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How did you start using native materials? | ||
Tags: Native Materials | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 34 31 December 2013 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Of course, we are all different. There are many books I wouldn't reread. Than there are others I would. I am now rereading a long fantasy series approximately after five years since I read it for the first time and I love it. I've reread for example the Lord of Rings repeatedly and others. It depends. If you know you hate rereading, than avoid it at all costs ;-)
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4538 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 10 of 34 31 December 2013 at 4:40pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree with this, but I think you also have to aim for something that is doable. When I was starting to read German I found most authors too hard to parse. I would have loved to read adult authors but it is just too hard. German is famous for using relatively long sentences, and if your vocabulary is fairly weak, this can mean you have look up and remember several different words to get the sense of a sentence. And of course adult literature is full of idioms that make no sense at all if you are unlucky not to know their meaning. This happens in children's books too -- I remember reading in the first HP that Harry knew at first glance a teacher won't be good to eat cherries with, which means that the she wouldn't be a good person to screw around with -- this happens 100x in adult books. So I found it much more effective to start with children/young-adult literature and work up. What is helpful is to find stories that use concrete language (Harry raised his wand; Hermione read her spell book etc) as opposed too much metaphor, which is exactly what children's books generally do, and what adult books don't. In addition to Harry Potter, I found the Percy Jackson series a good, easy read (no contrast with the dreadful films). The Hunger Games was a bit harder, but it's told in the first-person perspective, mostly in the present tense so that's also easy. I had a look at the Game of Throne series and that looks fairly easy, but you'll obviously not be exposed to many contemporary words (e.g., car, telephone etc). I'd generally recommend series -- both books and TV -- as the vocabulary and expressions tend to get repeated and generally comprehension gets easier as you go along. Edited by patrickwilken on 31 December 2013 at 4:51pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3993 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 11 of 34 31 December 2013 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can only second the importance of watching TV series, preferably those about contemporary daily life. In German for example you could watch "Alles was zahlt". It's 25-30 minutes every day.
http://rtl-now.rtl.de/alles-was-zaehlt.php Edited by Hungringo on 31 December 2013 at 4:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4538 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 12 of 34 31 December 2013 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
But the beauty of German is that there are lots of dubbed TV shows to enjoy and use as learning aids. I can recommend the dubbing on the Breaking Bad set, for instance. In some ways I preferred the German Walter White to the original. And I enjoyed Battlestar Galattica. I plan to watch Game of Thrones and the Walking Dead and Mad Men next year. Most big name shows appear to come out with German dubbing about a year after the original release. While none might teach you much about German culture they are all popular. Big Bang Theory is particularly popular for some reason. You could also watch online for free the very long running German weekly crime show Tatort, which is set and filmed in different cities (all with their own styles). At the moment there is a bit of Tatort marathon over the Silvester holidays on ARD. However, I personally find Tatort much harder to understand than most dubbed shows (with the exception of Mad Men) as the plots can be fairly hard to follow even if you are fluent, but you would certainly learn a lot about German culture watching it. Edited by patrickwilken on 31 December 2013 at 6:50pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5537 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 13 of 34 31 December 2013 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, lots of good advice in this thread!
When I was just starting with native materials, I found that it helped to splurge a little. Instead of buying one book, I bought several. Most of them ultimately turned out to be too hard, or too boring. But one of them "clicked". Similarly, the first French TV series I bought was Engrenages. This turns out to be one of the most difficult things on French television. So I tried the radio, podcasts, and all sorts of random stuff before I found the very good French dub of Buffy and some transcripts. One season of this was a breakthrough for me. So that's my prediction: If you pick one book, or one show, chances are it will be too hard. But if you have the ability to try 3 or 4 or 5, there's a good chance you'll get lucky, and find something that's both easy and fun. The other thing that's important, as everybody says, is that you need to enjoy kinda-sorta understanding stuff that's above your level. For a ridiculously extreme example, you can watch me flail around happily in the Egyptian team log. The idea is that you read the page, puzzle some stuff out, notice some interesting details, and then move on without worrying about the rest. Multiply this by 500 or 2000 pages, and those little bits you can understand will add up like you wouldn't believe.
Sounds like fun! Here's handy rule of thumb for evaluating "extensive" methods: 1. Are you looking at or listening to something in German? 2. Can you understand at least some of it? (Creative cheating is encouraged!) 3. Are you having fun? If the answers to these three questions are "yes", I personally find that the other details tend to be less important. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4590 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 14 of 34 31 December 2013 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Wow really good advice from everyone. I haven't read most of the books I have at my disposal with the exception of
Harry Potter a long time ago. Luckily I have tons of ebooks in both German and English every book of entire series' such as Inkwelt, Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Hunger Games. I really enjoy reading, anything really, so I don't think I'll get bored. As for TV, I've always found it more difficult to understand. I've seen every episode of Mad Men, are there any shows you'd particularly recommend? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4149 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 15 of 34 31 December 2013 at 7:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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I found Harry Potter too hard as my first book. I read three or four Roald Dahl books first, followed by
Despereaux, and those prepared me well for HP. This year I'm hoping to read the rest of the HP books, the Hunger Games trilogy and the Percy Jackson books - so we have a lot of similar books, albeit in different languages! News articles with related video are an easy way to get into native material. I second the suggestion to watch dubbed shows. I was actually kind of snobby about dubbed shows, but now that I've started watching Buffy, it turns out that it's really easy to get used to dubbing. I watch native shows as well, with English subtitles (since the other people in my house watch with me). Even with the subtitles, I find that I'm picking up a lot of the language. It also drives my husband crazy when I shout out "No! That translation's wrong!" Haha! Sometimes I'll take a few minutes later on to watch a scene from the show without subtitles, just to practice a bit more So…long story short…I think that once the "learn to speak" resources start getting boring, it's time to move on. Of course it's going to be difficult at first. Just give yourself time, don't panic when you don't understand something, and don't be afraid to reread, relisten or rewatch something more than once. Edited by Stelle on 31 December 2013 at 7:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3993 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 16 of 34 31 December 2013 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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As to TV series I would stress the importance of daily input. 25 minutes soap opera a day is worth more than watching an entire saga at the weekend. That's why I would recommend in German "Alles was zahlt". In French you have "Plus belle la vie".
I normally prefer national programmes to dubbed ones due to the cultural factor. Learning a language is not just about putting words together, but also about knowing and understanding the cultural context. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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