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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Marlowe Triglot Newbie Norway Joined 5654 days ago 24 posts - 25 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish Studies: French, German | Message 1 of 6 04 May 2009 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm at the point in my Spanish studies where I can read most newspaper articles quite well. There might be a few words I don't understand, but most of the time I can figure them out from context.
Now, I know it was overly ambitious of me to read "Cien Años de Soledad" so soon and expect to understand everything. In any event, I've now finished the book. I know what it's about, I know the overarching storyline, but I felt that all too often I missed out on something integral to the plot. Every page had many words I didn't understand, and although I was sometimes able to figure them out from context, this was often not the case. The problem is that a lot of the words I didn't understand are words that don't appear very often. If I don't understand a word in a newspaper article, I have often seen it before, which makes it easier to learn over time. But it's hard to get enough exposure to these low percentage words. How have other forum members dealt with this problem? Even telling me it will just take time is a welcome reply, because it will make me feel like I'm not the only person who has ever had this problem. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lord Jim Tetraglot Newbie Spain Joined 6602 days ago 2 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Spanish*, French, English, Italian Studies: Dutch | Message 2 of 6 04 May 2009 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did have the same problem when I begun reading in English. I could read any newspaper article and understand most of it, except a few words, but, as for literature, I found enormous differences depending of the book I chose.
I mean, I began by reading Dickens, and it was quite easy. I read also Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, and I could more or less follow the stories and enjoy them. But there were certain books that I couldn't chew. I had no problem with "David Copperfield", but, after a few pages, I had to put down the "Pickwick Papers", because I couldn't get anything. What I realized is that I had no problem with novels where the narrative element dominated. And I think that this is exactly the problem you had with "Cien Años de Soledad". It has so many stories intertwined that it is quite confusing even for a native to follow them. I recommend you to try more classic narrative structures. Detective stories may be the answer. I would recommend you, for example, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, and the detective Pepe Carvalho. Edited by Lord Jim on 04 May 2009 at 11:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6851 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 6 04 May 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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You may want to have a look at:
Russian - advancing to reading literature 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| guilon Pentaglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6134 days ago 226 posts - 229 votes Speaks: Spanish*, PortugueseC2, FrenchC2, Italian, English | Message 4 of 6 05 May 2009 at 4:33am | IP Logged | ||
You can infer the answer from your own elaboration: Once you have read a decent amount (much better if it is an insane amount) of high literature, you already got enough exposure to a lot of those rare words and you reach a point where you can almost guess their meaning. That is what I've been doing, with satisfactory results as far as I can tell, in order to expand the vocabulary of my languages. I gather from your post that you don't use a dictionary too often, that also works just fine for me. Spanish is a tough language in this regard because you have to deal as well with all the local lexica of every country where it is spoken if you intend to cover most of the major literary masterpieces. And by the way, yes, it will just take time. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| phouk Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 5980 days ago 28 posts - 48 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 6 05 May 2009 at 7:55am | IP Logged | ||
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It might be easier to read simple literature first, and advance to high literature
later. When I started reading English novels as a pupil, I started out with a thin Stephen King novel, and stayed with Stephen King for my next half-dozen or dozen novels. The vocabulary he uses in his books is not too vast, and it repeats between books. Furthermore, the plots are normally not too complicated to follow, and the stories are engaging, if you like that sort of thing. Of course, you have to find something that works for you, but in any case I suggest reading a few books of a simpler kind before you attack that G.G. Márquez again, even if reading popular fiction is not the ultimate goal you are after. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tricoteuse Pentaglot Senior Member Norway littlang.blogspot.co Joined 6620 days ago 745 posts - 845 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Norwegian, EnglishC1, Russian, French Studies: Ukrainian, Bulgarian | Message 6 of 6 05 May 2009 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Dialogue can often be a bit easier to understand in my experience, so how about trying to read some plays?
I did this with my Russian reading: * Easy reader (three) * Parallel books (three) * LR:ing (1, reading translation first, then the Russian and listening) * Reading lots of texts here and there on the computer with a dictionary (so much faster) And now I have started reading and listening to books without any dictionary, and I think it is going very well. Every now and then I plan to take some pages and look up lots of words, just to boost my vocab a bit. Also, when a word comes back over and over and I never get it, I also look it up :) Also, remember that news and non-fiction are always easier than fiction, and if that's what you've been reading for a long time, your vocab will be more directed towards such sources. You may lack a whole lot of literary words. Just read lots and things will probably take care of themselves. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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