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Children’s books - a valuable resource? | ||
Tags: Book | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6438 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 23 11 September 2007 at 11:02am | IP Logged | |||||
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You're missing the point that children's books cover some very basic vocabulary that is absolutely necessary in order to build additional vocabulary later through context. You can acquire this vocabulary through different means but you need to know how to say "balloon" or "bee" even if you're a physicist that wants to learn a language. Most people however don't need to read books about physics and don't need the specialized vocabulary. Balloon and bee are not specialized, "kiddie" words. The vocabulary you mentioned occurs more frequently than the one you can find in a physics book.
Some children's books also feature more advanced vocabulary. Reading children's books is supposed to speed up the process. A lot of popular literature meant for adults is also a good source. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| edwin Triglot Senior Member Canada towerofconfusi&Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6455 days ago 160 posts - 183 votes 9 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French, Spanish, Portuguese | Message 10 of 23 11 September 2007 at 11:52am | IP Logged | |||||
I think I am missing the point why is it so "absolutely necessary" for building additional vocabulary? When I encounter the word 'bee' in a non-children's book, can't I just look it up and learn it? Why do I have to know it beforehand from children's books? I keep reading fellow-members in this thread mentioning that some children's books are indeed quite advanced. Perhaps I have different children's books in mind. I am talking about those for under 5 years-old in general. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6438 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 23 11 September 2007 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
If you encounter the word "bee" mixed up with more advanced vocabulary and grammar you'll struggle to keep up. Picture books with half a dozen sentences apiece are a waste of time. A simple fairy tale can be several pages long. The correct term would be children's literature. The Wind in the Willows is a nice example. Think "Treasure Island" "Charlotte's web" or "Tom Sawyer". Children's literature ranges from simple fairy tales to rather complex ones. Some "children's books" (especially 19th cetntury classics) will prove challenging even to native speakers if the're only occasional readers of pulp. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6278 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 12 of 23 12 September 2007 at 11:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Don't forget, the children's books you do should be at the level you are as a beginner.
When I say children's books, I mean anything from the level of Kindergarten to Grade 8. So this is basically (depends where you live) almost equates to 10 levels of language in the education system. Where you place on that, you can determine by picking up various grade level books and reading them and see what level you become lost at. The vocabulary in kids books ARE useful, and the books are usually really well-designed, interesting, fun and full of pictures (helps with intuition) because kids notoriously have short-attention spans. This feature in kid book design will prove to be beneficial to you, because you really need something that will keep you in focus and engage you. Edited by xtremelingo on 12 September 2007 at 11:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6641 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 13 of 23 12 September 2007 at 11:53am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is a good idea when starting out. I like to balance it by reading more adult material, so I don't always feel like I'm a child!
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| nadia Triglot Groupie Russian Federation Joined 5505 days ago 50 posts - 98 votes Speaks: Russian*, English, French Studies: Hindi | Message 14 of 23 24 October 2009 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Mmm... I mostly thank Harry Potter for my English. Not only HP, of course, but I suspect reading only Jane Austen wouldn't really get me anywhere too far in terms of being able to communicate in English.
I became quite a fan of the HP series at 17, first reading 4 of them in Russian, and then gradually buying and reading all 7 books in the original, thus learning good, spoken, modern English. Yeah, there were some words I'll probably never need, but they are very few, because most of the words you will encounter sooner or later in other books. Since then I've read lots of stuff - children's and adult's, 19th and 20th century. Among other children's books I enjoyed Winnie-the-Pooh, Wind in the Willows, Anne of Green Gables, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn. Winnie was easy, of course, and I knew it from childhood, but the others are quite difficult in terms of language. The Famous Five series by Enid Blyton is very easy but not so very interesting. So HP is the best choice, imho, to start with. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Amoore Senior Member Denmark Joined 5761 days ago 177 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Danish* | Message 15 of 23 24 October 2009 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I will recommend buying a bible for children.
Why? Easy to read for anyone. It is basic and relevant vocabulary, and overall terms for things like fish, bird, animals, trees, etc. The same with verbs. I compared the first chapter of my Romanian childrens bible with a "most common words in English"-list and found that it contains A LOT of them and almost no, if not at all, less frequent used words. For many the stories are known so it is easy to figure out the context. Edited by Amoore on 24 October 2009 at 5:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5660 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 16 of 23 24 October 2009 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
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You have to pick the books carefully, otherwise, as others have posted, the words may be childish and (perhaps worse) the stories may be too silly for you to stick with the book. To be honest, I spend quite a lot of time in the Children's section of bookstores sifting through the books in foreign languages. What I tend to find is that if you stick with the "classics" of children's literature you will have a good chance of them actually being both worth reading and full of useful vocabulary.
One of my bedtime books at the moment is Pippi Langstrump by Astrid Lindgren. I probably looked at fifty books (reading a page from each) before deciding that one was worth reading. So far, so good - I can follow it pretty well (although I end up looking in a dictionary every few pages) so I feel the level is right for me. One important point is that this book states on the back that it is for people with a reading age of 7. When I tried books for 9 year olds they were too hard. Consequently, I now have a realistic assessment of my reading age, and (as I did with other languages) I can start to gradually nudge up my reading age a year or two (by picking out books at increasing ages) and see progress as I am going. Edited by Splog on 24 October 2009 at 10:44pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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