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L-R | ||
Tags: Listening-Reading (L-R) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4838 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 1 of 29 05 August 2011 at 7:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I just started L-R today with French with Harry Potter À L'école Des Sorciers and it seems hard... I have a lot of
questions. First, Will the literary tenses mess up my speech? Also does L-R help speech? When I'm going through how much should I actually understand? I find the literary tenses are very difficult is there any way to make them easier? Also should I do a chapter a day or what? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Stephen Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4987 days ago 65 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Czech, Hungarian | Message 2 of 29 05 August 2011 at 9:00am | IP Logged | ||
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I'll admit first off that I have yet to properly attempt the L-R method (Volte is our resident expert on the subject), but I've read my fair share of threads on the method, and believe I've put together a decent idea of what it entails.
As to your questions: With literary tenses, it's true that they won't be usable as speech. But the main goal of L-R, at least early on, is more about listening comprehension and reading skills, not necessarily active speaking. The gains you make in listening will sort of 'make up' for the unusable vocabulary. The easier it is to recognize and parse the individual words, the more you can focus on context and words you don't yet know. So it does help your speech, but in an indirect way. As far as how much you should understand: Well, obviously it depends partly on how long you've been studying the language, and also partly on how familiar you are with the book you're using. On your first go-through (you will be going through the same book probably 3 or 4 times) you may at first only understand bits and pieces, relying on your knowledge of the story to help you through, as well as the English side of the page (you are using a parallel text aren't you? ;)). If I remember correctly, atamagaii also recommends translating the first few pages word-for-word to develop a base if you don't already have a decent one in the language you're learning. I have no experience with French so I can't really help you with the literary tense, but I would suggest just giving it time. The more you L-R with it, the easier it'll become. Your last point is probably the most important, and the hardest, part of L-R: the length of one sitting. My reading on the method has lead me to believe that it is crucial that you do it for several hours on end. A rough estimate would be 2 or 3 hours as an absolute minimum. Atamagaii, I think, mentions something like 5 or 6 hours. The reason is that L-R relies on you reaching a certain state of mind by tiring your brain out so it eventually stops translating and starts listening naturally, and this can take quite a while. I think this point is the one most people who have "tried" L-R overlook. In my opinion it cannot be overlooked, or else whatever you're doing ceases to be L-R and becomes something else entirely. So in summary, I hope you didn't start L-R thinking it is the easiest method to learn a language. Even just finding the appropriate materials (parallel text and audio in the target language) can turn one off pretty quickly (for the record, I believe it is easier to make your own parallel texts than trying to look for them; I made a post here (#46) providing some links to help you do that). It is by no means a miraculous magical method, there is still a lot to it. It's up to you as to whether or not you find it useful. At some point Volte will be around to correct all the mistakes I probably made and put everything much more clearly and concisely for you :) EDIT: Aha! I found the roundup thread Volte made on this method. If you haven't read it already, I would highly recommend doing so, as it contains some posts from atamagaii, the aforementioned "L-R Matriarch" (or Patriarch, but I'm pretty sure she's female) that may clear a lot up for you. Edited by The Stephen on 05 August 2011 at 9:09am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4838 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 29 05 August 2011 at 3:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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Right now I'm not using parallel text, I just have Harry Potter in both languages and the French audio... Is a parallel text really worth all the trouble and I don't feel as though I have enough knowledge to translate the first couple pages.
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| The Stephen Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4987 days ago 65 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Czech, Hungarian | Message 4 of 29 05 August 2011 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||
Well as long as you have the text in both languages, they don't necessarily have to be in a parallel text. You'll just have to pay extra attention keeping your place in both books. I don't believe the translate-the-first-couple-of-pages thing is crucial to the method; you can keep track of where you are using proper names and dialog as markers. As you go through the book, certain words will turn up again and again and you will be able to deduce what they mean. The nice thing about using one book so much is that you're only exposed to a manageable subset of the complete vocabulary of a language (the "ideolect"). Each author, and each translator for that matter, has their own unique vocabulary they draw from; they don't have active use of every single word in their language just like you or I don't. This results in more repetition of particular words that they prefer. So just going through the book once will result in a valuable increase in your understanding, much like translating the first pages would have. In short, I would say don't worry about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6374 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 29 05 August 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Stephen: good summary. There's not much to correct. 2 hours/day can be productive, as an absolutely minimum, in a fairly transparent language (ie, Italian if you speak Spanish), according to atamagaii.
I see absolutely no reason to translate the first couple of pages, much less as a beginner; that has absolutely no relation to L-R. Aligning a parallel text doesn't require translation, for the most part. I'm a bit confused as to where you guys found that idea. L-R does help speech, but just doing it passively is rather limited in that regard. Look up shadowing - both atamagaii and Professor Argülles have written about it at some length. See Atamagaii's question-and-answer about the active phase of L-R. Edit: parallel texts aren't strictly necessary. I personally am far happier with them, but other people have had quite a lot of success using two physical books, one in each language. Edited by Volte on 05 August 2011 at 11:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jazzboy.bebop Senior Member Norway norwegianthroughnove Joined 5353 days ago 439 posts - 800 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian | Message 6 of 29 05 August 2011 at 11:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all though, have you done the 2nd stage of reading the entire book in French while listening to the French audio or have you got quite a lot of listening experience with French? If not, then make sure you read through it in French with the French audio first to get used to the speed of it as it will be overwhelming otherwise.
I'm currently doing this stage with Les Âmes Vagabondes (The Host - Stepehenie Meyer) and it is mind numbing but I can see how essential it is to do this as there is no way I could listen to and analyse the audio in the main learning stage of L-R with my current listening abilitiy. The narrator on the HP books can go pretty quickly too. I decided not to use L-R with the HP books because of the literary tenses, I'd prefer to learn them later. I think that the normal character dialogue will use normal tenses though and that the literary tenses will only appear in the narration of events. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| The Stephen Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4987 days ago 65 posts - 77 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Czech, Hungarian | Message 7 of 29 06 August 2011 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
Yeah that was my bad. You'll find the passage I was thinking of here under "L-R in a teeny weeny nutshell". There's a part that says "If the languages are different the first three hours should be translated word for word". I probably misunderstood it or am just putting too much into it, as this is the only occurrence of the suggestion at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4838 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 8 of 29 06 August 2011 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Is the second stage really necessary, like would it help a lot... the speech of the narrator isn't too fast. But maybe I should do step 2 I did it for the first chapter. But it's hard for me to find time to do so many hours per day... Usually I only have time for 2 at the max. Some days I might have 4 but not often... Would this still be effective, I feel like it's helping with my understanding and maybe a little speaking. Also I find after an hour of straight L-R I NEED A BREAK. I find that reading is very relaxing and makes me want to sleep almost so I have to get up and get moving for a little while then start again. Also should I go through the whole book or each chapter one at a time? Today I did 1 listen through of all the chapters I could get through.
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