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How to use Audio books effectively?

  Tags: Audiobook | Book
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply
17 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
David Hallgren
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Groupie
Sweden
davidhallgren.se
Joined 6986 days ago

40 posts - 43 votes
Speaks: Swedish*, English, Japanese
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 1 of 17
29 December 2005 at 10:28pm | IP Logged 
Hi everyone, I have a question about how to use audio books as tool in my studies. Yesterday I bought Harry Potter and The Philospher's stone, both the actual book and the audio book at a book store here in Japan. Unfortunately audio books isn't nearly as popular here as they are in Sweden so the selection was extremly limited but I guess you could do worse than Harry Potter even though it's a translated work. My question is, do you have any thoughts on how to use it. The method I've tried for the first 20 minutes or so is the following. Listen to one track (about 3-4 min, 2 pages in the book) without pausing or using any dictionary, just focusing on listening. Then I read the same passage in the book and look any words that I don't feel I know or get from context, seems to be between 0-10 so far on 2 pages. Then I listen to same part of the audio book again to make sure I understand it this time before proceding to the next. Apart from this more "study oriented" listening I plan to relisten to parts I've "studied" while working out at the gym or walking to school just to make sure it sticks. Any thoughts?

PS. The internet never seizes to amaze me when it comes to language resources. I found this page: http://www.cjvlang.com/Hpotter/index.html. Which discusses the translations of Harry Potter to Japanese, Mainland Chinese (Mandarin), Taiwan (Madarin) and Vietnamese. It seems like the Japanese translator has done a really good job and managed to translate quite a few of the word plays as well.
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maxb
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Sweden
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Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 2 of 17
30 December 2005 at 4:56am | IP Logged 
I am using a similar method right now for chinese, even though I'm using movies instead of audio books. I think it is very good to listen repeatedly to relatively short segments of the audio (maybe 3 minutes at the most), in order to allow them to really sink in. If you listen enough times you will eventually find it ringing in your head and parts of it will magically pop up when you are engaged in conversation in your target language.
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Call me Ishmael
Newbie
United States
Joined 6901 days ago

8 posts - 8 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 3 of 17
30 December 2005 at 7:22am | IP Logged 
I am listening to a French audio book, and I find that after listening to long stretches, although I lose much of the plot, I understand significantly more when I start all over. I think by encountering a variety of words that I register something that helps me with phrases I missed in earlier sections. Although, I don't have the book available to me, which unfortunately makes things a bit more difficult.
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patuco
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 Message 4 of 17
31 December 2005 at 12:59am | IP Logged 
David Hallgren wrote:
My question is, do you have any thoughts on how to use it.

Your method of using audiobooks is very similar to mine. I also like to read at the same time as I'm listening to the recording but this isn't always very easy.
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luke
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 5 of 17
18 January 2006 at 7:00pm | IP Logged 
Today I thought of a way to use audiobooks in two languages for listening practice. Below is an enumeration of some techniques I've used with audio books, as well as a couple I just thought of.

What you have:
a) book and audiobook in target language.
b) book and audiobook in native tongue.

The numbers belows are not the order in which to do things. They are just numbers to identify the techniques.

1) Listen to target language and read along with native tongue translation.
2) Listen to target language and read along in target language.
3) Just listen in target language.
4) Listen to one chapter in native tongue, then the same chapter in target language.
5) Listen to native tongue and read along in target language.
6) Just read target language.

4 and 5 are the ones I thought of today. Those two techniques can actually be combined by setting up the mp3player to play the recordings like this:

Example:
Audiobook chapter 1 in English - read Spanish.
Audiobook chapter 1 in Spanish - read English.
Audiobook chapter 2 in English - read Spanish.
Audiobook chapter 2 in Spanish - read English.

Edited by luke on 02 February 2006 at 9:08pm

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luke
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 Message 6 of 17
13 November 2006 at 4:26am | IP Logged 
This morning another audiobook technique came to mind. I'm going to start using it for Ángeles y Demonios. In addition to the audiobook, it uses the regular book in your native and target languages. The technique is simply to listen to the audiobook and switch your reading material for each chapter between the two languages. E.G.:

Listen to audiobook chapter 80 and read along in English.
Listen to audiobook chapter 81 and read along in Spanish.
Listen to audiobook chapter 82 and read along in English.
Listen to audiobook chapter 83 and read along in Spanish.

This method helps one grasp a precise definition of high frequency words faster than just guessing from the context. An additional benefit is that it gives you a mental break during each chapter, which may help if one has trouble concentrating for a long session.

One could extrapolate the technique, based on the difficulty of the material and the number of times one was willing to go through the book. Imagine one will go through the audiobook 5 times with a book.

1st time, use translation.
2nd time, every 3rd chapter use target language book.
3rd time, every odd numbered chapter use target language.
4th time, every evenly numbered chapter use target language.
5th time, use only target language book.

If one is in a hurry and one only wants to go through the book twice, use the approach in the 3rd and 4th time above.

Edited by luke on 13 November 2006 at 5:37am

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justinwilliams
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 Message 7 of 17
13 November 2006 at 1:06pm | IP Logged 
Do you have any idea about how to use them at an advanced level? Just listening to them I unsertand everything (in English) but there are certainly words I just know passively, just because they were in the sentences they were in. Just listening, I don't feel like I retain those unknown words...
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slucido
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Spain
https://goo.gl/126Yv
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 Message 8 of 17
14 November 2006 at 1:44pm | IP Logged 
justinwilliams wrote:
Do you have any idea about how to use them at an advanced level? Just listening to them I unsertand everything (in English) but there are certainly words I just know passively, just because they were in the sentences they were in. Just listening, I don't feel like I retain those unknown words...


I'm using the audiobook method with english.I have the unabridged audiobook and the original book and I listen and read together. At the same time I mark the unknown words with a pencil. When I finish I reread the unknown words and search it's meaning with a dictionary.


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