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Effectiveness of readers | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| grunts67 Diglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5301 days ago 215 posts - 252 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 1 of 25 20 September 2012 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm wondering what you guys think about the effectiveness of readers versus their costs. I have no doubt (graded or not) readers are a wonderful resources to practice our reading skill and increase our vocabulary but it seems to me that their are quiet expensive for the number of pages. I will give you some example from my language store.
For a reader (50 pages or less) without audio, you are going to pay about 10-15$. For a reader (50 pages or less) with audio, you are going to pay about 15-20$. For a bilingual text (200/250 pages so half of it in your target language), you pay about 15$. (ex: First Spanish Reader - small pieces of literature) For a bilingual text from a classic (150/200 pages so half of it in your target language), you pay about 20-25$. With those prices in mind, if you go through a collection of graded readers (A1 to B2), do you think the money investment is worth the time you are going to spend on those books? As I am learning Spanish and my mother tongue is French, I am not sure if I will benefit as much of those as I would if I was learning a different language, let's say Chinese. For those who use them, how much time those it takes you to go read through one in average? Do you prefer to use areader, a bilingual text or a normal book (in your target language of course!)? Discuss ! :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 25 20 September 2012 at 8:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree. I think you are paying way too much for what you have. I was in a similar situation to you when learning Portuguese after Spanish. I didn't buy any graded readers when learning Portuguese. I used online resources (Centro Virtual Camões, librivox, escolakids, etc.). I started with a novel by Mia Couto- A varanda do frangipani and got through it with the help of my integrated kindle Portuguese monolingual dictionary and context. I found reading simple books much easier- Grimm's Fairy Tales, stories about the kings of Portugal and the great explorers (for children), African Fairy tales in a radio-play format and Aesop's Fables. Aesop and Grimm's can be found online rather easily.
As far as bilingual text goes- it's nice but I didn't really need it when I learned Portuguese because of my knowledge of Spanish and English. I can't tell you how much time it took me to get to where I can now take an online university course taught in Portuguese and read Brazilian novels because, well, I don't keep track of such things. I guess that puts me in a minority here but I care more about the result not as much about the process. There are always free alternatives available for graded readers, if you're willing to put in some effort to find them. For instance, for Spanish I recommend that you look at two sites: Centro Virtual Cervantes Lecturas paso a paso- this site has 3 levels- beginner, intermediate and advanced. The readings are short and have a pre-reading exercise, notes with monolingual definitions of new concepts and words and a post-reading exercise. I highly recommend it. The other site I would use, when you get to intermediate and advanced level is Veinte Mundos- Listening/Reading Magazine. The text has audio read in a clean and clear manner with explanatory notes and definitions of unfamiliar words and concepts. Lastly, there's a program for French (France) school students to help them learn Spanish that may help you in a general way: Académie en ligne there are many levels of instruction ranging from ecole to lycèe. Mouse over the levels and click "espagnol". ¡Buena Suerte! Edited by iguanamon on 20 September 2012 at 8:18pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 25 20 September 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have used text books because their texts are just about the simplest in the world, but as soon as possible I switch to genuine texts which I read with the help of machine translations until I can drop those too. So the question of graded readers doesn't even arise once I have said goodbye to the text book texts.
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| Peregrinus Senior Member United States Joined 4491 days ago 149 posts - 273 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 25 21 September 2012 at 5:21am | IP Logged | ||
I have looked at the Cervantes site, but those readings by level are not really extensive from what I saw, by which I mean there is not actually a very deep series to take one from beginner to advanced. Rather, there are examples from each of those levels (i.e. the total vocabulary in all the readings for the 3 levels would not actually come close to approaching advanced level). I suspect they are teasers to get one to subscribe/enroll in their courses. Still they are free comprehensible input to add to a varied basket of such input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 25 21 September 2012 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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When we're talking about free resources you have to work at finding what you need and combining it with other resources. I don't actively "study" Spanish anymore so I don't have any more links to offer except for the Defense Language Institute GLOSS site, which has levels from 1, 1+, 2, 2+, 3, 3+ and 4 with a total of 351 free lessons available (not all are reading focused). Perhaps some motivated person, using a variety of search terms, can find more freely available graded readers (or their equivalents) and share them with the community. Piece by piece, link by link, every bit helps.
Edited by iguanamon on 21 September 2012 at 6:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 25 21 September 2012 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
There are a fairly large number of free bilingual texts online, and far more can be fairly easily made. Hardcopy, I like the Reclam parallel texts, with a German base. When I buy them used, I get 2 or 3 for a euro. Readers vary a lot in how helpful they are; some provide translations of dozens of words on each page, while others provide L2 definitions that always seem to be for the words you know, not the ones you have trouble with. The best advice I have is to flip through some, and try reading a few pages. Ordering them unseen is always a bit of a gamble. In practice, I tend to use parallel texts, and largely ignore readers - but I've found both helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 7 of 25 21 September 2012 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I like using books adapted for Ilya Frank's method - here in Russia they're widely available and cheaper than most L2-only books. The main problem with readers is that they usually contain short stories, while a continuous text will get easier when you've read 50-100 pages...which is the point where the reader ends :D I only own one proper graded reader - the legends of East Timor in Portuguese. In general I prefer spending my money on fascinating things in languages I'm not learning, rather than on boring things in languages I learn :D Edited by Serpent on 21 September 2012 at 3:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Goindol Senior Member United States Joined 6073 days ago 165 posts - 203 votes | Message 8 of 25 21 September 2012 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Does anyone know if there's a way to obtain Ilya Frank's readers in the US? They seem terrific.
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