Content + wordlist + anki, opinions/help (Advice Center) Language Learning Forum

Content + wordlist + anki, opinions/help
Tags: Word List \| Anki \| Reading \| Vocabulary learning \| German
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32 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4 Next >>

montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4829 days ago
2371 posts - 3676 votes

Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

Message 9 of 32

19 June 2013 at 3:03pm | IP Logged

SteveRidout wrote:

I create the web site Readlang
which provides a nice workflow for this kind of
method. It works like this:

1. You import plain text documents to read. If you have novels in ePub or pdf format,
you can use Calibre to
convert them to plain text first.

2. You read the book with the built-in reader, which includes one-click translation
using both Google Translate
and WordReference.

3. Every word you translated is remembered, along with the sentence for context. You
can practice cloze
detection within Readlang's SRS flashcards, or you can export the words to Anki,
Quizlet, and other SRS
programs.

Would love to hear how you get on if you do decide to give Readlang a shot.

There's another program called Learning With Texts (LWT) which is popular on this forum
and does a similar
thing, you may like to try that too.

Interesting that your site can handle whole books. I'd got the impression that sites
like LWT and LinqQ could only really handle short texts, which has slightly put me off
that approach, since I really prefer to work through whole books. I will give Readlang
a try then.

Note to the OP: You may know that you can down load books which are in the public
domain from Gutenberg.org. They tend to be older books because of copyright laws, and
this may not appeal to everyone, but if and when you are ready for such books, there
they are. The point here is that one of the formats they offer is plain text.
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jingwumaster
Newbie
United States
Joined 4671 days ago
33 posts - 46 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 10 of 32

20 June 2013 at 4:02pm | IP Logged

Thanks again for all the input. Now I'll try to address everyone's advice so far.

Emk,

emk wrote:

1. If you're making sentence cards in Anki, you're going to have solid passive recognition of that vocabulary, even without using word lists. So maybe you should do one or the other, but not both?

Your right, but I sort of like word-list anyway, and I like the idea of using anki just to make sure I don't forget and to add context to the words, but I'll give it more thought.

2. I'm not sure how this would work if you don't know any German at all. Translating an unknown language with nothing more than a grammar book and a glossary can be pretty rough going.

Right again, which has me considering using Assimil before dong this to build up the basics of the language before using this method. Any ideas of how a beginner could address this without using a beginner course first?

3. It might be nice to get the matching audiobook and do some Listening/Reading. In any event, you'll want to listen to something. (For Harry Potter audiobooks in German, check out Pottermore.)

Yeah, I will definitely listen to the audio book version at the same time, I heard the audio books for Harry Potter are really good in some languages. Also, thanks for the link.

Cavesa,

I would definitely start with a book that I have in both languages, being already familiar with the story does help.

I'm not opposed to studying grammar, but I would do so as you said, as more of a passive actively to help me notice patterns in the language while reading. Also I agree that being able to recognize the different kinds of words can help especially with reading comprehension.

I haven't considered a log but now that you mention it I am considering one.

Kuji,

I'm not opposed to a little grammar study, but I tend to learn things better by discovering them for myself, so I'm not, at the moment, interested in explicit grammar exercises, though I appreciate the advice.

You have a good point about Anki and inputing everything by hand taking a lot of time, which I didn't really consider. I'll definitely take your advice on using a ebook version to copy and paste things. Thanks.

Mont,

I'll definitely be using books and audio books that I have in both languages and am already familiar with.

I'm glad to hear something similar has been working for you, thanks again.

Serpent, (interesting name)

Are you a native Russian? I think Russian is such a beautiful language. I really want to learn it some day. I have some music by this group Fleur (or something like that) but I don't know if it is in Russian or Ukrainian. Beautiful music though.

I'll definitely check out "Deutsch? Warum nicht!". Thanks for the advice.

Steve,

Even though I'm only 27 years old and grew up with computers, I am a bit old fashioned and prefer reading paper books and writing and highlighting in them, I'm very sensitive to how things feel and I just prefer having the book in my hand and being able to write in it. Though, I do like programs like Anki for reviewing things.

Your site does look quite good, and if I ever got into ebooks more then I would definitely use your site. Thanks.

Mont, (again)

Thanks again for the advice. I have used gutenberg.org in the past many times. It is a great project.

Thanks again to everyone, I really enjoy the exchange of ideas.

1 person has voted this message useful

Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, Finnish^C1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

Message 11 of 32

20 June 2013 at 5:41pm | IP Logged

jingwumaster wrote:

Right again, which has me considering using Assimil before dong this to build up the basics of the language before using this method. Any ideas of how a beginner could address this without using a beginner course first?

I do this, and the only solutions I've found are LR and football (soccer).
Yes, I'm Russian. I think Fleur sings in Russian.
a couple rules of thumb - if there are i's in a Cyrillic text, that's not Russian; if there's an ы, that's Russian or possibly Belarusian, but you're unlikely to come across Belarusian without looking for it.
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5010 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 12 of 32

20 June 2013 at 5:41pm | IP Logged

I meant the two books not only as being familiar with the story. But more as a bilingual text, which could help you in the beginnings more than looking up every word. The offer of bilingual books both on the market and the internet is not that wide and they are mostly abridged texts. Getting one in L1 and one in L2 is often much easier. You can either have them side by side or the one your L1 can stay closed when it is not needed. :-)
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jingwumaster
Newbie
United States
Joined 4671 days ago
33 posts - 46 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 13 of 32

20 June 2013 at 8:43pm | IP Logged

Serpent,

Thanks for the tips on Cyrillic and if you know any other groups that sound similar to fleur that sing in Russian then I'd be interested or even Russian progressive metal, but not ones where they scream or growl all their lyrics, but instead sing more melodically even though it's metal.

Cavesa,

I think that's what I'll do. I was thinking about using "The Hunger Games" series for this purpose and already have the English version and I'll probably buy the German version soon. My favourite series is actually "Escape from Furnace" series by Alexander Gordon Smith, unfortunately I don't think there's translations of it in German or Spanish which are two of the languages I want to learn well.

The fiction I read is typically young adult fiction because I don't read much fiction to begin with, most of what I read is non-fiction.

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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

Message 14 of 32

20 June 2013 at 10:23pm | IP Logged

Ohh I prefer Finnish metal ;P
Try Ария and Кино and see where youtube related videos take you.
edit: oh and Агата Кристи!!!

Edited by Serpent on 20 June 2013 at 10:28pm
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jingwumaster
Newbie
United States
Joined 4671 days ago
33 posts - 46 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 15 of 32

20 June 2013 at 11:13pm | IP Logged

Thanks for the bands, I'll check them out. Also the only Finnish band I know of is HIM and all their stuff is in English.
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago
9753 posts - 15779 votes

Message 16 of 32

21 June 2013 at 4:25am | IP Logged

Hehe that's where it started for me too...... check out Mokoma and Kotiteollisuus if you're curious :P

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