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Reading without a dictionary | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes  Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 9 of 36 13 April 2006 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Looking up new words in a dictionary does not automatically imply rote vocabulary memorization. One can look up a word and move on, and when you see the word again, just look it up again, and again, until you know it. This works especially well with fast electronic dictionaries - the word pops up instantly, you look at it, and you just move on, but I've done this with paper dictionaries as well, especially when reading in bed or watching a movie. You can also record new words in a notebook, but instead of working hard to memorize the words, you just look over the notebook once in a while, or if you feel like working a little harder on a given day, cover one side of the page and see what you can remember - I find this pretty effective and much more relaxing than flashcards, although the latter might be preferable if you have a tight deadline or with a few words that just won't stick. Notebooks are also very compact, which makes them a lot hander than flashcards for reviewing the words later - a 100-sheet notebook will hold some 4000 words in it, so a couple of them will get you pretty far. I've certainly read any number of novels without a dictionary (after the first chapter or two) at the stage in language learning when it might have been deemed absurd, and found it beneficial as well as a lot of fun. I liken it to listening - a lot of people accept the notion of listening to the radio even at the stage when the best one can hope for is to catch only bits and pieces here and there. Presumably, this "trains the ear". Well, a cowboy approach to reading trains the brain, which is also a good thing. I think the main benefit of this approach may be not so much in figuring out new words, which is not always easy, but in getting used to the more complex syntax at an earlier stage, as well as in getting a chance to see the words one already knows over and over at a very high rate of repetition. Basically, it brings the language alive at an incredible rate of exposure. There are, however, caveats to this type of exuberant consumption. Literature, especially the novels, is written in a very redundant way - you can often completely miss a chapter and still not lose the gist of the plot, at least not entirely. Other types of writing may not be as "fault-tolerant" - a book or an article that is lighter on waxing poetic and heavier on specific information can be quite a rude awakening after starting to feel pretty good about reading novels. My solution to that is to read not just books, but newspapers as well, and, if possible, not just the online ones, but try to get a hard-copy issue. The articles there may not have the vocabulary of good literary works, but many of them convey rather specific information, forcing one to focus on words and their meaning in a different way. Edited by frenkeld on 16 April 2006 at 3:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 1_2_3_4 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6895 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian | Message 10 of 36 19 June 2006 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
What program is that called? Edited by 1_2_3_4 on 19 June 2006 at 9:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| CaitO'Ceallaigh Triglot Senior Member United States katiekelly.wordpress Joined 6848 days ago 795 posts - 829 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Russian Studies: Czech, German | Message 11 of 36 19 June 2006 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I relate to everyone's experience as I'm a reluctant dictionary user myself. Lately, I've been using a dictionary, but I write the word in the book itself. I wouldn't recommend this for books you borrow, however. :) But that's what I do. When I see the word later on, and I can't remember what it means, I can usually skim back a few pages to find my first definition.
It's still work, which is the part I can't stand. How I'd love to just sit back and enjoy a good book! But I rationalize it this way: I've only been learning Spanish for two years. I wasn't even reading when I was two years old. Also, I've noticed that since employing this method, I am enjoying this novel so much more. It's taking me forever to get through it, but it's still a great read. It's "La tregua" by Mario Benedetti. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 12 of 36 19 June 2006 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I ran into a German textbook by Charles Berlitz in a used bookstore the other day. In the concluding paragraph he recommends using the English-German dictionary for writing, but for the most part avoiding the German-English one when reading, the reverse of what I always thought should be done! The reason, he claims, is that with all the cognates there are, plus the ability to guess the meaning from context, you can learn a lot without a dictionary. (He does recommend reading aloud as much as possible, and even to record oneself reading, but that's another story.) As I was on a business trip last week, I got to test this idea. I bought a French novel in the same bookstore and, being away from home, I had some time in the hotel in the evenings to attack it (so much for purposely leaving all the language materials at home). As I didn't want to buy a dictionary to occupy shelf space at home later, I tried reading without a dictionary. It worked much better than I had expected, given that I had not studied French except for the usual preliminary nibbling one does with a language one plans to study seriously some day. I don't know if it will work with Chinese, for example, but one can certainly try it with Romance languages and perhaps, if one believes Charles Berlitz, German as well. Edited by frenkeld on 19 June 2006 at 2:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7179 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 13 of 36 19 June 2006 at 6:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Roughly how much of a given text should you be understanding if you want to read it without a dictionary? Obviously it would be a waste to read something without a dictionary if you're only understanding 15% of the words, so roughly how many should you know for it to be of any help? Thus far in my Russian studies I've only read with a dictionary (except for maybe once or twice), but I find it hard to resist the temptation to just punch the word into an online dictionary and have my curiosity instantly alleviated.
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| 1_2_3_4 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6895 days ago 17 posts - 18 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: French, Italian | Message 14 of 36 19 June 2006 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would say around 80% of the words?
For example, Bold words are ones that are not understood: I went to the store to buy some eggs. In that sentence, 70% of the words were understood. This doesn't mean the reader understood what the sentence meant! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Farley Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7083 days ago 681 posts - 739 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanB1, French Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 36 19 June 2006 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Was that German Step by Step?
I can attest, as a English speaker, this works for French and German. I would assume it would be the case for any Germanic or Latin based language. Like you, I don't know how well that would work with Chinese. I did find that you need a prerequisite vocabulary of about 4000-5000 words before you can start diving into regular books and pick up words from context
I don’t know if it trains the ear so much as it trains the brain how to decrypt your target language on the fly, even before you reach the prerequisite vocabulary. Edited by Farley on 19 June 2006 at 10:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6934 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 16 of 36 19 June 2006 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I don't think it's worth putting a number on it, in part because whether the exercise is worthwhile is also a matter of attitude. Take the radio first. You will see advice in any number of places that when you start listening you may not understand more than an occasional word or phrase, yet you should persist anyway! With a book, however, a lot of people would recoil at the idea of doing the same. My criterion is whether I am getting anything at all out of it, perhaps some short dialog lines to start with, and whether I am following at least a faint outline of the plot. If so, let the language roll right at you and don't worry about the percentages. It gets better as you go along.
It only works with a real book for me, and only with novels, not short stories. On screen, I also tend to look up most of the words, especially since for Spanish, French, and Italian I bought pop-up electronic dictionaries, plus there are the online ones. Edited by frenkeld on 20 June 2006 at 12:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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