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How did you start using native materials? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4386 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 17 of 34 31 December 2013 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sounds good. I think the order of difficulty is PJ --> HP --> HG, but there is a noticeable jump after the 4th (?) book of HP, but if you read it in order you should be fine. I bought the Collins German-->English dictionary for the Kindle, which worked very well for me. It makes it much easier to read above your level, though you should expect to struggle a bit at first whatever you read. As I said earlier I found the Paperwhite, with the touchscreen, not very helpful for using the pop-up dictionary. I would recommend the cheaper ($50) Kindle e-reader, which uses a cursor. It makes it much faster to read and when you want to read 1000s of pages, it really makes a difference. I think the rule of thumb is that the first few hundred pages are the hardest, and then once you get to a few 1000 pages things get much easier. Rather than aiming to read a certain amount of time per day, aim for a certain number of pages so you get some sort of steady progress. If you only read 15 pages/day, you'll end up reading 5000 pages in a year.
I think Mad Men is one of the hardest shows to understand as the action is mostly in the words. It's much easier to understand shows where the pictures also match the words and the words are fairly concrete. I am watching the first season of Nikita now, which I find very easy to understand, but it's just action. * Breaking Bad was very good. * True Blood has good dubbing and the crazy action kept my attention. * Battlestar Galattica was hard but good - lots of words about politics etc. * Lost had good dubbing, but I didn't really want to rewatch in, esp. when I knew the ending. * Walking Dead - dubbing is very good. * Games of Thrones, I am finding the dubbing harder in this, but that might be more a "Mad Men" problem. As EMK said, which I think is especially true for shows you watch, you need to be able to tolerate not being able to understand lots for a while. I was an academic and am used to sitting in lectures, smiling politely for 30-60 minutes when I don't necessary understand everything that's going on. That was good training for starting with native materials. Even after 300 films I still have trouble with lots of dialogue, but I can still go to a film in the cinema without subtitles and enjoy it now (and that's been true since about film 50). It just gets easier and easier. I find it motivational to keep a log of everything I watch and read (page count) so I get a sense of forward progress. I disagree with the idea that you should attempt to watch native materials: (1) Germans also watch lots of foreign shows too - it's not like Breaking Bad is so foreign - some of Jesse's expressions in German are great (Das ist der Hammer! Geilest Krystal. That's the hammer (great). Hot/Sexy Crystal); (2) most German's I know don't think their TV is so good - there are lots of articles about this - mostly it's talk shows with older men and reality type stuff so don't feel bad about watching HBO. Like I said the crime show Tatort is a classic, and it's free from the ARD website, but it's a bit harder than some of the dubbed shows, which isn't surprising as it's often hard for native speakers to understand the plot too. Which brings up a final point: It's much much easier to enjoy and understand a show when your theory of what is going on matches what is really going on. When you have an accurate theory you can hang the words you hear off it. When you have a false theory (say in Mad Men as there are few visuals to give you a clue) you are constantly confused about what you are hearing and you brain won't fill in the gaps. You can have a look at my blog to see some of the films I have seen and recommended. Edited by patrickwilken on 31 December 2013 at 8:54pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3841 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 18 of 34 31 December 2013 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@patrickwilken I don't know any of the TV programmes you mention, but I accept that watching basically anything dubbed (in German, or whatever language you are learning) might help your learning process. Even if I prefer native shows to dubbed ones, I have to admit that I learnt a lot of French by watching the German series "Derrick" in French.
Still, I would insist on watching at least some original TV programmes. The cultural factor is much more important than some of us may think. For instance, when I moved to the UK I didn't know that you are not supposed to tip the bartender in British pubs and my ignorance caused some embarrassment. If I had watched e. g. "Coronation Street" I would have known that if I want to compensate the barman for some extra service, instead of giving him a tip I should buy him a drink saying "And one (i.e. a drink) for yourself". In a similar way in Britain "a grand" means 1000 pounds, and I learnt this from "East Enders". You miss all these cultural and linguistic subtleties if you watch dubbed TV shows. Edited by Hungringo on 31 December 2013 at 9:37pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4541 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 19 of 34 31 December 2013 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
De gustibus non disputandum est. As I detail in my log, I've so far learned to read Dutch, French and Italian by rereading Harry Potter, and then moving on to other things to re-read, such as Lord of the Rings. I'm now doing the same thing with Russian, which is harder, but seems to still be doable with some strategic shifts. I agree on the central point, however! The MOST important thing, and possibly even the ONLY important thing is whether you can stay motivated. For me, the satisfaction of understanding a little bit of what I'm reading and revisiting a story I like far outweighs the downside of getting bored with the story because I'm rereading it. In particular, if the choice is between rereading something like HP, or reading NOTHING because I'm not sufficiently advanced to follow a NEW story, the answer was easy for me. As to when to start, it again depends on your comfort level, but I agree that you should be ready to give it a try. In the case of Dutch, I sped through "Dutch in 3 months" in about a week, and moved directly to reading Harry Potter. For French, I started shortly after starting Assimil, and it was much harder, so I read it at the same time as I read it in German, so that I knew what was going on. For Russian, it's yet another level of difficulty, so I'm supplementing with flashcard work on common vocabulary drawn from Harry Potter. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4721 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 20 of 34 31 December 2013 at 11:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There are some fun German easy readers available from Cideb - Black Cat, if you decide that full novels are too complicated. They take lots of stories from German literature and have some biographies, too. I bought Till Eulenspiegel for my boyfriend and loved it. Usually what sets them apart from native materials is easier grammar. I'm sure there are other publishers with interesting readers as well.
With Korean, I started reading native materials at around a high A2 level. Because easy readers are not available as far as I know, I slowly built up from children's books to novels. Of course it wasn't the most gripping reading material, but it was still interesting culturally. I also got enough enjoyment out of solving the riddle. I actually mostly did intensive reading at first - without it I may have been far too lost.. I've found that a combination of extensive and intensive works very well if you quickly want to improve your knowledge of vocabulary. Edited by druckfehler on 31 December 2013 at 11:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6450 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 21 of 34 01 January 2014 at 5:34am | IP Logged | |||||
Like geoff, I prefer football and fantasy. And while HP does contain some typically British stuff, for me watching/reading a good translation totally overrides that. Speaking of football, it's a great idea if you like it. Never been to a British pub but I'm sure it's very important to know something about football. Also, the visual clues help, and there's surprisingly much "unrelated" or general vocabulary. Reminded me on this thread, btw. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4762 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 22 of 34 01 January 2014 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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German is a brilliantly resourced language for intermediate learners, thanks to Deutsche Welle (Learn German) and Langenscheidt, which publishes loads of easy readers, some for German teens, and some for "Deutsch als Fremdsprache".
Check out this link on the Langenscheidt website: http://www.klett-langenscheidt.de/Hoeren_und_Sprechen/Deutsc h_als_Fremdsprache/9337 There are 4 series of readers, most come with audio. I would advice getting a couple of these to ease you into the reading process. When I have used books like these, first I listened to the audio several times while on walks, and then once I had the gist of things I read the book. They are short enough that you can read them several times. Other people prefer to start with "real" books, but I have found a few easy readers helped to bridge the gap, and gave me the confidence to tackle full native material. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4862 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 23 of 34 01 January 2014 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's exactly what I don't agree with. In vast majority of learning related things, it is certainly true but this is an exception from my experience. I have found a few massive doses (at least four or five 45-50 minutes episodes in a row) to have incredible effects when I am beginning to watch things in a new languages, even though probably noone can afford to do this every day for a few weeks. 25 minutes a day, that is nearly useless and totally demotivating at the beginnings. You just aren't giving the brain enough time to get immersed, get drawn into the story enough to stop worrying "this is another language, I don't understand as much as I want.". You cannot progress that much during just 25 minutes and repeating the same process with little result day after day, that may be no fun. And no fun means no progress in this context. The best is a combination, of course. A bit every day with a few massive doses during the first weekend or two. The same applies to books. A friend is using a book I lent her similarily. Small doses. And she hasn't improved much in months. I don't know, perhaps she is too busy or perhaps she doesn't find it fun. But I think the trouble is that she lets the "lack of success" during her reading sessions (a few pages each) drive her away. If you want to progress, get something not too hard, something to make you desire to read "just one more page" all the time, and spend a day reading. Or at least an evening. After a few such, you will surely progress and can continue by a few pages here and there, as your schedule allows. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4862 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 24 of 34 01 January 2014 at 3:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Patrick, thanks a lot for the tips on good dubbed series in German! I have been considering the BSG for some time, your info is certainly helpful and encouraging.
On the other hand, are there any dubbings to avoid? I know the quality varies, in Czech there are shows I would certainly recommend to learners and others whose creators should be punished for mutilation of the series. So, are there any that are better to avoid? And are there any original German series that are good? It's not only Germans that find most German series to be dumb and low quality (that's quite a common view of Czechs concerning German crime series but it may be just the wrong taste of those responsible for the programm of Czech tv channels). I am sure there must be something fun among the original German production. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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