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Question about the L-R method

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Journeyer
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 Message 41 of 89
18 July 2010 at 9:08pm | IP Logged 
I just finished Step 3 of "Journey to the Center of the Earth" in my French studies where you read the L1 while listening to the L2 for three times or so.

These are my questions though:

First most of the method I read a section such as a page or two, and I repeated this three times on average until I felt comfortable in my understanding. For the latter third of the book or so I just listened right to the end three times.

Which was the method that the original LR suggested? Personally, I found that I think I understood more with the section by section version, but it was also less interesting as far as the story was concerned, so there was less incentive. I'm also wondering if by listening to the whole book straight through helps increase input overall instead of the section by section version.

My other question is, what do I do now? Do I now read the book in French while listening and shadowing? Do I do this till I feel quite comfortable in what I can understand in the book.

Or do I move onto a new book and save all the shadowing and speaking till after I have much more input?

And, at what point to I start to read in the target language? Am I right in assuming it's after you've done step three and are ready to listen to the language over and over?

Also, one more issue I have with the method itself: If you listen to a song over and over, you get to the level where you know the song excellently, can sing along with it, and can't understand when people can't follow the lyrics. However, this doesn't make someone a great singer, nor does it help them understand other songs without the same processes.

I know languages are different: first, there is a much huger amount of input, and one isn't just learning lyrics and a tune, but also structure that applies across the board with the language. But how much help is it in the end?
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 42 of 89
19 July 2010 at 1:38am | IP Logged 
The original explanation suggests at least 20 (40? 60?) hours of new content. With that amount of input you're likely to get a lot of the possible sentence structures in the language, as well as vocabulary, prosody and what not - something that songs (or just about any regular study material out there) can't give you.

Doing section by section (or song by song) probably gives better comprehension, but a very limited vocabulary, grammar etc. While you might "perfect" the material, it also takes forever to finish the book(s).

You start reading the target language (again) when you've listened-read the native so many times so you know what means what (and why). I've seen 3-4 times being suggested (which is A LOT, especially if you're working with even one single audiobook of ~20 hours - that would equal 60-80 hours of listening). I haven't done LR up to the shadowing stage (yet), but I suppose that you're ready after having listened for 40-50 hours (even less than that). Of course you can start shadowing immediately (as ProfArguelles does, but with a different approach).
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Journeyer
Triglot
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 Message 43 of 89
19 July 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged 
So it sounds like I listen-read the heck out of the book, and then shadow it after I understand it well, and THEN move onto new material, and start the process over with that book. Is that correct?

Also, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and the next one I'm going to probably read, Around the World in 80 Days, are both eight hours a piece or so. So, not the recommended length, but not bad to get one's feet wet...

Edited by Journeyer on 19 July 2010 at 2:12am

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sabotai
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 Message 44 of 89
19 July 2010 at 8:12am | IP Logged 
I just started doing LR and started with Around the World in 80 Days. From my understanding from the original thread, you read straight through the book 3 times on Step 3, not section by section.

"3. you look at the translation and listen to the text at the same time, from the beginning to the end of a story, usually three times is enough to understand almost everything "

But I doubt doing it section by section will make it not work. If you prefer section by section, it's probably still good.

As for material length, the original post said "up to fifty hours". And stated several times to use long texts, so I figure it'll take at least several Jules Verne books to get the full benefit of LR.

Le compte de Monte-Cristo comes in around 50 hours. I got it off http://librivox.org/
I was thinking of trying that after I do 2 or 3 Jules Verne books (Monte-Cristo would be 250 hours (Steps 2,3 and 4) and seems a bit intimidating, but I figure I'll do that many hours with LR whether it's 1 book or several).

Don't let the idea that you need to perfect everything keep you from advancing. If you've done Step 3, then move on to Step 4 even if you don't understand everything. After you're done with this book, you're off to LR several more anyway, so don't get bogged down on your first book.

I just started so take my advice with a massive grain of salt, but I plan to just simply follow the steps of LR through the first two books, at least, and not stop and redo steps. Since they are short Jules Verne books, I'm not going to concern myself just yet with perfecting everything in them because the method calls for a few dozen hours of material (at least), and right now I just have a 6 1/2 hour audiobook. Even if I follow the method precisely, I doubt it'll really fully work just yet since it's so short. I'll wait until I get through a few more (or just the one if I do Monte-Cristo) before I start to really worry about understanding everything.
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doviende
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 Message 45 of 89
19 July 2010 at 11:55am | IP Logged 
Don't get too stuck on one specific method. As long as you're getting exposure somehow, it'll work in the end. When I did German, I never had a stage where I read in English and listened to German...I only did L-R with German text and German audio, along with various other language activities. I ended up reading lots of books, and never read the same book twice...it kept it interesting, although perhaps it took me longer to get my comprehension up than it could have.

Now I'm trying the other way with Swedish, reading the English version while listening to the Swedish audio. All of these ways will get me exposure though, so I'm not stuck on one specific method. It's okay to switch things around and try new things.
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Journeyer
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 Message 46 of 89
19 July 2010 at 4:26pm | IP Logged 
Yes, I certainly agree with not using one solo method. Now that I've read "Journey to the Center of the Earth" four times, that's sufficient to know the story, but even before then, like after one pass through of L1 text-L2 audio, I've considered how beneficial it might be just read and listen to the L2 to not only hear the language, but see it as well.

It might be possible to learn a language with just LR, but I like to approach the language from several different approaches.

As far as other books, though, I'm after "Around the World in 80 Days", I'm planning on using "Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Three Musketeers," and "Hidden Symbol". I haven't read the first two books yet, but if I like them, they've got a green light. I think Dan Brown's books have an advantage as well because besides the fact I think they're fun, if not much else, they are easy to follow, have a lot of dialogue, and use modern language. All of that audio adds up to the hours that the original LR method recommended.
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Volte
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 Message 47 of 89
19 July 2010 at 10:56pm | IP Logged 
Journeyer wrote:
Yes, I certainly agree with not using one solo method. Now that I've read "Journey to the Center of the Earth" four times, that's sufficient to know the story, but even before then, like after one pass through of L1 text-L2 audio, I've considered how beneficial it might be just read and listen to the L2 to not only hear the language, but see it as well.

It might be possible to learn a language with just LR, but I like to approach the language from several different approaches.

As far as other books, though, I'm after "Around the World in 80 Days", I'm planning on using "Hunchback of Notre Dame", "Three Musketeers," and "Hidden Symbol". I haven't read the first two books yet, but if I like them, they've got a green light. I think Dan Brown's books have an advantage as well because besides the fact I think they're fun, if not much else, they are easy to follow, have a lot of dialogue, and use modern language.


Quite reasonable.

Journeyer wrote:

All of that audio adds up to the hours that the original LR method recommended.


The number doesn't mean much if you're doing something entirely different.

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Journeyer
Triglot
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 Message 48 of 89
19 July 2010 at 11:07pm | IP Logged 
But am I doing something entirely different, or did you mean in general? I'm not sure how to interpret what you meant, Volte.


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