|
 |
Listening To/Reading Novels as a Beginner | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:23pm | IP Logged | ||
Hmm, that's quite interesting. After reading a bit of HP, I am finding that I can understand which words are verbs, and how they have been conjugated if they are in their simple forms. I can generally identify present, imperfect and preterite tenses if they relate to you/he/she/it and we etc - even if I don't actually understand their meaning. I'm also getting quite familiar with a lot of the adverbs. I would say that these occur so frequently, that getting to know them is helping a lot. 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 10 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I think realistically Harry Potter at your level is more frustrating than productive. While it's considered juvenile fiction, it's not for early readers, which is what you are in Spanish. I'm not sure if En Septiembre is available with an English translation, but even it might be slightly advanced for you at this stage--but probably fairly manageable in a few more months. It depends on how many words per page you are comfortable looking up. You might have a look at your library to see if you can find books in Spanish for young readers and see how that matches up with your level.
My own opinion, based on no research, just my own experience and preferences, is that I get more value out of reading in foreign languages when I can read 80-90% of a text. Probably closer really to 90-95%. Something where I'm looking up absolutely no more than around 5-10 words per page. This way I'm understanding the context of unknown words and phrases and grammar points. It also ensures that I can read with some continuity and absorb the language and how it is being used. For me, that's the main point of my reading practice, so reading something too far above my current level is not very productive for me. So with Spanish I think that means doing things like reading children's books before adult books, reading 20 Minutos before El País, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:38pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks ashleys, I have just looked at En Septiembre but it doesn't come in Kindle format
- which is useful so that I could add it into LWT. I'll continue to look on amazon to see if I can find something that isn't related to princesses or fairies!! haha 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 12 of 27 02 April 2015 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I had a look on amazon.es in the category: Libros : Infantil y juvenil : Sólo disponibles : De 6 a 9 años : eBook Kindle then sorted by popularidad.
There seem to be a lot of princess and fairy books but also some kindle format books for the less princess-obsessed 6-9 year olds :) Maybe some of those will also be available as kindle books in your country, too? You might also look at the websites of some of the big Spanish booksellers (Casa del Libro, FNAC) for their top sellers to get ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 27 02 April 2015 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | ||
|
That's great, thanks. I'll have a look to see what I can find.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 14 of 27 02 April 2015 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You've bitten off a bit more than you can chew, gravityguy. I am known here for advocating early use of native materials "before you are ready", but there are different levels of native materials and different ways to make them comprehensible. Please have a look at my post on The multi-track approach for a fuller explanation.
If you bite into a tough piece of bread that's hard to chew it can be made softer with soup. That's what a parallel text does for reading- no having to look up words except when you just want to for your own check. There are free sources available- albalearning.com is one, and you can make your own quite easily. A parallel text can be used in many ways- read the English first, then read the Spanish and vice versa- or, read Spanish and try to comprehend and when you hit a patch of words you don't understand, glance at the English. At higher levels, the English serves as your answer guide, a check against your comprehension. One of my friends is learning Spanish, he's already at A1 level. I make parallel texts from Associated Press stories for him with the Spanish on the left and English on the right. He's making great progress because he knows the news already, the topics are varied and so is the vocabulary. The articles are short. He is starting to see patterns and figuring out things on his own. The time saved in looking up words means he can read more and the snowball gathers more snow as a result. AP is obviously US centric, so, since you're in the UK have a look at the Reuters site which also has a Spanish translation available. Along the same lines, have a look at what emk is doing with Spanish: A little subs2srs experiment. Combined with a good beginner's course- Assimil and/or FSI Basic Course it could really help turbocharge your learning, but you have to have the computer chops to be able to set it up. Even though you may know Harry Potter in English, and you may be able to gain some knowledge of Spanish through reading it, at this level, it comes at too high a cost for the effort invested. In reading, I would start off with a simple parallel text, a page or two, with or without audio and work my way up- at the same time I am using a course. In a departure from my norm, I'm not going to recommend any specific texts to you. People's tastes are something I can't account for. Just know this, in the words of your fellow countryman, Sir Mick Jagger, "You can't always get what you want"- "but if you try sometimes, you just might find... you get what you need". In short, start off small and work your way up. Be patient. Madrid wasn't built in a day. Edited by iguanamon on 02 April 2015 at 2:25pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| gravityguy Groupie United Kingdom Joined 4538 days ago 56 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 27 02 April 2015 at 2:58pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks iguanamon, your advise is very much appreciated. I'll have s look at those
posts you recommend. My core learning is coming from Assimil (and Pimsleur for when I'm in the car). I was trying to find something else that I could be doing to enhance my learning outside of the core stuff. I've just looked at AP news and it does actually look very good, even though it is based on US news. A lot of it is world news though, so is quite relevant. In fact, some of the US news also looks quite interesting. Thanks again for the advise. I'm now off to make parallel text from AP. The latest on the Germanwings pilot will be first. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 16 of 27 02 April 2015 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
You're welcome. I hope it helps.
Here's a short tutorial on how to make a short parallel text from the AP Español site. 1) Open a word or openoffice text document. 2) Insert table- 2 columns one row 3) Go to AP Español site and find interesting story 4) Click to open "Top News" in a new tab. The same Spanish story will appear 5) Search for the English story using key words from the headline in English 6) Copy the Header in Spanish and paste in left column of text document. Copying the whole article with the header grabs images and tabs and messes with formatting. 7) Then go to the actual article itself and copy and paste it. 8) Go to English article and repeat process pasting in the right hand side. 9) This is where it can get tricky. Some articles are very closely translated and others are not. It takes experience to figure it out. The English text is usually shorter than the Spanish text. To avoid alignment issues in openoffice, on the English side, I use the space bar to go to the end of the line in the column for the paragraph and type a full-stop at the end which then goes to the next line and keeps the paragraphs aligned properly. You can also play with font size in a paragraph. I find the space bar + full-stop (period) type to be easiest for me. 10) Print to pdf and read on a tablet at your leisure,or print it and take it with you in hard copy, or, you can even load it onto a smart phone. This process may look arduous and tedious but it actually is quite easy once you get the hang of it. I can make a parallel text in as little as two minutes for a short 2 page, 8.5" x 11", article. If you need further assistance, feel free to pm me. I recommend less straight up news articles and more feature/entertainment/sports type articles, because that's where you'll see more everyday language being used. Along with your courses, this will help you to see patterns and grammar and give you the power of synergy in your learning. Edited by iguanamon on 02 April 2015 at 3:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
