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Can you read with the same fluency...? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5585 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 17 of 61 24 March 2010 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
I find myself doing this a lot, and I'll be away from the book doing another activity like driving or something and it will make sense in my head and I'll say "Oh I get it!" but while reading the story I sit there thinking about it for 5 minutes :P Ugh. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Fasulye Heptaglot Winner TAC 2012 Moderator Germany fasulyespolyglotblog Joined 5847 days ago 5460 posts - 6006 votes 1 sounds Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish Personal Language Map | Message 19 of 61 24 March 2010 at 4:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am very unfamiliar with reading literature no matter in which language.
But apart from that I read Dutch texts with the same fluency as German texts. When I read an astronomy magazine in English there are about two-three unknown word per page, normally I can easily understand these single words from the context. So in fact I read such an English magzine fluently, even if I don't have so much reading experience with English as I have with Dutch. When reading in my Romance languages I should look up at least the key words, because I need to improve my reading level of these languages. I rarely read Esperanto texts, so I am not very used to reading in this language. But I do read short articles in my Esperanto magazine from the Netherlands. Fasulye Edited by Fasulye on 24 March 2010 at 5:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5553 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 20 of 61 24 March 2010 at 5:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Eventually you get to a point where if you don't know a word in a book, you can tell what it means from the context and bam!, new vocabulary word. I've only recently (within the last few months) begun reading for enjoyment in my L2 and understand everything that I come across, even if I don't know the exact dictionary definition of every single word. I'm revelling in how easy reading is compared to listening :P
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| Carisma Diglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 5622 days ago 104 posts - 161 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC1 Studies: Italian, Mandarin | Message 21 of 61 24 March 2010 at 7:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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That happens with English and me. I barely miss any words, only if it is a text that only a C2 could fully understand. I hope to achieve that in French.
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6943 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 61 24 March 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
There is nothing odd about your goal, there are many people who "just read and enjoy" books in their target languages. Some even use reading as the main language learning tool almost as soon as they break into a language. The perennial question with recreational reading is whether to use a dictionary, and if yes, how much. My own experience is that while I prefer to read without a dictionary, one has to be prepared to pay the price in effectiveness - it might well take reading some 100 novels without a dictionary to build up the vocabulary one could build with just a dozen novels with even a moderate use of a dictionary. Some of the "techniques" I've tried for using a dictionary while lessening the impact on the "flow" are: (1) Read your novels without a dictionary, but use an electronic dictionary while surfing online. This way you get to look up words somewhere on a regular basis without messing up your recreational reading of novels. (2) After you look up a pre-determined number of words on one page, say one or two, maybe three, don't look up any more until the next page. (3) Read the first chapter in the book looking up every unknown word, then read the rest of the book without a dictionary. (4) Keep a slip of paper and a pencil handy and while reading, jot down the words that seem worth looking up, but look them up only when you are done reading. Can't say I found any of these to be a perfect solution, but if one wants to speed up the learning process, it's worth finding a way to look up at least some of the words some of the time. Edited by frenkeld on 24 March 2010 at 8:36pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6034 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 23 of 61 24 March 2010 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | ||
Can you share what's the trick with speed reading? From what I know, it's mostly knowing how to identify important keywords and doing it quickly - like the verb in a sentence, and the main subjects of action. Is there any principal difference between speed reading and skimming, or is it simply a faster version of skimming? edit: typos :). Edited by Sennin on 24 March 2010 at 8:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6422 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 24 of 61 24 March 2010 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
If the work you are reading is online and Google is willing to translate the webpage, then you can use my patented parallel text creation method (paste the translated text into a word processor) to save having to use a dictionary at all, whilst still reaping the benefits. There has been a World Champs in speed reading. The raw reading speed is multiplied by proportion of correct comprehension questions to give an 'effective reading speed.' The World Champ had an effective speed of c.1500 wpm, I think. I turned up to enter the tournament last year only to find that I was the only one there. Sadly, the organisers were not willing to crown me the World's Best by default. Edited by vb on 24 March 2010 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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