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Selecting books to read | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| berabero89 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4643 days ago 101 posts - 137 votes  Speaks: English, Amharic* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 1 of 13 09 May 2013 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
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In both Spanish and French, I am approaching a stage where I am able to read texts
written in those languages and am also able to acquire vocabulary through context, etc. Now, one of my main problems is an imbalance of vocabulary (eg. I'll be able to use linguistics terms with absolutely no problem but when it comes to saying animal names I'll be stumped). From your experiences, what books and/or genres of books offer the widest variety of vocabulary? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4716 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 2 of 13 09 May 2013 at 2:23am | IP Logged | ||
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IMHO biographies are usually great! I read Ibrahimovic's in Italian and now I'm reading Raymond Domenech's in French, and both were/are very readable, good vocabulary and not so hard. Edited by Fasulye on 09 May 2013 at 11:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 13 09 May 2013 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
I get most of my animal vocabulary from reading French bedtime stories to my kids. :-) For adult conversational vocabulary, I've had better luck with bandes dessinées, VDM and TV series than I've had with books, which often have surprisingly little conversation. But in general, you need to decide what kind of vocabulary you want to develop, and then go look for it. There's no single kind of book which will provide every kind of vocabulary. Also, there's nothing wrong with what Krashen calls "narrow reading." If you want to focus on a single topic, genre or author for a while, go for it. Sure, your vocabulary will be lopsided, but it will tend to even out with time. Sometimes it's easier to reach (say) 98% comprehension in a few areas and then use those as beachheads. Edited by emk on 09 May 2013 at 2:53am 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| catullus_roar Quadrilingual Octoglot Groupie Australia Joined 4569 days ago 89 posts - 184 votes Speaks: Malay, Hokkien*, English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese*, French, German, Spanish Studies: Italian, Latin, Armenian, Afrikaans, Russian | Message 4 of 13 09 May 2013 at 4:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I remember reading the semi-classics. 20th Century Fiction. Stuff that isn't too contemporary so it retains a lot of literary significance but which is also not too antiquated. For French, I recommend Le Silence De La Mer (that book is really touching, and encouraged me to keep reading) which is strangely not too hard.
Comics - Asterix will definitely teach you how to say 'wild boar' haha. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mike245 Triglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6973 days ago 303 posts - 408 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Cantonese Studies: French, German, Mandarin, Khmer | Message 5 of 13 09 May 2013 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Probably not the answer you are looking for, but I have found high-frequency vocabulary
books extremely helpful for this kind of vocabulary building. It may be less fun than reading and learning through context, but when combined with SRS software, it’s been the most efficient way for me to cram a lot of a language, including words that are extremely useful but don’t necessary pop up that often via other language learning or even native language sources. It is less important if you are learning primarily through reading at this point (since you can easily stop look up words), but if you are sometimes struggling to understand or produce words on the spot when talking to people, while watching television, etc., having the words ready to go is a big help. In my experience (living in a target- language foreign country), it feels like every time you actually need a word, that’s when you don’t have a dictionary on-hand or someone who can easily explain what you need in terms that you understand. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4534 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 6 of 13 09 May 2013 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Assuming you are at approximately my level, I started reading books in German in December last year, I am not sure you need to find books with the "widest vocabulary".
I imagine word frequency being a bit like a tree, with the main trunk at the base having the most common words, with the various branches representing more specialized (less frequent) words. Anything you read is going to have a lot of stuff from the main trunk, so it doesn't matter at first what you read, other than it should sufficiently enjoyable that you don't lose interest. I have found at B1, young adult literature (Harry Potter, the Hunger Games trilogy) helpful as there are lots and lots of useful words, and syntax is relatively simple, and the language tends to be relatively concrete, so that you read fairly quickly. I tried starting a Murakami book as I have read his translations in German are actually quite straightforward, but he's still much harder/slower to read that HP, mostly because the syntax/use-of-metaphor made everything is a bit harder to parse. Both groups of books are also available electronically, which makes a big difference to me as I can both read much much faster with an ebook, than a paperback, and I can also input unknown words directly into Anki. Edited by patrickwilken on 09 May 2013 at 4:08pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4275 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 7 of 13 09 May 2013 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would say: read any book that you have already read before in your mother tongue (or a language you know better) and that you have enjoyed. You will be able to follow the plot and to guess many words without opening your dictionary.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 8 of 13 10 May 2013 at 2:24am | IP Logged | ||
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Herman Hesse's ''Sidhhartha'' is a great read in any language.
''The little prince'' too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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