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Reading time on several languages | ||
Tags: Reading | Multilingual | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 3943 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 06 April 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged |
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hi everyone,
Now that I study 3 foreign languages (english, dutch and Spanish), I'm having troubles making choices about the time I spend on each languages. I'd like to read as much as possible. The problem is that I'm hesitating between reading a bit of the three everyday, or reading an entire book of one language before going on to read another book in another language when I was still in secondary school and I had plenty of time, I read a lot (I read the harry potter books in English) and read during all the holidays, the entire day, and working so much non-stop seems to have helped me a lot in feeling the language. that's why I wonder if I should go on and read only in one language, instead of a bit of each so, should I read 20 min of each language every day, or 1 hour of one and switch language when the book is over? N.B.: at the university, I study the Germanic languages (english-dutch) and I have the three languages every week (although not every single day) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6448 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 2 of 7 07 April 2014 at 12:31am | IP Logged |
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See the following articles:
flow reading strategies Try to figure out, for example, whether you stay in the flow even if you switch languages. Also, look at your reading habits in your native language. Do you tend to read one book at a time, or do you have several in progress and switch between them depending on your mood etc? If it's the latter, it definitely makes sense to switch between books in various languages - I don't think it's necessary to read each of them every day, but don't neglect them for too long. Join the Super Challenge too :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lichtrausch Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5811 days ago 525 posts - 1072 votes Speaks: English*, German, Japanese Studies: Korean, Mandarin | Message 3 of 7 07 April 2014 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
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I think it's more satisfying to read one book after another than constantly switching between books. I make an exception with some long books though because reading only one book for a month or longer makes me long for some variety.
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 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6554 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 4 of 7 07 April 2014 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
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As I understand the question you are speaking of extensive reading, and then it shouldn't be too tiring. And in this situation I would personally prefer reading a given book in a couple or days or three - not more, because then I would have forgotten too much of the beginning when I reached the end. And it also takes time to get into the 'flow' state. My speed will of course differ somewhat depending on my level, but if I couldn't read a standard book in max. a week I wouldn't even consider doing it.
On the other hand: studying a book intensively can take a long time, and because this is a potentially tiring exercise you might not want to do it for several hours in a row. Some prefer short sessions of maybe fifteen minutes, and then they want(need to do something different - maybe even in an other language. I would prefer somewhat longer sessions, like half an hour or (more likely) an hour, and Siomotteikiru who invented the LR technique recommended even longer sessions. But the task is different here: it is no longer a matter of getting a narrative or some abstract information from the book, but rather words, expressions and grammatical tricks. So it doesn't matter if you forget how the book started out while you crawl through it. I have a good example in my Latin version of Harry Potter II. Short after I had bought the book I read it from A to Z almost in one go (the details are found somewhere in this thread). But now I go through it a second time, and this time it is in snail pace - sometimes a page, sometimes even less, and the reason is that this time I look words up and check grammatical points, and I copy much of the text by hand to really squeeze the last drop of information out of it. Right now I don't spend much time on Latin, so it could easily half a year to reach the end. But it doesn't matter because I don't need to find out what actually happens in the book - I know this from reading first the English and later the Latin version extensively. But even if I spend several hours on a book in a certain languages, I still want also to get through some material in other languages each and every days. Even during my travels I bring something in 'irrelevant' languages along - like when I did Greek wordlists during my trip to Cuba last year. Edited by Iversen on 07 April 2014 at 5:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 3943 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 5 of 7 07 April 2014 at 1:30am | IP Logged |
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I think that the flow works better if I am really immersed in the language, and so by reading only in one language (or doing other kind of things) for a long period of time, or at least for non-stop hours. I think that it's by working that way on my English that it improved so well. that's why I wonder if I should go on for Spanish for example (I wanted to improve quickly in that language). but the problem is that I don't want to work that way on just one language. I want to work on the others as well (especially since I have to reach a C2 level in both English and dutch)
I have already had periods where I was reading several books at the same time, but the problem is that I didn't finish books often. I felt like I didn't make any progress in any :/ maybe I should just try to find a way to spend more time on reading.... I also want to work on the several languages everyday because, with my work at the university, I sometimes don't have that much time to read, and therefore I don't read that much everyday, and if I have to wait to finish a book in order to go on with another one in another language, I feel like I'm only working on one language, and I stop reading in the other languages for a long period of time. Still, it is true that by reading several books at the same time, I work each language even less, because of the small amount of time that I have for all 3 of them together. I should definitely try to find a way to find more time to read...... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| guiguixx1 Octoglot Senior Member Belgium guillaumelp.wordpres Joined 3943 days ago 163 posts - 207 votes Speaks: French*, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Esperanto, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Polish, Mandarin | Message 6 of 7 07 April 2014 at 1:37am | IP Logged |
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I would love to spend entire days on a book, but with the university, this is only possible during the summer holiday. this is well the problem :/
It indeed doesn't matter if I forget the story or if I don't especially try to keep up with it, since I do as you do, Iversen: I learn by reading the harry potter books. I learnt English by extensive reading of all the harry potter books, and now I read them in dutch and Spanish. as I have already read them in English, I already know the story (and for the Spanish books (I am reading the 1st one in this language) I have already read it in dutch, so I have read this volume 2 times already, so I know the story well enough). Keeping up with the story is therefore not important. I pay more attention on the vocabulary, the grammar, the spelling, etc, than on the story 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6448 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 7 of 7 07 April 2014 at 1:08pm | IP Logged |
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Don't keep your eggs in one basket. HP is awesome, but if you read it too much you'll get bored of it. Especially Spanish has a lot of literature, and I'm sure being in Belgium you can find stuff in Dutch too.
If you decide to focus on one language at a time, be sure to do something else in the other one, especially when focusing on Dutch (or English). See the multitrack approach, maybe especially GLOSS and lyricstraining. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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