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Harry Potter the really magic method | ||
Tags: Book | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| audiolang Diglot Senior Member Romania Joined 6311 days ago 108 posts - 109 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Romanian*, English | Message 17 of 41 28 September 2007 at 11:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have much faster access to the Romanian version of the book (physical) .
But the computer offers temptations like Southpark,porn,games and don't inspire me to read anything really( other than your posts ). I don't mind bad translations as long as the Danish people don't cut fragments ,or insert random words to confuse the learner lol. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| biki2 Diglot Groupie United States vatoweb.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7013 days ago 57 posts - 72 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Arabic (Written), Catalan, Arabic (Egyptian) | Message 18 of 41 28 September 2007 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm curious. Why did you decide to read the French before the English? I myself go back and forth on this, I can't decide whether it's better to look at L2 after already knowing the story, or just dive into as you have done. Lately I've been listen-reading the French books from Black Cat Publishing, which are L2 only. Just diving into a shorter text and figuring out the meaning thorough repetition seems to work well for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6350 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 19 of 41 28 September 2007 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hey BryanH, thanks for the kind words. I'd be happy to talk more about this with you! Good luck with Assimil. With regard to the listen-reading, your plan sounds good; whatever helps you learn the most is the best way to go, I think. Just keep going every single day, and everything will keep improving.
Hey biki2, I decided to start reading in the L2 first for a few reasons: 1.) After listen-reading a couple of books in the language, I decided I was at a level where I could pick up anything new and follow the plot of what was going on (if not the details). 2.) Since the eventual goal is to reach the point where all reading is done without translation, I figured it was also a good idea to get used to trying out texts the first time without relying on the teaching language. 3.) It works as a progress check; going through HP now, I'm definitely following it, even though I'm also aware there's a lot of stuff I'm not picking up. But that's what the sweep with the teaching language is for. 4.) Finally, since I'm going through a much smaller number of repetitions (only 3 now, as opposed to over the summer, when I tried up to 8 with one book, and 4 and 5 with others), each repetition has to count for more. I think starting with the L2 might help me better map the things I don't understand upon seeing the L1 than if I went in the other direction, since I'm only sweeping through the L1 once. The first L2 sweep shows me what I know and what I don't know. The L1 sweep then gives me a chance to "know" everything. Finally, the second L2 sweep gives me a chance to synchronize everything from the past two sweeps. If I started the other way (L1->L2->L2), it would be harder to learn the things I didn't understand in the first L2 sweep in the second L2 sweep. Basically, I changed my strategy from a high number of sweeps per book to a small number of sweeps with many books. I figure sweeping 10 books 3x each offers the same amount of input as sweeping 3 books 10x each, but I'll learn much, much more from the first case than I will from the second case because A.) I'll maintain a greater amount of interest, and B.) I'll be exposed to a much wider range of vocabulary and structure (grammar). So far, it seems to be working. I stopped caring about what I was reading to a large degree after visiting the same book six times consecutively; that wasn't good for learning. But if I'm working with fewer sweeps, the interest level stays at a much higher level, and that's got to be a good thing. Anyway, I'll see how it goes. I've got the first three HP audiobooks, so these will be my primary texts for learning the language over the next few months unless something changes. The thing is, though, it really is about experimentation. There is no prize for putting lots of work into the wrong method and getting nowhere. No one gets a consolation gift for pouring two years into a language and not being able to form more than two sentences into it; we've got to work smart, not just hard. If a week with one method produces better results than a month with another, ditch method number two for method number one. Don't waste time with something that doesn't work for you if you give it an honest try and find you learned more rapidly in a different way. The goal (for me, at least) is to learn the language as well as possible, as efficiently as possible. This requires work - there's no getting around that - but it also requires me to use my brain when working, so it doesn't take me x amount of time to learn things I could have picked up in a fraction of the time. Edited by FSI on 28 September 2007 at 5:09pm 5 persons have 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 20 of 41 01 October 2007 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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While researching for information on using my Harry Potter method ( (I started this thread) for my latest language Catalan I came across this astounding piece of linguistic farce.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIiRFSCgGu4 It is in Catalan with English subtitles which is a great thing for me. It concerns the story of a 14 year old Harry Potter fan who wrote some emails to supermarkets asking for products to be labeled in Catalan. This is a fairly common thing for people in linguistic minority groups to be asking for. We have similar things in Wales. Many shops have bilingual signs these days. The quality is dreadful but they do have them. Unfortunately this young boy, in a typically childlike way signed his emails as being from "The Order of the Phoenix" which Harry Potter fans will recognise as the organisation of good wizards in the book. Unfortunately some idiots in the justice system decided to prosecute him in the High Court in Madrid as a TERRORIST! It appears they thought that this Order was something like Bin Laden's lot. Edited by cymro on 01 October 2007 at 12:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6324 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 21 of 41 01 October 2007 at 11:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Talking about Catalan and bilingual signs in shops, I saw some years ago in l'Alghero, in Sardinia where Catalan is still spoken ( I guess only by a well grown up minority these days), the same sign in many shops about speaking Catalan in the shop. And the train that makes a tour by the town is called El Trenino Catalano. Sadly, in some decades that will be the only remnants of the presence of Catalan language there.
Well, now talking about reading Harry Potter in your target language, these days I'm not reading Harry Potter but Grimm brothers' tales in Japanese after reading them in French. First I read them till the end in a language that doesn't pose me any difficulty, in this case French, so that I know exactly what's the story about. Then I read some paragraphs again and work on them in my target language which now is Japanese. As the tales are two or three pages long, it's not that exhausting as reading a complete novel. Also because I'm still at a beginner's stage in Japanase. But even in this case, I'm learning a big deal of vocabulary and constructions. Sometimes I look in detail into a whole phrase to understand the construction, others I just pick up some words out of a phrase. For me, it is an interesting and funny way of learning. As I know what's the story about, I do a lot of guesswork trying to map one version with the other, and at the same time I don't get bored or discouraged if I don't understand a whole passage as I do when I read a completely new story. Additionally I work on spoken Japanese with podcasts or other recordings to learn habitual phrases and constructions so that I can also ask for things, describe things... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6307 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 22 of 41 05 October 2007 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Does anyone here own HP in various languages? I'm wondering whether it would be a good idea to get each book in a separate language (thinking ahead here), or to get the same one in various languages so that you're familiarised with the book.
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| cymro Triglot Groupie Wales Joined 6445 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Welsh, French Studies: Italian, Spanish, Latin, Ancient Greek | Message 23 of 41 06 October 2007 at 7:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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You don't need more than one book. I have found it useful to dip in and read little bits with a translation to hand. Edited by cymro on 06 October 2007 at 8:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6307 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 24 of 41 08 November 2007 at 3:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Just another question: Do Danish paperback editions exist at all anymore? How large are they? Every single site I've seen has only the hardcover version in stock. I own the French one now in paperback, as it was cheaper, and I'd generally like to stick with paperbacks. Edited by Fränzi on 08 November 2007 at 4:07am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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