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LR method

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kimmitt
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4956 days ago

33 posts - 38 votes
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 5
20 February 2013 at 2:27pm | IP Logged 
So I'm doing a lot of work on my French using the LR method. In recent weeks, I have completed about 20-30% of the required exposure to reach 'natural listening', according to the original thread. I've been through Le Petit Prince and L'Etranger and I've moved on to a translation of Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, which is one of my favourite novels.

There's no doubt that my comprehension has improved and that I find it increasingly straightforward to follow the English and listen to the French at the same time - but I was disapppointed on going through L'Étranger in French with the French audio that there were still significant gaps in my understanding, even though I had listened with the translation three times.

Is this surprising or should I not be disapointed? What are other people's experiences? Is there anything like a watershed moment with the LR method?
1 person has voted this message useful



lingoleng
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 5303 days ago

605 posts - 1290 votes 

 
 Message 2 of 5
21 February 2013 at 12:15am | IP Logged 
kimmitt wrote:
So I'm doing a lot of work on my French using the LR method. In recent weeks, I have completed about 20-30% of the required exposure to reach 'natural listening', according to the original thread. I've been through Le Petit Prince and L'Etranger and I've moved on to a translation of Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth, which is one of my favourite novels.

There's no doubt that my comprehension has improved and that I find it increasingly straightforward to follow the English and listen to the French at the same time - but I was disapppointed on going through L'Étranger in French with the French audio that there were still significant gaps in my understanding, even though I had listened with the translation three times.

Is this surprising or should I not be disapointed? What are other people's experiences? Is there anything like a watershed moment with the LR method?

I don't think it is surprising. After about 20 hours (wild guess) you cannot be at a level which makes understanding more or less everything possible. Nobody reaches C2 in 20 hours, but you know that. If I were you, I would finish the Follett (maybe twice, or even two novels of this considerable length) and only then try to draw some real conclusions.
If possible you should try to focus on understanding the French audio, this is your main job, the translation should not have to get close attention too often. Giving some stupid numbers I would think that 2 thirds of your mind following the audio and 1 third glancing over the text is probably ok, the other way round one cannot hope for much. It is pretty easy to go the lazy way and read the translation, with some background audio, and after three sessions you may know your English text very well, but can still not read the French one (I think this is the main danger of LR, one thinks one does something useful, but in fact one does something far less intense than ordinary reading or listening.) Try to get a clear picture of your "focus percentage", if necessary try to work on it, but as long as you see real improvement and enjoy the process, just go on. (When you start from real zero knowledge, things should be described in a different way, of course, but that is not the case with you).
Happy listening/reading!




Edited by lingoleng on 21 February 2013 at 12:24am

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Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6444 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 5
21 February 2013 at 12:53pm | IP Logged 
Your results sound more or less in line with what other people report at that level of intensity - if you've done 20-30% of what you'd need to get to natural listening intensively, but spread over weeks, you'll still have learned quite a bit, but it would be rather amazing if you had no significant gaps. You yourself say you've only done 20-30%, and intensity seems to increase progress more than linearly.

3 persons have voted this message useful



kimmitt
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 4956 days ago

33 posts - 38 votes
Studies: French

 
 Message 4 of 5
21 February 2013 at 3:22pm | IP Logged 
Thanks for your replies,

Volte - so do you think it would be more effective to do, for example, 3 hour sessions periodically? I currently do up to 2 hours a day but spread out - i.e. 30 mins on the train to work, 30 mins during my lunch break etc.


1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6602 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 5 of 5
21 February 2013 at 8:07pm | IP Logged 
In my experience, yes it's better to have long sessions, even if you can't have them daily. 30 mins is a bit too little.


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