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Reading as a method | ||
Tags: Reading | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 25 of 68 15 February 2011 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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We pretty much all agree that reading is good for language learning, but I would like to revisit the importance of choosing the right materials.
Last night I attended at a local university the launch of a book by a professor friend of mine. The audience consisted students, other professors and university administrators. There were four short speeches by various colleagues and then a speech by the author. As I listened to them, I thought about our debate here and asked myself, "If I were learning French, what would I read to develop my ability to make these kinds of speeches?" But first, what are the stylistic features of this kind of public speaking? Here is my take: 1. This is written language meant to be spoken aloud. Everybody was read from prepared notes. This is not casual improvised speaking. 2. Long sentences with complex grammatical structures. 3. Sophisticated vocabulary with some rare usages. 4. Impeccable grammar of formal French. 5. A number of literary and historical references. 6. A few puns and plays on words for laughter. This is French spoken at its highest level of sophistication. Now I must admit the very few learners of French will find themselves in a situation where they have to make these kinds of speeches. What kind of reading material would be recommended for learning these skills? Obviously, one could read something on public-speaking in French. Beyond that, my suggestion would be to emphasize non-fiction of a biographical, philosophical or historical nature. Of course, this kind of speech-making requires a broad literary and academic background that comes with having spent years in a university environment. Edited by s_allard on 15 February 2011 at 5:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5092 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 26 of 68 16 February 2011 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
That's funny, but not all Bibles read like that. Anyway, it's not as though the Bible is the only thing I've tried to read in French. It was just one of the first things.
I see. I suppose I need to keep hitting the books then. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| away-with-words Triglot Newbie Australia Joined 5020 days ago 4 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Turkish | Message 27 of 68 18 February 2011 at 3:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm very curious as to how many of you do something 'active' during your extensive
reading (e.g. highlighting, noting vocabulary, circling unknown words), and how many sit back, relax and read? I'm starting to feel like I split the four language skills into sort of 'passive' and 'active' modes. To me it seems valuable to do both, e.g. in the case of reading, sometimes read freely to relax, and sometimes sit down with a novel and a dictionary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 28 of 68 18 February 2011 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I relax and read. If I were to do any "active reading" it would slow down the process too much for me.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5422 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 29 of 68 18 February 2011 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think you have to do some sort of active reading for it to be truly a learning experience. I know this can be slow if you have to look up words in every sentence you read, but you have to do some grunt work to build up your vocabulary. This is where choosing the right kind of reading material is important. Some things are definitely easier to read than others. Newspaper articles tend to be easier to read than dense novels. Just a quick word about guessing the meaning of unknown words. Some people claim here that you don't have to always look up words in the dictionary because the context gives some clue about meaning. Although there is some truth in this, I've found that most of the time this guessed meaning is so vague as to be useless other than just allowing to keep moving along. Right now I'm reading the great classic Cien años de soledad by Gabriel García Márquez. This is heavy stuff. I don't look up everything I don't understand because it would be too tedious, but there are things where I make the extra effort. What I have noticed is that this effort pays off because it makes further reading easier. I'm nearly halfway through the book and I'm enjoying it more and more because I don't have to continuously be looking up things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| numerodix Trilingual Hexaglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 6775 days ago 856 posts - 1226 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Norwegian*, Polish*, Italian, Dutch, French Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 30 of 68 18 February 2011 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think this discussion about reading needs to be put in its proper context. If you are
reading books as a learning method, then you shouldn't treat the book like a textbook, where you patiently go through deciphering every sentence like it's an exercise. It doesn't matter that you miss a lot of things at the beginning of the book and it doesn't matter that you miss a lot of things even at the end of the book (even though by then you should understand much more). It's not a test, and the book you're reading isn't a critically important book, it's just a book on your way to mastery. If you really care about this book, leave it until you're more advanced (or re-read it later). Don't compare it to Assimil or to a textbook or an audio course. It's just a "different kind of thing" altogether. Your "gain per sentence" will be much lower, but you compensate that by reading a whole lot more and build your stamina for the language, for serious amounts of the language. You train your intuition for the grammar too, without even thinking consciously about it. And best of all, you do this while reading something you would want to read even in your other language (right?). That's the benefit, this is a method for people who like to read books, the more the better. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| clumsy Octoglot Senior Member Poland lang-8.com/6715Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5170 days ago 1116 posts - 1367 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Japanese, Korean, French, Mandarin, Italian, Vietnamese Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written), Swedish Studies: Danish, Dari, Kirundi | Message 31 of 68 18 February 2011 at 7:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have read a lot in my languages.
If you are using your language, not only remembering vocabulary and learning grammar, your knowledge becomes better: you learn some stuff unconsciously, it's not only about vocabulary, your sentences can become more natural by using correct collocations. You may not understand everything. In my opinion reading non-fiction is easier than fiction. Why? Because they use a lot more vocabulary. I have no any problem when reading some book in English, even if it has something like hard math etc (If I cannot understand it in foreign language, I would not be able to understand it in my native language too). But reading novels is a different pair of socks. They use a lot of vocabulary. Some people say they don't need to learn it, because it's not useful. But me, well, I think if you want to learn a language to the advanced level, you should learn also to read some literature. I was so happy when I realized I could write mails in Chinese. I had feeling " I know Chinese". But could I watch movies or read novels? no. Of course you don't have to be super proficient in in your languages. But I want to point out that there are several levels. Maybe poetry is even at the higher level than novels. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| EmmaHewitt Newbie United States Joined 5027 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* | Message 32 of 68 18 February 2011 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
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reading to learn a language seems like a great idea. I'm learning Korean right now, and i
think that once i get to a point of being able to read some stuff i'll attempt to read a book, and everything i don't know ill look up. i'm sure at first it will be really really hard, but i'm guessing once you get through a chapter or two things will start going faster. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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