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Learning Material.. What Level Is Ok? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 9 of 17 03 September 2013 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to address reading first. When I first started learning Haitian Creole, I used a text intended for elementary school students about a rain drop's voyage through the water cycle in the context of The Everglades: Wayne Drop. You can download both the English and Spanish versions in pdf format. You can make your own bilingual text by creating a word/open office document with a 2 column 1 row table inserted. Copy the text without images and paste the Spanish on the left and the English on the right. Align as best you can or use an alignment software. Searcg HTLAL for "LF Aligner".
I know that you may have little interest in the topic, it didn't exactly thrill me either, but it helped me in learning Haitian Creole. I used it by reading through the Creole first all the way through, 50-60% comprehension. Then I read through the English to check myself. Next I went through it paragraph by paragraph, line by line, looking up unknown words with a dictionary and checking against the translation. I did that all the way through the text. Then I went back over the T1 reading it and only consulting the English when I needed to. After that, I had about 95% comprehension. One more pass through brought me to near 100%. Disclosure: I already spoke Spanish, Portuguese and English. Still, that's how I did it. I also made my own parallel text of Genesis from The Bible and repeated the process. I was already very familiar with the story. To me the key is to start small and work your way up. Yes it's a challenge when you only know half of a text, but if you don't challenge yourself you won't grow. Working with a parallel text can help you to figure out words through context and instantly see if your guess is right. By using a dictionary first as you go through, you'll be figuring it out by yourself and using the parallel text will make more sense. The act of guessing right on a word or phrase and being confirmed by the dictionary and the translation really helps the word or phrase to stick in my memory better than if I just came across it in a textbook. By continuing to read, it will probably come up again somewhere. That's when the magic starts to happen for me. Translations are almost always never 100% accurate or word for word, but close enough is good enough as long as the translations are relatively close. You can tell by looking at the English and seeing cognates and proper names rendered in the TL, and if you can get half, you can tell. So if you like a challenge, as Cavesa says, definitely give it a go. If you don't, well there are other ways to learn too, they're just not what I do. I start listening by listening to a real newscast with a transcript. NHK World Spanish and Democracy Now! Español are good for that. Both have accurate transcripts and the English version is also available. I don't believe in using something like "The News in Slow Spanish" because that's just not the real world. Sooner or later you're going to have to listen to the real thing, might as well be sooner. Listen in English, then in Spanish. I'd start with one or two stories and make a parallel text. Listen to or read the English first. Then, listen to the Spanish. Next, read the text in Spanish as you listen. Then look at the English. Then listen to the Spanish again. Once more, this won't be easy, but I believe it will help. Of course, if you don't like the news, disregard everything I said and choose something else. Also, move on to other sources as soon as you can. Don't just use the news. If you do like it, it's a good and convenient way to get started. ¡Buena suerte con tus estudios! Edited by iguanamon on 03 September 2013 at 2:16am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 10 of 17 03 September 2013 at 8:38am | IP Logged | ||
I've done that, and it's not a problem. I'm surprised so many have spoken against it, because usually when people new to a language ask what they should do, lots of people recommend listening to easy newscasts, which the new learner will probably understand 5% of. I have worked with material like you describe many times. First I listen to it several times while taking walks. You'll find that with each listening you get a bit more of it. Then I read the text, but try only to look up the most essential words. If I can get the gist of a paragraph, I don't look up any of the words in it. It's best to make notes in the margin for words you look up, so you don't have to look them up the next time you read it. After the first reading, I read it again several times. Sometimes with the audio and sometimes without (just depends on my mood). I look up words I didn't look up the last time, so more and more of the text becomes clear. But the interesting thing is that a lot of the words you don't get the first time, wont have to be looked up because they become clear in the context. This method is very encouraging because you take a text you didn't think you could understand, and it becomes more meaningful each time you read it. The 90% figure is for "reading with pleasure", and actually it's 95%. The idea is that if you know 19 out of every 20 words, you know enough to just read for fun like you do in your own language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 17 03 September 2013 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
I think the quoted figure you are referring to was for extensive reading (i.e., where you are reading without a dictionary and just guessing words from context). If you are using a dictionary you can certainly start at a much lower base, it just depends how slow you want to "read". I'd recommend reading ebooks with a built in dictionary. It makes looking up words much less painless as you go. I've done it for books where I definitely am below 90% comprehension and have learnt a lot. The only catch with intensive reading is that you can't really lose yourself in the text. When this happens in extensive reading you'll find yourself reading at a much faster rate and simply immersing yourself in the story. When I first started watching TV/movies in German I was A1. The first show I watched was South Park (it was all I had access to). I could only understand individual words here and there, but it was useful. However, I don't think I would have picked up much language from simply listening. I was using Anki to learn word lists at the time, and my impression was that as I learnt words I would then recognize them in shows I was watching - not the other way around. 3 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 12 of 17 03 September 2013 at 10:36am | IP Logged | ||
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An alternative to e-books with a built-in dictionary, is the Readlang website, which has
been posted about here before in its own thread. This also has a built-in SRS system which you can, but don't have to, use in addition. Whether you use the SRS or not, it keeps track of all words you look up. Similar to LWT I guess, but it's definitely geared up for e-books (as well as web articles, etc), which I'm not sure that LWT is in the same way. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5531 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 17 03 September 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can read extensively when I understand the general meaning of 4 sentences out of 5, but I'm highly tolerant of ambiguity, and I'm studying a language with a lot of transparent vocabulary.
For listening, things really took off when I could read 90% of a Buffy transcript without too much effort, and could follow about 40% of the spoken dialog. At that point, simply doing the Super Challenge extensively was enough to make really substantial gains. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4315 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 14 of 17 03 September 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks guys, some really helpful replies and some nice links!
Although, I'm a little confused as to how much I'm actually learning with transcriptions tbh. I listened to a 10 minute audio the other day and was pretty lost since every time I heard a new word, which was fairly often since it was above my level, I got lost and couldn't regain understanding much once this happened. However, once I worked through the transcript by looking up every single unknown word and trying to figure out the constructions I then listened to it again, expecting to understand a little more, but to my surprise I understood the whole thing from start to finish, not only that, what originally sounded too fast for my ear now almost sounded like it was slowed down somehow. As weird as it sounds, I'm a little concerned that I didn't actually learn anything, but rather I cheated somehow haha. That said, I'm pretty certain that after listening to it a few more times, I now know these words in the target language (at least in the context of the dialogue) and I can recall most of them without the need to look at them to jog my memory. I personally think that must mean I've learned these words to some degree along with some patterns too, I'm just not sure if this is the way it works? Sorry if I'm not explaining myself very well, but it's just that after doing this it all felt so easy, I did feel like I cheated, since something went from little comprehension to full easy understanding upon first listen after studying the transcript. The speed of speech was quite slow though and I've tried the same with full speed dialogues and I must admit I still couldn't pick out much after going through the transcript and understanding the text. I actually quite enjoy picking through some harder texts, then listening/reading repeatedly until it gets into my brain. Does that sound ok as a main method? I like the sensation of understanding the target language despite getting it from the English first. I figure if I just listen and read over and over (so long as I'm not bored with it), that might help me both in terms of exposing myself and getting the language to stick in my head. Sound ok? Unfortunately, my biggest problem seems to be picking it out when said at close to full speed, do I just ditch the slower stuff and keep listening to full speed until I can pick out what's being said? I've tried really hard to do this but the language is far from automatic for me right now so it's insanely tough to do, I've been pausing a lot. I've definitely improved slightly with this, some basic stuff is close to automatic for me, and I've gotten faster at translating it in my head as I hear it, but it's still nowhere near there yet, I'm thinking this will get better in time as more of the language becomes familiar? Sorry about such a long post, I like to get as many thoughts in as possible to make sure I'm on the right lines. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 15 of 17 03 September 2013 at 8:23pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a great method to learn a language. Cheating? Well, keep cheating until you can understand almost anything. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4315 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 16 of 17 03 September 2013 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Haha, that's good to know as it's by far the most fun method I've tried.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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