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One or several books at any one time? | ||
Tags: Foreign Languages | Book | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading |  | |
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5128 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes  Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 1 of 20 08 September 2013 at 8:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Reading is an activity I enjoy a lot in my foreign languages, but unfortunately there is never enough time to read all the books I want to read. I usually read one book per language switching freely between books. This leads to slow progress in all books, and I've been wondering lately whether it wouldn't be smarter (more rewarding, more efficient?) to read one book at a time in just one language, and then move on to the next book and next language.
I guess I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to have language contact with as many of my foreign languages as often as possible (i.e., daily). The main argument for the other approach might be that it's more fun and more intense to focus on one book at a time. What do you think? Do you read books in several languages at the same time, or do you tend to focus on one book in one language and then switch languages? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mahasiswa Pentaglot Groupie Canada Joined 4430 days ago 91 posts - 142 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi | Message 2 of 20 08 September 2013 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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It depends on the genre, too, meaning, there's poetry, theatre and short stories that I read more often
than novels. Reading novels (I'm reading Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn in German and Le rouge et le noir in French right now) is a lot slower, and it takes me about 6-9 months to finish reading one because I have to keep up with my studies at university. Whereas I feel a lot more accomplished and enlightened (in the short term) having read most of the stories in a short story collection that I'm reading in Spanish. Some books of poetry can be read in a single sitting. I even read a book of poetry once in an hour, albeit, a minimalist's poetry and in English! So it can be fun to read, yes, a lot more fun than watching or reading the daily news. But when I don't have the energy for any of these activities, I like to listen to or watch discussion programmes where people talk about books, arts, philosophy and politics. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nonneb Pentaglot Groupie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4749 days ago 80 posts - 173 votes Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French | Message 3 of 20 08 September 2013 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel about focusing on one book a lot like I feel about focusing on one language: It's probably great, but I lose interest too quickly to read only one book at a time. I remember only two times in my life where I've been reading only one book (after beginning to read books that last more than a sitting), both when I was a child: When I first started reading the Redwall books, and when I read The Hobbit/LOTR. I'd say I'm usually reading 3-4 books, whether all in one language or in different languages.
In this case, I'm not really sure I understand the argument for reading fewer books at once. It's more fun? How so? More intense? Is that a good thing? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 20 09 September 2013 at 11:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I guess this is a question of how fast you read. I am trying to read a book in TL each week. It's certainly a lot more fun for me when I move through the story relatively fast. If I was reading a book every six months I don't think it would make any difference how many other books I was reading - I would have probably forgotten most of the story by the time I was halfway through.
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 5 of 20 09 September 2013 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you are OK with translations, how about reading the same book in each of your target
languages? Each should reinforce the other. A possible disadvantage is that you might become heartily sick of the book by the time you've finished. The other disadvantage is that translations sometimes leave a lot to be desired (there are quite a few old HTLAL threads on that subject). On the other hand, coping with that is part of the fun, I suppose, and also part of the learning process. Comparing different translations can also be nerdish fun. :-) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 20 09 September 2013 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Given the perfect circumstances (ie once I'm fluent in Spanish), I'd like to read one book at a time, alternating
between English, French and Spanish. I read quickly, and I like to immerse myself in a book - so one book at a time is best for me. But for now, since my reading levels vary so widely from Spanish to English/French, I can only read children's novels in Spanish. I wouldn't be satisfied reading only that, so I always have two books on the go. My main problem is how EXPENSIVE French and Spanish books are. When I lived in a major city, it was no problem - the library had books for just about any language. But there's not a lot of selection here, so I find myself on Amazon a little too often. :/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5764 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 20 09 September 2013 at 2:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Shouldn't that be 'if you're okay with repetition'? :P 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6907 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 20 11 September 2013 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Most of the books I'm reading are in Swedish and English, but whenever I've read something in another languagee, it has been "at the same time" as my other books. How many minutes/hours I spend on reading any given day is unpredictable. Sometimes I don't manage anything at all, and other days I can read for hours. It's easy to switch languages those days.
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