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Reading is perfect, but inefficient | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 25 of 56 12 September 2013 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's probably also up to environmental factors. I speak worse when stressed for
example. This is why my French teacher told me to relax, breathe in, speak slower, take my time when speaking. Most people perform worse when put on the spot, you have to learn to deal with that. So she told me "you make more mistakes than you usually do. Relax, breathe in, don't mangle your speech so much, allow people to understand your phrasings, and pay attention to gender mistakes". Second time was much better. Just speak slowly, calmly and clearly and you'll get there fine. Concentrate, stay sharp. Focused. I autopilot a lot for example, which leads to unnecessary mistakes. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 26 of 56 12 September 2013 at 5:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
Personally, unless you are having someone ghost your forum posts I would say they are at least C1 in English. It's interesting how you feel you are not maintaining your English skills while speaking in German, I notice in my wife -- who's native German and C2 English -- makes minor errors after a while speaking only German (there seems to be a little bit of 'leakage' of her German into English, esp. with regard to pronunciation. But even then she's always C2. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4128 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 27 of 56 13 September 2013 at 9:44am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm assuming you're referring to my post, Tarvos. Well, I actually speak much, much better when I'm under external pressure, my autopilot works just fine in those situations, after all I've been feeding it ...loads of linguistic goodies over many years. The problems start when my analytical mind or all sorts of controlling or filtering aspects get in the way or when I fall back into my native language, like in this very moment, writing these lines, yuk. This thread started with one of my favorite words -'efficiency' - and like many folks on this forum I'm constantly reevaluating my techniques and strategies, some sort of quest for the 'holy grail' of language learning if you will and for me those past key experiences I've mentioned above definetely point in the right direction. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kami_77 Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 4094 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 56 13 September 2013 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Maybe I should elaborate a little bit more on what I meant for 'inefficient'.
Some people think that a review of well-known patterns is beneficial because at worst it helps to strenghten your current knowledge of those specific patterns, but is this really true? I have the feeling that if you really know a pattern perfectly you can remember it also if you do not encounter it in 10 or more years. Extensive reading is inefficient exactly in this. Low frequency words or patterns will be seen less than high frequency ones (it is tautological). Maybe we should rephrase the title with 'it is inefficient when you are an advanced learner' because you already know too much. Trying to learn those low frequency words (but that a native speaker would know nevertheless) by external means (word lists, dictionaries etc..) feels unnatural to me because I learnt my native language without them. Edited by Kami_77 on 14 September 2013 at 10:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 29 of 56 13 September 2013 at 5:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
As I saw myself quoted here I had to chip in. To be honest I can't remember having made that particular remark about the million word aim, but I have no problem agreeing with it in essence. I read a lot, and I find reading a very effective way of keeping up my language skills and improving my vocabulary. As has been mentioned by others here, you see words in different contexts, you absorb grammar structures and morphology through repetition, in my view in a much more efficient way than using flashcards or drill exercises in grammar. Not that I am against those, but I would not spend three hours in a row with flash cards or word lists. I do spend three hours reading a rather difficult text in German or Italian though, if the content interests me. And I do learn new vocabulary this way, even when reading extensively, because I get the meaning from context in many cases. Earlier this week I listened to a story on the BBC Radio 4 "Today programme" about a British study which proved that children who "read for fun" at young age get much better grades not only in English but also in maths. The study suggested that compared to children of the same age who don't read much or anything at all, the "read for fun"-children, by the age of 16, have a much more extensive vocabulary, makes fewer spelling and grammar mistakes and are better at logical thinking, thus also better at maths. For me the parallel to learning a foreign language is obvious. A child does not have the same vocabulary as an educated adult, just as an intermediate learner does not have the vocabulary of an educated native. However, you improve and progress by being exposed to the language, and reading is an important input in that process. And reading for fun is obviously much better than reading because someone tells you that you have to. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5559 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 30 of 56 13 September 2013 at 5:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unless they measured their intelligence at the young age, and observed that they did relatively better than expected later in life, the logical interpretation would be that intelligent children who are destined to do well in exams, enjoy reading at a young age. Did they control for "fun"? Did children who read a lot but didn't enjoy it, do badly later in life? Edited by schoenewaelder on 13 September 2013 at 5:48pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 31 of 56 13 September 2013 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it is wise to be sceptical of these reports. It's so easy for bias to creep in, and set out to prove something, and just keep going until you find evidence that seems to back up your claim. Which is actually the opposite of the scientific method, where you establish a hypothesis, and then try to knock it down. If you fail to knock it down, and no one else can, then maybe, just maybe, you have "proved" something, or at least then have evidence for it. I happen to believe what that study says, so I'd be the last person who should perform such an experiment, because I'd want to "prove" it correct. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 32 of 56 13 September 2013 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
I am not sure you can invert the argumentation like that. The study even seems to imply that reading has more influence on a child's development than whether the parents have a degree or not. In any case the study is not about whether they do badly or not in life, it is about the results they obtained at tests carried out at the ages of 5, 10 and 16. I have not read the study itself, but it seems serious enough, carried out by the University of London and comprising 6000 children. You can read more about it here. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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