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Dover Dual Language Books | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 12 02 August 2014 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
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JohnPaul,
A few minutes ago, while conducting an unrelated search in Amazon.com, I stumbled across another source of dual language books. Here are a few links: Polyglot Planet Publishing: Publisher's Site Polyglot Planet Publishing: Amazon.com Polyglot Planet Publishing: Google Search Amusez-vous bien! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Mountolive Pro Member United States Joined 4460 days ago 10 posts - 29 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 12 02 August 2014 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
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I have been using graded readers and dual readers quite a lot lately. I like to mix them up: I’ll read a graded reader that is appropriate for my level, and then go through a dual reader which would be too advanced for me to do without the translation. I find that the variety keeps my interest strong and the two types of readers have different strengths. For graded readers, the Leer en Español series is quite well done. They come with audio CDs and lots of exercises in the back. The levels are a little misleading: they are organized by the number of different words used in a story: i.e., Nivel 1 is “menos de 400 palabras,” Nivel 2 is “menos de 700 palabras,” etc. That might be true, but I probably had a vocabulary of around 2,500 words when I started reading these books and I was still looking up words in the Nivel 1 books. Their main downside is that the stories (particularly in the lower Nivels) can be quite short (around 20 or 30 pages) which makes them quite expensive for the amount of text you are getting. There are definitely other options out there that give you more bang for your buck. However, these readers are so well-designed pedagogically I think it is possible to get a lot out of each book. The Dover dual readers are very good. I have gone through a half-dozen of them so far and I feel that dual readers are one of the best ways to improve your reading level quickly. It’s important that you cover the English translation and try to reach the Spanish text first without help. I have also read a couple of the McGraw Side by Side books (e.g., Historias de México); I enjoyed them but they were perhaps a little too easy. They say on the cover that they are “Intermediate” level, but this seems generous to me. I would classify myself as an intermediate-level reader and I was able to read through the stories in these books with only an occasional consultation of the English translation. They are not any more advanced than the Nivel 1 books from the Leer en Español series, for example. Not bad practice (any kind of reading is good for you), but they will not stretch you like the Dover dual readers will. I have a dual-language Bible, the NVI version. I am not a religious person but it would be hard to beat this in terms of amount of dual-language text per dollar, and the translation is very high quality. I haven’t spent a lot of time with it so far, but it is interesting to pick it up once and a while and see how much of the Spanish text I can understand. One thing that I found very useful and which surprised me is reading dual-language poetry (i.e., Spanish poetry with the English translations provided). I was give a book of Cuban poetry for Christmas last year and I did not even bother looking at it for a while on the theory that it would be too advanced for me to get much out of it. After all, I often struggle to understand poetry even in my native tongue. But I picked this book up one day when I was bored and started reading it, and I discovered that it can be very interesting. The language and imagery used is the poetry is quite vivid and memorable and tends to stick in my mind better than prose. And the translation helps to bring out some of the nuance. It might not be for everyone but I am enjoying it a lot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 12 03 August 2014 at 8:49pm | IP Logged |
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Graded Readers:
Not sure if these have been mentioned, but I'm quite a fan of Easyreaders.eu A little old-fashioned perhaps, but I like that. Not used these, but just noticed: languages-direct.com. (e.g. the Black Cat German Graded Readers or search on the Easyreader tag). Not cheap, but with audio. Although I think that for classic novels, you are better off investing in a good translation, if one exists. For English-speaking learners of Welsh, the Nofelau Nawr series published by Gomer is very good. Edited by montmorency on 03 August 2014 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Arnaud25 Diglot Senior Member France Joined 3843 days ago 129 posts - 235 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Russian | Message 12 of 12 03 August 2014 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
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There is a collection of graded readers for the russian language published by the Zlatoust publisher called Zlatoust Library. I haven't used them.
I have used another graded reader called Удивительные истории. 116 текстов для чтения, изучения и развлечения. It received bad critics on the russian site where I've bought it, but for me it was useful and I find it well made and very progressive (for A2, to go to B1+ smoothly) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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