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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 273 of 713 27 April 2012 at 11:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yep. That one book in Russian started the whole thing. And I am actually having a vivid discussion with a friend of whether I actually understood what I was reading or not. Objectively, I did not. In the sense that I counted all the words I knew - which were about half, and they were the insignificant ones. "He, and, before, now". Most of the ones that gave the meaning, verbs and nouns, were gibberish. Now you would think that given that, the whole book would be incomprehensible, yet somehow, through some kind of magic, I did manage to figure out who hated who, who had a motive, who had been lying, and finally who did it. At the beginning of the book it was pure torture, since I was forcing myself through unknown words in an alphabet that I still struggle with, but as I was going, it slowly started to make sense. Some of the words were repetead often enough in differents setting that they started to register even in my slow brain, and through some mechanism I cannot explain, and which sounds like lunacy, I discovered that I could understand the content even if I could not understand the words. I know it sound like crazy talk, but it is true. After reading a page I could give a rough estimate of what had happened, even if I could not translate a single sentence. I have great faith in reading as a method, and I have tried this twice before. I have done it with French, where I started to read French after 2 weeks in France, and about 200 words under my belt, and I have done it in Italian where I read 3000 pages as a first step to learning the language. Now obviously it was much easier to do it in French or Italian, since they are closer to my native language, and since I knew Spanish before I started out, but I was absolutely overjoyed to discover, that if I just kept on reading Russian as fast as I could, I did actually manage to understand it too. It is something like the feeling of seeing through fog, or the sensation I get when I start to work out, and in the beginning of the 1.5 hour session I feel that my body aches, and I am old and heavy, yet when the class is over, I take a second class, in Zumba, just for the fun of it. I have noticed though, that for me this "reading a language you do not really understand" (I am only at A2 in Russian) only worked when I can sit undisturbed over a longer period. I have tried to do it on a 10 minute train trip, and it is impossible for me. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 274 of 713 27 April 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I agree totally. When I first sit down and start to read, I really struggle, but if I have an hour or so, it goes quite easily. Also, it is better to try to read more quickly (within reason) as somehow that seems to increase comprehension. I think maybe it's because it forces you to understand each sentence as an entire unit, rather than one word at a time. That is especially important in a language like Japanese where the syntax is completely backwards and inside out when compared to English. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 275 of 713 27 April 2012 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I am so happy to hear you say that, as this is exactly how I feel too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 276 of 713 27 April 2012 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I think it's great that you've already read through a whole novel in Russian, Cristina. This is no mean feat at A2 level! It'll be interesting to chart how we all progress in our prospective languages as we read more and more for this challenge... Edited by Teango on 27 April 2012 at 12:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 277 of 713 27 April 2012 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
This was really inspiring to read. Theoretically, what you are writing about works a lot like the L/R method, but the way you describe it sounds so much more achievable. With French, I'm still struggling with the way words are supposed to sound when you read them, so I won't be doing much reading like you have described. However, I am encouraged to read a few books along with audio, even if I don't understand much. Yes, it's basically L/R, but much less "hard core". And once I'm comfortable with my French reading, I'll try to tackle more substantial books, without audio. Yesterday, incidentally, my copy of L'Etranger arrived in the post. Does anyone know if there is an audio version available for it? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4866 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 278 of 713 27 April 2012 at 3:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Can you please add Korean to the BOT?
Lunacy? Why do you think it sounds crazy? I think it's one of the best methods and I used it a lot when learning English. I was also around A2 when I read my first novel and it was very similar with how you describe the experience. Basically it's reading immersion. I read Kato Lomb's Polyglot book and she propagates this method as well. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| surrealix Diglot Groupie New Zealand languagechallenge.su Joined 4602 days ago 66 posts - 152 votes Speaks: English*, Swedish Studies: French | Message 279 of 713 27 April 2012 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Version 0.3 of the TwitterBot is now live!
It now supports a #changechallenge command, so that you can change your mind as much as you want, and jump between different challenges whenever you want. There's also tracking for speaking/conversation and writing exercises for the super duper challenge.
Unfortunately you do need a twitter account at the moment. However it should work perfectly fine to have a private account, and only let your followers see tweets. That way the public/internet won't be able to read your tweets - only the people that you approve. I've also got a couple of ideas for other input methods, for people who don't want to use twitter. If there's enough interest I'll look into it, but at the moment it's not high on my priority list!
Sure! Edited by surrealix on 27 April 2012 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 280 of 713 27 April 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
notice that lengthy periods have something to do with increased comprehension. I guess it's because you brain starts picking out patterns unconsciously after some time and starts to make sense of them. The human brain is really amazing :) And I noticed that I too understand better when I listen to fast audio or read faster. I guess it like Brun_Ugle said about understanding a sentence as one unit rather than individual words. I SO can't wait to start reading, and for hours at that! It's going to be really interesting to see how things turn out.... 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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