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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Tortoise Newbie United States Joined 4701 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 22 27 February 2012 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm trying to decide if it's a good idea or not to read a novel originally written in my target language, and using it to make a wordlist. I'm only an infant in the target language and don't know anything about sentence structure or grammar, which is why I'm uncertain. The book is King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov (target language being Russian). Any opinions on this?
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| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4716 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 2 of 22 27 February 2012 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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With unlimited time and enthusiasm, I would say no problem. Barry Farber recommends something similar in his book. Realistically, I think it should probably be more of a side project, though. If you spend ALL your time on it, you will probably take much longer to learn the basics and get bored and frustrated. If you spend NO time on it, or similar projects, you may get bored and frustrated that you are only experiencing language-course-Russian.
I think it's a good idea to dive into real-life materials early and often, but at the earliest stages it's important to not get bogged down in them for too long if you're having trouble with them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4716 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 3 of 22 27 February 2012 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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BTW, as presumably a language-learning newbie approaching Russian, I think this attitude is awesome. The fact that you're thinking about attacking a novel in the very beginning stages means you're clearly not intimidated (and no, you shouldn't be intimidated). Best of luck!
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| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4896 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 4 of 22 27 February 2012 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It probably depends a bit on how you go about it. The method Kató Lomb describes in "Polyglot: How I learn Languages" sounds somewhat similar. She read through one novel several times (also in Russian, by the way). At first she understood almost nothing, then gradually more and more words and grammar became clear to her through context. It sounds like at first she looked up words, but later abandoned that method and found reading more efficient without consulting a dictionary.
This is somewhat similar to how I learned to read English. The first real English book I read was "A Little Princess" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I had a vague memory of the TV series/movie(?) and loved it passionately. At the time I was 13 and had had 2 years of rather crappy English instruction at school, so the book was way over my head. At the outset I understood at most 30-40% of the content, but I was too lazy to look anything up. In hindsight that was smart, because otherwise I would've abandoned the project. I think it helped me become more familiar with grammatical structure and I learned quite a few words (at least sort of - like what area they were from, not direct definition, e.g. for "exclaim" and "announce" I'd know that they have to do with speaking). Later as I read more their differences gradually became clear from context. I don't think I'd be able to use the method at total beginner level, though, and would encourage you to start with something like children's books, unless you're so passionate about Nabokov that you're willing to go to any lengths. Also possible if you're content with sounding out the words and picking up very little meaning (it'll still be beneficial) or if you're very patient and can survive the intensive reading with dictionary method :) Edited by druckfehler on 27 February 2012 at 4:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6625 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 22 27 February 2012 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I recommend listening-reading :) check out other methods listed in the wikia as well.
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| Tortoise Newbie United States Joined 4701 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 22 27 February 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Sweet. Thanks everyone.
Another thing I am worried about with doing this is, say if I'm in Russian, I don't want to go up to someone speaking like I'm a narrator in some classic novel. Is that something that I should be worried about, or would you think that I'm going to learn enough to tell the difference by the time I'm able to speak to someone in Russian? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4716 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 22 27 February 2012 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting thought. If this book is pretty much your only source for input, that might be something to consider. Assuming you have other sources, I wouldn't worry at all, but it is at least in theory possible to have some weirdnesses of usage at first. It so happens that this is more or less how a learned Hebrew, namely, from endless hours analyzing a bilingual prayer book. I've not spent much time studying Modern Hebrew, and I'm sure any such issues could be straightened out easily, but in the meantime, when I try to speak Hebrew there is always a tendency for there to be some hallmarks of the Classical language if I'm not careful, which really is more amusing than anything else, IMHO. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tortoise Newbie United States Joined 4701 days ago 7 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 22 27 February 2012 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Awesome, I'll just remember that if this does happen, I'd rather sound like Nabokov than a Rabbi ;P (no offense meant here, rabbis are awesome). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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