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Reading is perfect, but inefficient | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 4128 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes  Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 41 of 56 15 September 2013 at 11:06am | IP Logged | |||||
I just posted some thoughts on the ideosyncratic relevance of contents in a neighbouring thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp? TID=36840&PN=1&TPN=1#461103 (... just in case) and don't want to repeat it here, but regarding high frequency lists, of which I have a nice collection, and not at last in regard to overall efficiency it sure pays off to have an eye or two on your own, ideosyncratic usage of your native vocabulary, especially expressions you use and hear regularly in your daily life - the active stuff, so to speak. With respect to conversational fluency, my primary goal in any language I study, these contents have become my top priority: monitor your everyday language - build up you n-lingual collection (lists,SRS, ...) and practise-practise-practise - in your virtual chat room or ideally, real life situations. PS: I'm just about to finish a transscript of Assimils 1984 'Spanisch ohne Mühe' and can't wait to run it through a frequency analyzer (and to post some of the results on HTLAL) but so far I've counted more than 400 beautiful verbs! - not too bad for a beginners text if you ask silly me :) Edit: can't get that link to show up properly Edited by BlaBla on 15 September 2013 at 11:30am 1 person has 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 42 of 56 15 September 2013 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Try click and drag from the bottom right of the posting input area to stretch it out. That's how I've entered this. BlaBla's link 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| cpnlsn88 Triglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 5036 days ago 63 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Spanish, Esperanto, Latin | Message 43 of 56 16 September 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have put a lot into extensive reading in the past and did get a lot of benefit but am starting to be a little more critical of it as an approach.
Don't get me wrong, extensive reading can help in a number of ways that people have indicated above. It is a good way of spending a lot of time with the language you're learning and doubtless grammar gets learned somewhat unconsciously or at least reinforced unconsciously. There are the joys of reading the wonderful literature of the target language but the vocabulary of high brow literature is often removed from speech. Then there are other books - technical, religious, philospohy, history, biography depending on people's interests. In reading, I would recommend it as an aid to language learning but advise something you enjoy and where the vocab isn't too difficult. On the other hand I think that more and more of the same thing does become inefficient in the end (here is where it helps if you're enjoying what your reading), other strategies might be better. One might cite different types of language activity which if all your eggs are going into the extensive reading basket you might miss out on. Someone asked which was the best Bible translation to read replied "the one you're going to use" and there is the sense that the best way to learn a language is to do whatever you enjoy sufficiently, to do and stick at. Nevertheless I do think there's a point at which extensive reading does become inefficient (even if valuable up to a point) because other activities (including other types of reading) might bring more benefit per hour spent on it and it is at least possible that it's an inefficient method when used on its own. Nevertheless, it's what works for you and, more importantly, what you enjoy. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 44 of 56 16 September 2013 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'll admit that I'm late to the party but I read the entire thread and I want to pick a bone with the title of this thread.
To proclaim that not only is reading perfect but one of the best ways to learn a language and then state that it is inefficient is to me illogical. I don't see how reading can be inefficient. It's what you are reading that is the problem, not reading per se. The material may be inappropriate for your level or your purposes. You may be wasting your time reading stuff that is too difficult but you can't say that reading is inefficient. Quite the contrary, constant or regular reading, just like regular listening, is a basic method of language maintenance, let alone language learning. I'm not talking about acquiring new vocabulary. I'm talking just about not forgetting what you already know. You have to keep reading to at least consolidate your ability to recognize - and eventually use - what you have previously acquired. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kami_77 Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 4094 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 45 of 56 16 September 2013 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's inefficient in the sense that no matter what you are reading there will always be patterns or words that you already know very well. If we were able to know what our brain has currently learnt about a language and a program that could generate a meaningful text containing all the patterns and words we know less could ever be created then reading that text could be considered perfectly efficient for obvious reasons (no time is wasted when reading). That being said, I consider reading one of best way that we can use in practice to learn a language, so in a sense it is also the perfect method available. The oxymoron was intended to make a flashy title. Edited by Kami_77 on 16 September 2013 at 11:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Andrew C Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom naturalarabic.com Joined 5189 days ago 205 posts - 350 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written) | Message 46 of 56 17 September 2013 at 12:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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I happen to think extensive reading is a very inefficient way to learn a language for the following reasons:
1. It is very difficult to deduce words from context. 2. You do not know the pronunciation. 3. Finding material of the correct level is impossible. These problems can be alleviated by having the audio with the text and a dictionary or a translation. Also it should be pointed out that if the language you are learning is similar to your own it is easier to deduce the words. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 47 of 56 17 September 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged | |||||
The problem, in this case, is that if you work with enough varied input*, those patterns and words are less well known precisely because they are less frequently used by native speakers. A proficient speaker does not only know how to use grammar and vocabulary correctly, but also which of the known sentence patterns to use in a given situation, so that the listener is most likely to understand the utterance in the way it was intended. In order to achieve that your proficient speaker needs to know how frequently those patterns are used, how frequent a certain collocation is, and in which circumstances and language register they are used for which purpose. You need to know when a word is used in formal writing with its standard meaning, and in colloquial language to indicate irony, for example. You need to know when a word or pattern is out of place, and then you need to be able to judge whether the speaker was doing it on purpose and meant something by it. And then you might want to be so consistent in the language you produce yourself that you can control the subtext you generate, avoid being misunderstood and are able to convey nuances without having to spell them out crudely everytime. And the most, let's say, natural way of learning how frequently used a pattern is in a certain context is to delve into the context and learn by observation and interaction; strengthening those neural pathways that are most likely to be used again soon, keeping those intact that are used every now and then and recycling those connections that don't get reactivated over a long period of time. *in this case I count media, immersion, communication and native or proficient speakers telling you '... no, you can't say it like that' all as the kind of input necessary to build such a frequency/relevance lexicon. Edited by Bao on 17 September 2013 at 3:39am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5429 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 48 of 56 17 September 2013 at 5:02am | IP Logged | |||||
I'm going to have to disagree totally with this idea of inefficiency. If I understand what is being said, reading is called inefficient because some or much of the material is not new, i.e. it has been seen before. Therefore one is wasting one's time reading something one has read before. Well, that might be inefficient, but it is highly effective. The main reason for doing extensive reading is to see both known and unknown words in varied contexts. When you read anything in a language, you can't avoid the core, let's say 500, words of a language. The reason these words occur so often is that a) many of them, especially the first 100, are function or grammatical words, and b) these high-frequency words often have many different meanings or uses such as in idiomatic expressions. So, it is every important to see as many instances of these words as possible. For example, if you take the four most common verbs in French (être, avoir, aller, faire), they have so many different uses that you could see them dozens of times before seeing all their uses in various contexts. And even we are looking at the same meaning, you want to reinforce what you know. How can you call this inefficient ? It's very effective. 5 persons have voted this message useful |
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