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What should a language book include? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Jacob_Kap Pentaglot Newbie IsraelRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5106 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Arabic (Levantine), Russian, Modern Hebrew*, Arabic (Egyptian), German Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese, Swiss-German | Message 1 of 7 04 November 2013 at 10:24am | IP Logged |
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Hey guys,
There are many types of language books. Some teach you vocabulary, some teach you grammar, some teach you crap. What in your opinion should a language book include? What would you like to have in a language book of your target language? Would you prefer one big, thick book that teaches everything, or a series of books, each teaching a different aspect of the language (vocabulary, grammar, listening comprehension, reading comprehension etc). What is necessary to find in a language book? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5406 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 2 of 7 04 November 2013 at 11:30am | IP Logged |
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Lots of exercises. I hate textbooks that give you 50+ wordlists in each lesson but only 10+ sentences to practice with.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5558 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 3 of 7 04 November 2013 at 1:21pm | IP Logged |
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Everything, but not necessarily at the same time. So it might start a chapter with a
dialog using new vocab but with familiar grammatical structures, then maybe some grammar lessons, but using old familiar vocabulary, not the new stuff, and possibly finishing with a dialog with both new vocab and grammar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 4 of 7 04 November 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged |
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Basically, graded readers with a comprehensive grammar overview. Separate grammar
exercises perhaps to practice complex things if they exist (cases, verb conjugations, particle usage, whatever you can think of.) Audio for all texts. No romanizations unless it's pinyin, an introduction to the writing system if there is one, translations to language X. (Can be anything, but preferably should be a language I understand. Dutch/English jump to mind but if it's French or German it's okay too) Actually, if the Routledge course for Hebrew had more English translations for the text and slightly less pointless exercises (I skipped a third) it would be perfect. The foundation it's given me is so good that even after 2/3 months of no Hebrew usage I can still come up with a good, coherent way of speaking. My writing is terrible though. Edited by tarvos on 04 November 2013 at 1:27pm 4 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 5 of 7 04 November 2013 at 4:15pm | IP Logged |
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Accompanying audio for the text, target-language only (I can't stand the introductory lines like "Welcome to Rodian in 3 months", "Lesson 1 - Basic insults", "Imagine yourself in the Mos Eisley bar, pretend you're Greedo" etc.), no pauses, bells etc.
If the course is supposed to teach grammar along the way, it's important to have a reasonable amount of exercises and/or examples. Similar thread: What's important when you buy a course? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4442 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 6 of 7 05 November 2013 at 10:52pm | IP Logged |
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A book should include short paragraphs that tell a story of short stories with words & phrases within it. And after
you read the story, the various sentence structures are explained in more detail with the new vocabularies. Just introducing phrases, vocabulary and sentence structures individually would make no sense unless they are put together in some meaningful way. Just a textbook on its own isn't enough. If it is possible, a textbook should also include an audio CD or DVD that shows people having a conversations in the native accent. Otherwise I actually learn more watching a few hours of TV shows in a native language than from a textbook. It is like someone learning to play a piece of music. Just knowing how to read music notation isn't the same as listening to other people's performances and try to follow along. You pick up a lot more listening to other people perform a piece and then trying it out yourself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4634 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 7 of 7 06 November 2013 at 2:00am | IP Logged |
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I think a great language book would be a 150-200+ lesson Assimil with more idiomatic language and more formal language that goes in depth as far as grammar is concerned than Assimil's current "with ease" + "perfectionnement". Definitely keeping in mind to repeat vocab every few lessons or so.
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