448 days ago 244 posts - 331 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, Russian | Message 3 of 41 27 May 2007 at 3:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I do something similar to improve my chinese. No, i do not read the books (because chinese writing system is not user-friendly), i use the audio books. Since i know very well who is saying what at which point, i can follow adventures of Hali Bote (or Harry Potter) well enough and enjoy the story for hours! And i can listen to the story again and again and not get bored. Sometimes it's nice being childish, i guess.
And, what's really great, the radio station that did the recordings of the books have posted them on their site for everyone to enjoy. http://www.radio.cn/yhtcpps/ http://211.89.225.81/radioview/ps/indexlist.jsp?type=1&kindi d=7 EDIT: Fixed the URL for the second link. Edited by patuco on 27 May 2007 at 4:58pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Katie Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6709 days ago 495 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, Hungarian Studies: French, German | Message 4 of 41 28 May 2007 at 6:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I am doing this too! I have about 3 or 4 of the Harry Potter books in Hungarian and all of them in English....
I have only just begun doing this, but I was wondering if it was really going to help - you've just given me more confidence in it! Thanks! Katie 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cymro Triglot Groupie Wales Joined 6445 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 5 of 41 28 May 2007 at 11:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Well Katie I am pleased to hear it.
I guess this is helping with the Spanish. I have done my first Michel Thomas CD and it is really good. I have found out by the way that someone has written a book about how his method works and will be publishing it in January 2008. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6694 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 41 28 May 2007 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I have read the Potter books in both English and Danish (I own the English paperbacks, and I read the Danish editions before giving them to my Potter-fan sister as birthday presents). I did consider buying one of them in Greek when I visited Greece earlier this month, but it was too thick for my remaning free luggage space, - that's the main problem about those Potters. I guess you will need a wheel barrow to transport the upcoming 7. and last book in the series.
Nevertheless, buying the same books in several language is a good idea, provided the translations are reasonably close to the originals. I did bring something else back from Greece, namely several local guide books. For instance I brought back a book about Delphi in Greek, Russian and Italian (and I could have bought it in Spanish, German, English and Japanese too, but as I said - my luggage was already exploding). I'm interested in history and archaeology (even more than in witchcraft) so the subject is perfect for me, which is an important consideration. I don't think I will put the books side by side on a table and read one sentence from each. That would be boring. But after reading a chapter in the 'easiest' one (Italian) it should be easier to read the harder ones (starting out with the Greek originals), - hopefully so easy that it can be done almost without consulting my dictionaries. That way it would be like looking ahead to the day where I can read an unknown book in those languages without recourse to a dictionary. This most important part of this may not even be the words and constructions that you learn by using translations as indicated above, but to feel how it will be to be a fluent reader. Edited by Iversen on 28 May 2007 at 11:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sexton Blake Newbie United Kingdom sextonblake.co. Joined 6381 days ago 12 posts - 12 votes | Message 7 of 41 28 May 2007 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello Cymro,
I'm a complete newbie to this forum and also a complete newbie to learning a language. Years ago, in school, I was pretty good at German up until the teacher was replaced by an idiot, at which point I lost interest and formed the opinion that I'm incapable of learning a foreign tongue. I held onto that belief for nearly 30 years, until about six weeks ago when I decided to try to teach myself Spanish. Armed with flashcards, books, tapes and the Michel Thomas course, I'm finding, to my surprise, that I'm thoroughly enjoying it and seem to be doing okay. The big test will come in July, when I test myself in Spain. Anyway, I spotted your post and wondered whether you had any more information about the Thomas method book? It sounds like an interesting read! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cymro Triglot Groupie Wales Joined 6445 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 8 of 41 28 May 2007 at 12:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Yes I do have more information. Looking at your profile I had a bit of a surprise to find that, coincidentally, you have the same unusual surname as the founder of the publishing company. I am not saying I read anything into that but it is remarkable. I found the following page on the publishers website. http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Title/9780340928332/Michel_ Thomas_The_Learning_Revolution.htm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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