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Learning a language just to read? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| glossa.passion Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6312 days ago 267 posts - 349 votes  1 sounds Speaks: German*, EnglishC1, Danish Studies: Spanish, Dutch | Message 9 of 33 24 May 2010 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | ||
I'd like to second Splog's recommendation. I'm currently working through Sandberg's Spanish for Reading (last chapter :-) and it is indeed superb! Although I already had a basic knowledge of Spanish, it enhanced my knowledge within five weeks tremendously. Today I drafted a mind-map of all Spanish tenses and modes without any further help. And of course I had a short look into some Spanish books. It's not that I understand everything, but I've really got the "big" picture. The German for Reading has about 200 pages more, so considering your timeframe I guess it would take you 3 to 4 months to work through. The price at amazon is very high, but reading the reviews there might encourage you to look for a used copy or perhaps it's available at your libraray. But Sandberg's style can be addictive, especially for an avid reader like me, once I began I couldn't stop. And that's why I also ordered French for Reading ... I wish there were more books of this kind. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| altito425 Triglot Groupie United States Joined 5951 days ago 65 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French | Message 10 of 33 25 May 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the pointers, everyone. To Declan1991, this was my plan from the start. I took a semester of German my Freshman year of college so I'm fairely confident in my pronunciation. And I do intend to gain at least a passive understanding of the grammar, because I plan on eventually learning the language to active fluency as well, but not until I have more time to devote to it.
Also, I found this book, German Quickly. It seems to have everything I need and I've heard it's much more engaging than some of the other more popular books on the market. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| divexo Groupie Australia Joined 5182 days ago 70 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Latin | Message 11 of 33 23 November 2010 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are there any good books like the one mentioned for German to be able to read French or Italian?
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| doviende Diglot Senior Member Canada languagefixatio Joined 5977 days ago 533 posts - 1245 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Hindi, Swedish, Portuguese | Message 12 of 33 23 November 2010 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Despite not being so interested in pronunciation, I heartily recommend that you seriously consider using audiobooks in concert with written materials. When working through a program of reading in a new language, I find that having a simultaneous audiobook helps a) push me through the book faster, leaving me less time to worry about all the words I don't know, and b) the acting and intonation of the audiobook reader helps with understanding the text.
Being pushed through the book faster helps keep you focused more on the story than the details, which makes the book much more interesting overall. If you go too slow, you might get bogged down in the details and enjoy it less. I like to have a bit of a balance regarding intensive vocab work and extensive reading, but overall I think it's more important to focus on extensive reading. Just see as many words as you can, in your limited time. Exposure precedes knowledge. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| CaucusWolf Senior Member United States Joined 5263 days ago 191 posts - 234 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Arabic (Written), Japanese | Message 13 of 33 24 November 2010 at 12:38am | IP Logged | ||
I have to concur with this. I notice that the faster I read the more likely it is I obtain the overall picture. If I do get stuck in understanding a certain syntactic pattern or whatever I'll forget other details and have to reread. Taking minutes to figure out something that is sometimes minuscule to the overall story definitely hurts motivation to finish. Edit: I should add though that every detail does matter and we should work toward understanding it. Enjoying the book as you would in English would not be possible otherwise. I should have said that I concur that it is definitely easier to understand the bigger picture. It will however hurt you in the long run if you use it all the time and it becomes crutch. Edited by CaucusWolf on 24 November 2010 at 4:48am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| litovec Tetraglot Groupie Switzerland lingvometer.com Joined 5122 days ago 42 posts - 60 votes Speaks: German, Russian, French, English | Message 14 of 33 24 November 2010 at 11:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Declan1991 that even if you just want to be able to read, you should do other activities as well, because one boosts up the other.
I would also recommend to learn some pronunciation and to do a lot of grammar. When you have written a lot yourself (for example, exercises), it is easier to read the stuff the others wrote :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5684 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 15 of 33 25 November 2010 at 2:29am | IP Logged | ||
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I think German as a just-read-first language should be quite do-able. It seems to have a particularly large gap between successful reading level and successful speaking level, with the former being much quicker to read than the latter. Also, its similarities with English will make the reader's job easier, as least as far as grammar goes. Grammar itself is probably going to be the sticking point, because sometimes certain idiomatic expressions, separable verbs, "flavoring" particles, etc. are used in a manner which is very difficult to understand, even when you look them up in a dictionary. All the same, I think your goal is a reasonable one. Best of luck with it.
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| shapd Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6140 days ago 126 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Modern Hebrew, French, Russian | Message 16 of 33 25 November 2010 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree, it is a reasonable goal. While you will need a good grasp of grammar, don't get cought up in the fine details. Just start with the broad picture and fill in the rest as you come across it. One extra piece of advice I would give is to have an English translation of the book you are using as well - easily done for the ones you have chosen. It will save much head scratching over expressions you cannot easily find in the dictionary. Some words will just not be in a pocket dictionary, so I advise you use an online one such as dict.cc. Progress will be much faster.
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