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What about unknown words in a book ? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5513 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes  Speaks: Swedish* | Message 33 of 38 16 November 2010 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
Well, you can just find the same book in two editions. Since you won't be turning the pages that rapidly, it's not that much of an inconvenience. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Deji Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5432 days ago 116 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Hindi, Bengali | Message 34 of 38 06 December 2010 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
I mourned over the difficulty of finding parallel texts in Bengali for some time. Then I read the suggestion (on this site) to make your own short story editions. Finally I found the answer: buy two books! The English and the target language. I can only drool as I read about people referring to reading Harry Potter in their TL. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 38 06 December 2010 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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The problem with this advice is that translations often are too loose to be of real value, - you spend too much time on finding the corresponding words and expressions. Not all translations are of course equally bad - I read little literature these days, but a couple of years ago I spent a lot of time and effort on making interlaced versions of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen (in Danish and other languages like Dutch, Icelandic and Russian), and the correspondances were actually quite quite close. On the other hand I borrowed a Latin-Italian edition of Satyricon, and the Italian version was absolutely worthless for study purposes (traduttore = tradittore!). Right now I learn Bahasa Indonesian using a set af guidebooks from (and about) Singapore, but else I base must of my intensive work these days on internet texts with a machine translation. Machines may be misguided and naive and incompetent, but they are not mischieveous. And no translation can of course do all your work for you - you still have to understand why precisely those cases and verbal forms and conjunctions are used, and you still have to understand - nay, feel - how the meanings of the words fit together like a jigsaw. Edited by Iversen on 06 December 2010 at 10:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| marmite Triglot Newbie Portugal Joined 5205 days ago 35 posts - 57 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French | Message 36 of 38 06 December 2010 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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I usually try to understand the meaning from the context. If it appears again, and it's a different usage, then I make a note of that. This helps a lot, as does getting a bilingual edition or a more literal translation (19th century translations are not the ones for this) and trying to understand the meaning if you can't find it. However, if none of these work (say, if the word is definitely unknown to me), then you could make a note to look it up later. Edited by marmite on 06 December 2010 at 11:52pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 37 of 38 07 December 2010 at 12:30am | IP Logged | ||
I am using a new technique (for me) that is based around the new Sony Reader 650 that I got recently. I am reading a Dutch book that I have in plain text. The 650 has, among others, a very good Dutch<>English pop-up dictionary. Here is my technique: 1. When I come across a new word, I double-click and get the English translation. 2. I mark the word with a click, which puts it into a file on the 650 (just the Dutch word, not the translation) 3. Every day or so, I download the list of words to my computer and run it through some custom software that identifies any words my software dictionary doesn't know. 4. I look up those words using other dictionaries and the Internet, and add those to my software dictionary. 5. I run my software again which now inserts the English translations in square brackets just after the "new" Dutch words, everywhere they appear in the Dutch book. 6. I upload this new version of the Dutch book to the 650. 7. The new words tend to re-appear throughout the book, so I easily and quickly review them as I see them again. 8. The frequency of "new" words decreases toward the end of the book. 9. When I finish the book, I have a complete list of the new words and the English translations. 10. In parallel, every few days, I search the book for square brackets and insert the associated sentences, together with the bracketed English words, into Anki for review. 11. So far, it seems to be working very well. The process is a lot faster that it appears in this description. 12. The pop-up 650 dictionary and the bracketed English very significantly increase my reading speed, comprehension and vocabulary building. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vickyyuchi Newbie Taiwan Joined 5110 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English | Message 38 of 38 13 December 2010 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Personally, I would try to get through my reading first rather than to stop and consult the words I don't know. I would highligtht the words that I don't know the meaning, but I just highlight it and keep reading. For me, the main purpose of reading is to get the whole idea; vocabulary is additional. However, if the words keeps showing up for more than three times and bring difficulties in my reading, I would pause and check the meaning. Otherwise, I seldom consult dictionaries while reading. When the article is not too long, I would get through reading first; be sure I get the most of ideas. Then, to go back and check every word that I highlighted before. That's what I do when reading. Hope it would help a little bit.
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