|
 |
How much does reading help speaking? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Vitamin_C Newbie Canada Joined 6612 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes | Message 1 of 4 29 October 2006 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
|
I've been trying to learn Spanish for quite some time.
There are so many methods of input: dictionaries, books, mp3 audio, news. My ultimate goal: to speak extremely well. If I were to spend X amount of time reading, would my speaking improve? Or maybe I should spend the X amount of time listening, and trying to understand? There needs to be more of a theortical basis for this. Saying "do everything" isn't the answer...because, there isn't enough time in the day. For example...I could read a book, and every word I don't understand, I could look up in the dictionary...this is extremely time consuming. Maybe I should just read and try to infer? Or Just listen and try to figure it out? For example: Pimsleur is very limited...even by the end, you CANNOT speak the Spanish...you can understand certain phrases, but if Pimsleur was 10x longer it might work. I believe part in the "massive input" hypthesis.....but what is the best way to get massive input? Spanish is spoken extremely fast...maybe I should try to imitate that? Thanks for any thoughts! This is a much more mysterious process that most people believe...its definitely subconscious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Vitamin_C Newbie Canada Joined 6612 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes | Message 2 of 4 29 October 2006 at 11:05am | IP Logged |
|
(BTW, I also think that people who say I learned this way, are not fluent...often people exaggerate their skills....or people who say its an "easy" language are way off)
The best foreign Spanish speakers Ive seen are on Voice of America video interviews. They are diplomats who understand everything and respond with extremely complex answers about foreign topics with perfect accents. I wish I could meet them and ask them how they learned so well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Vitamin_C Newbie Canada Joined 6612 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes | Message 3 of 4 29 October 2006 at 11:29am | IP Logged |
|
Here is the VOA (Voice of America) video and audio interviews.
http://www.voanews.com/Spanish/webcasts.cfm Check out "Foro InterAmericano" o "Desde Washington" con Adriana Amat Often she will interview American Diplomats. They understand the questions perfectly, and answer very excellently. Imagine having to step through difficult political topics in a foreign language. They are good. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7216 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 4 29 October 2006 at 12:16pm | IP Logged |
|
Thanks for that link. I was familiar with the voa radio programs, but had overlooked the video programs.
I think both reading and listening will help our speaking to some degree, but if our goal is speaking extremely well, then a large component of our study has to include drills on that skill. I recently read an article called When do people learn languages? which has a fascinating hypothesis and an interesting "howto" section. Another article on Overlearning - Practice Makes Perfect - But Only If You Practice Beyond the Point of Perfection makes a lot of sense to me as well. The upshot, particularly from the second article has reaffirmed and reinforced my goal of learning the FSI Spanish course extremely well. As you probably know, that's the course that was used to teach diplomats. I believe once I've mastered the material of that course, my speaking speed, pronunciation, and grammar will be very good and automatic. I'm unaware of a better foundation course for a self studier to learn to speak extremely well, with grammatical correctness, precision, and fluidity. The first article affirms the importance of needing to use the language, which is where TV, radio programs, books, and socializing all come in. Thanks again for turning me on to those voa news programs. They look very interesting. As far as how much time to spend in each of the learning disciplines with the goal of speaking extremely well in mind, I think that is somewhat determined by your level and temprament. Personally, I think the FSI course has to be a major component of my study until just about every drill is amazingly easy. As one advances, reading and radio/tv programs can become a larger component of your study. Then once one has the FSI course down cold, getting in situations where you can speak is very important. One can introduce real live speaking earlier, and I think that would help, if one is reasonably comfortable with making some errors up front. Edited by luke on 29 October 2006 at 12:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
