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blackcherries Groupie Canada Joined 4751 days ago 41 posts - 48 votes Studies: German
| Message 1 of 11 13 February 2014 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
Hi fellow language lovers :-)
So, I have the same fiction crime novel plus the audiobook in French and English but I don't know what technique to
use to actually get some learning out of such an activity. It's important to me to learn proper pronunciation so I never
read without audio as I'm a beginner and I need the print form to visualize the words. Do I read one page of English
with English audio or do I read just a paragraph and then move into the French...should I do just one paragraph a day
or a page a day etc.? I have never done this before so it would be helpful to know what methods you all used and
what you gained from it.
Another question: wlll it hinder my learning to read a normal level first instead of a children's book?
If it helps in providing advice I should say that my book and audio are Kindle and Audible versions. I only have the
Android phone version now too.
Edited by blackcherries on 13 February 2014 at 3:05am
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 2 of 11 13 February 2014 at 4:02am | IP Logged |
Proper LR lasts hours, not one page a day. If you have enough time, you'd benefit from doing the steps in a proper order.
1. get familiar with the content in L1
2. link the sound to the spelling, learn to separate the words from one another
3. listen to L2 while reading L1
2 is best done by listening to L2 and following L2 text. you can also use the additional tools like lyricstraining and simply some resources on the pronunciation rules - it can look like a mess but afaiu it's quite straightforward once you get the hang of it.
also note that you don't have to "complete" the whole book before you start 3 - just do it when you are ready. You can also use other sources for the second step, like a children's book as you mentioned.
as for separating the words, others can tell you more about dealing with liaison, but i suppose in the beginning it's enough to separate these "groups" and recognize the functional words/little words (Italian examples: il, la, lo, ci, se, si - written French has a lot of similar stuff at least), those that tend to stick to other words, changing the pronunciation in both directions. it's just important to hear French as fairly clear blablabla rather than fsijglisdjglijdsgis. again, this part refers only to hearing the form but not necessarily understanding the meaning.
Edited by Serpent on 13 February 2014 at 4:12am
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German
| Message 3 of 11 13 February 2014 at 2:24pm | IP Logged |
Blackcherries, what Serpent described so well for you is a technique known on these
forums as LR or Listening-Reading. The unusual thing about LR is that you listen to
one language while reading the other. This is part of what is done in Assimil lessons.
Personally, I prefer to listen to a French audiobook several times before looking at
the text. I usually do the listening only phase while walking or biking, which saves
time for me.
On the first listening, I'm just getting an idea of what's going on, noticing key
words, etc. Each subsequent listening makes the story clearer. Usually, I have
listened 3-4 times before reading the French text while listening to the French audio,
and then reading the French text on its own without audio (so I have time to look up
words in sentences which still aren't clear). So far I haven't bothered with English
audio or text (but I've only read 4 books in French in this way).
Edited by Jeffers on 13 February 2014 at 2:32pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 4 of 11 13 February 2014 at 3:13pm | IP Logged |
I was under the impression that the OP knew about the technique already, having been a member for 800+ days.
1 person has voted this message useful
| blackcherries Groupie Canada Joined 4751 days ago 41 posts - 48 votes Studies: German
| Message 5 of 11 13 February 2014 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
I was under the impression that the OP knew about the technique already, having been a member
for 800+ days. |
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No, I didn't know. I joined and was going to try to learn but then life got in the way. :-)
1 person has voted this message useful
| blackcherries Groupie Canada Joined 4751 days ago 41 posts - 48 votes Studies: German
| Message 6 of 11 13 February 2014 at 5:38pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
Proper LR lasts hours, not one page a day. If you have enough time, you'd benefit from doing
the steps in a
proper order.
1. get familiar with the content in L1
2. link the sound to the spelling, learn to separate the words from one another
3. listen to L2 while reading L1
2 is best done by listening to L2 and following L2 text. you can also use the additional tools like learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/Using_music_to_improve_your_ listening#Lyricstraining_site">lyricstraining
and simply some resources on the pronunciation rules - it can look like a mess but afaiu it's quite straightforward
once you get the hang of it.
also note that you don't have to "complete" the whole book before you start 3 - just do it when you are ready. You can
also use other sources for the second step, like a children's book as you mentioned.
as for separating the words, others can tell you more about dealing with liaison, but i suppose in the beginning it's
enough to separate these "groups" and recognize the functional words/little words (Italian examples: il, la, lo, ci, se, si
- written French has a lot of similar stuff at least), those that tend to stick to other words, changing the pronunciation
in both directions. it's just important to hear French as fairly clear blablabla rather than fsijglisdjglijdsgis. again, this
part refers only to hearing the form but not necessarily understanding the meaning. |
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I have been reading the "proper rules" link and I have some questions if you don't mind. Do all three of the steps have
to be done within a day or otherwise will no learning take place? How do I know many pages to read before going to
another step? I only have 2 hours in a row per day maximum to spend on this activity and I'm not sure what to
modify to benefit from it. The step where you listen to L2 while reading L1 makes me feel like I will be so distracted
by the audio. How do I make myself focus on both? Sorry about the numerous queations...
1 person has voted this message useful
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jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6912 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map
| Message 7 of 11 13 February 2014 at 9:26pm | IP Logged |
It's still not about pages, so you finish one step before progressing to next. From easy to difficult: the easiest step is reading the book in English - and that means the whole book; next step is listening to the audio book in French while reading the English book - this still means the book in its entirety - and you may have to repeat this step a number of times;next step is basically listening to French and reading French (there are even more steps, e.g. translating English to French).
If 2 hours is what you have per day - spend those on step 1 if you haven't already read the book. If so, spend all the time on step 2 until you're done. Then step 3.
The original poster siomotteikiru suggested intense periods where you'd go through all steps during a couple of days. Most mortals don't have the stamina nor the time to listen-read for say eight hours a day, several days in a row. But that's what suggested, and possibly what gives the best results. Forum member Volte has written a lot about her L-R experiences.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 8 of 11 13 February 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
There are more ways to use such a material. One is the classical L-R technique. Another is jumping right into the foreign language if you already know some French, reading the books side by side, listening a lot... The classical L-R is probably the best if you are a true beginner. If you have already got some basics, it depends on your choice (for example, I'd be bored to read the same book in translation and than in original in a row, it all depends on what kind of learner and reader you are).
However, most approaches relying a lot on native input (especially books, audiobooks, movies, tv series etc.) require more than a few pages per day. There are basically two kinds of approach. Intensive and extensive. Both have some assets, some people prefer one while others prefer the other and so on. Neither of them is passive, both will require some efforts and time. Both can help you immensely, even though they will primarily enforce different skills due to different approaches.
Intensive: A few pages a day (the more-the better of course), every little detail is scrutinized, every new word found in a dictionary, every grammar feature looked up and so on. It is slow. It is for people who dislike not knowing exact meaning of every word. For people who won't get bored by this. It is based on translation.
Extensive: You don't look up everything, only things that get your attention, are important, really unclear etc. Most new vocabulary will come trough repeated exposition, context and so on. No translation. It is the path of getting immersed, starting to think in the language, decipher from context, getting the "feel" for proper and natural language similar to the one in our native languages and so on. Some people find this approach to be "lazy" but it is far from truth. You need lots and lots of material and time. A few whole evenings may be much better, at least at the beginning, than a little time every day. The two hours a day could be enough but a few pages won't cut it. You need a few hundred pages to see a difference.
If you compared two learners after a week or two, the one who went the intensive path would have progressed more. If you made such a comparison after a few months, both would have progressed far and the result would be likely to depend on more factors. I personally think that if they both used a traditional course with grammar and the int./ext. input, the extensive learner would be better. There is a lot of success stories supporting both ways so it basically matter of personal preference..
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