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Listening To/Reading Novels as a Beginner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 27 02 April 2015 at 9:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi all, it's been a while since I have been on here but I have now re-established my
language learning journey - however, this time in Spanish :) I've been actively studying for around a month now and I am using a combination of the new 2014 Assimil (Spanish with Ease), Pimsleur (listening to 1 lesson per day whilst driving to work then listening to the same lesson on the way home) and Duolingo. I have now also discovered the Learning with Text software. So basically, I have the ebook of Harry Potter Y La Piedra Filosofia which I have uploaded to the software; as well as the audiobook. Basically, my idea is that I will work through each chapter, identifying the unknown words and then re read the chapter trying to understand as much as I can; clicking the words I can't remember (which is probably 75%) if I can't get the general understanding of the sentence. My aim is to have a 'broad/general' understanding of the chapter before I move on to the next. This is however, extremely slow going due to my general lack of knowledge regarding grammar (and almost every other aspect of the Spanish language). My question is, what is the general consensus on this style of learning as a beginner? Is it worth my time trying to plough through it (I'm hoping that the more I plough, the easier it will get, and it's only super hard now because I know very little)? Or, is this an ineffective method where my time spent would be best on something else? I'm also trying to do a fair amount of listening - i.e. listening to the audiobook whilst reading the Spanish text. I can pretty much break up words as they are spoken (if I'm looking at the text also) but due to the speed of the speech, I generally have no idea what is actually being said. Again, as a beginner, is this a worthwhile approach where it will naturally get easier over time, or is this approach best left for more of an intermediate approach. I am very keen to improve my listening comprehension! Basically, I am trying to spend almost all of my free time learning using the above methods but I am worried that I what I am doing is completely ineffective (or at least so ineffective that it will take me years to get anywhere). If anyone could offer any insight based on their experiences, I really would be very grateful indeed (and sorry for the super long post) :) Regards Mike H 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 2 of 27 02 April 2015 at 9:56am | IP Logged | ||
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If it's too slow and you only understand 25% of the words, maybe you should try something else. Listening and reading at the same time in your target language is excellent, but if what you say about your comprehension is true, at this point you're looking up 150-190 words per page, just in order to try to work out the general gist, since the grammar is unfamiliar. Getting through this book, even though it'll obviously get easier, is going to be a huge pain and if it's this difficult you may lose interest long before it gets easier.
My suggestion (which is based on my own lack of endurance and frustration so take it for what it is), if you want to use Harry Potter Y La Piedra Filosofia, is to get Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and read the two parallel. You read one sentence in English, then the same sentence in Spanish (you can listen too, if you want to). That way, you rarely have to look up words and you'll easily be able to figure out what the words are actually doing (grammatically). I did this with the Breton edition (Harry Potter ha ar Maen ar Furien) about two months into my Breton journey, and it was just about the only thing that made reading bearable in the beginning, since working through one page on my own took half an hour without looking at the English original. Towards the end of the book I was reading and getting the gist without looking at the English, though, and as I progressed, I parallel read paragraph for paragraph, or page for page, rather than sentence for sentence. The last few chapters I read the entire chapter in Breton, then checked my understanding against the English original. I probably would never have finished the book, and I wouldn't be re-reading it now with circa 97-98% comprehension, if I had tried to work it all out on my own so soon. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 27 02 April 2015 at 10:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi eyðimörk, thank you so much for your response. I actually created a parallel text
version so I could try out the L-R method. I quite quickly gave up on this though as it felt very much like pulling teeth. I found listening to the target language whilst reading the native language extremely difficult as I struggled to both hear what was being said and read what it meant at the same time - especilly given the time needed for this approach (not easily achievable when working full time). This was why I went for the new approach of trying to learn and understand the chapters first using LWT software (which I have to say I think is excellent - or at least it will be once I have a better grasp of the language). I think the benefit of using LWT (once you have input all of the words ) is that you only need to hover over the word you don't know (or the expression) to get the translation. This means you don't need to keep looking at the native language to understand. If the text is still too obscure, due to the grammatical differences, I can still refer to the parallel text version for a better understanding. At the minute, I would say that both methods probably take a similar amount of time. I think the important thing is that, from what you have said, if I stick at a method I will hopefully get as I go through the book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 4 of 27 02 April 2015 at 10:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I can't listen to one language while reading in another either. It drives me mad when what I'm listening to doesn't match what I'm reading.
That's why I only recommended listening to your audio book while reading translation, if you want to listen at all at this stage. For me, parallel reading is a quiet exercise, but I can see how with the right software one could make good use of an audio book while reading the translation (with the wrong software you'll probably end up spending more time than it's worth finding your place, repeating phrases, and switching between windows, though). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 27 02 April 2015 at 11:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm glad it's not only me that struggles. I feel a bit better knowing that someone
that can already speak 3 languages also struggles with this. It makes me a little less like an idiot! haha I know what you mean regarding having various windows, it just becomes annoying having to constantly switch. The benefit of the learning with text software is that you upload the audio to the software which you can then play in the same window as the one you are reading in. You can also click on a word that you want more clarification on, which links to an online dictionary - and again, this is in the same window so you never need to leave the page you are on. Like I say though, adding in the definitions of the words to enable you to just hover over for the meaning is very time consuming. After I had gone through the chapter and got rid of the words I knew well, I was still left with 1200 words that required translation. I'm now down to about 600. Luckily, it remembers all of your words that you have defined for all future texts so this will hopefully get a lot less painful. eyðimörk, Can I ask, what was your level of Breton before you started reading Harry Potter? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ashleys Diglot Pro Member United States Joined 4347 days ago 7 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 27 02 April 2015 at 11:46am | IP Logged | ||
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What is your level in Spanish? If you're really only been studying a month and you're finding Harry Potter to be a bit frustrating, my suggestion would be to drop down a couple of reading levels. Starting with books for early readers (ages 6-8) is a lot less frustrating for me. The stories are nowhere near as good as Harry Potter (in my opinion) but the word choices and grammar used are much easier to follow as a beginner. Then you can quickly progress through reading levels til you get back up to Harry Potter. This approach might be less of a struggle and therefore more motivating.
One Spanish author of juvenile fiction I like is José María Plaza. I've read En Septiembre Llegó el Desastre--it's about 150 pages in paperback, aimed at 10-12 year olds, and the vocab is pretty high frequency, so you'll probably know many of the words already and the ones you learn will most likely pop up in your courses and other books. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| eyðimörk Triglot Senior Member France goo.gl/aT4FY7 Joined 4100 days ago 490 posts - 1158 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French Studies: Breton, Italian | Message 7 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I had done exactly two months of Assimil Le Breton, so around 30-40 lessons, which I guess would put me into the bracket of not having started or just barely having started to learn one of the ways to express something in the past tense. I could mostly identify nouns, verbs, and adjectives from looking at them, and probably knew a handful of prepositions. I definitely couldn't have asked a question and understood the answer, unless the question was something like "What time is it?" 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | ||
That's great, I will have a look and see if I can get that one. Does it come in English too or is it just in Spansh? With regards to my level, it's pretty low. I've just done a quick word count from 3 random paragraphs in HP and I actually knew around 50% of them, which is more than I thought. The problem is, the words quite often mean something else entirely when used in conjunction with its neighbouring words. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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