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Reading as a method | ||
Tags: Reading | Learning Technique/Method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 41 of 68 22 February 2011 at 4:50am | IP Logged | |||||
I bow to your superior ... degree of masochism. How did you manage that? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5479 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 42 of 68 22 February 2011 at 10:19am | IP Logged | |||||
Hahaha ... The first volume was certainly very painful. In fact, I understood so little of the first few chapters that my head was in the dictionary more often than in the harry potter book. To relieve the agony, I re-read the first few chapters many times - and each time felt that at last a glimmer of understanding was coming through. Well before the end of the first book, though, I was starting to actually grasp the meaning of whole sentences without a dictionary - which gave me quite a boost. By the start of the second book it was starting to be tolerable, albeit still quite slow - but I could already feel "this is working!" which kept me going. Probably by the fourth or fifth book I wasn't aware at sporadic times that I was reading in a foreign languages. I had quite a few "wow!" moments as I realised this. Beyond that point, it was just plain sailing - I could read for hours without it being painful or exhausting. Of course, there were still plenty of words I didn't understand, but my reading speed had increased substantially, and the percentage of known words was high enough for me to (usually) guess the (approximate) meaning of the unknown words. By the final volume, I rarely needed the dictionary. Looking back at my notes, I was looking an average of less than one word per page - and usually just jotting those few words down and looking them up at the end of each chapter. Often, they were obscure words, which I had little interest in memorizing. It was, indeed, a sort of trial-by-fire - but sticking with it through the early pain certainly paid dividends. This process is, I believe, called "narrow reading" wherein you read a series of books by the same author. Previously, I had done a lot of scatter-gun reading of random volumes - often without success. Narrow reading seems to work well with the harry potter series because the first couple of volumes are aimed at a younger audience than later volumes - so your abilities are gradually stretched through the series. I remember reading that JK Rowling did this deliberately, realising that the fans of her first book were growing up, and would expect more mature writing in later volumes. It helped my language learning grow up too. Edited by Splog on 22 February 2011 at 11:03am 14 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 43 of 68 22 February 2011 at 11:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I still don't understand where you got the willpower from!
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| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6485 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 44 of 68 23 February 2011 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, I wonder the same. I don't need methods to learn languages. There are a lot of good ones. I need methods to keep doing these methods. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5479 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 45 of 68 23 February 2011 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
To be honest, I do have the advantage of a lot of time. Before retirement, my free time was so scarce that I was constantly rushing for quick progress, and trying to maximize every hour I spent on languages. Only after retirement did I feel I could relax into a time-consuming activity such as reading all the HP books, with very little positive feedback coming from it in the first few weeks. If I only had, say, an hour a day, I am not sure I would have had the patience, nor courage, to go though with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5576 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 46 of 68 23 February 2011 at 11:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I also have a lot of free time on my hands, but I still put down any book where I need more than about 5 minutes to read a page or where I have to look up more than a word a page if I want to get the gist of what's going on. I really wish I had your frustration tolerance!
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| LouisaBalata Triglot Newbie France Joined 4828 days ago 9 posts - 25 votes Speaks: French*, English, Arabic (classical) Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Persian, Modern Hebrew | Message 47 of 68 01 March 2011 at 7:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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I did exactly the same thing to learn English : I bought "The Lord of The Rings" ( having read it in french I knew I
loved the book enough to endure the coming pain ), and the first book was painful, having to look up in the dictionnary for several words in each sentences, but by the end of it I didn't need the dictionnary ... If you don't find a series of books like Harry Potter, you can buy differents books from an author you know you like, because he has a particular style of writing and that helps you a lot I think : you get used to the style and the vocabulary he/she uses first and then you slowly begin to appreciate the books, and understanding them. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5676 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 48 of 68 01 March 2011 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is very good advice. For me, that author is Hammond Innes. There are about 30 of his books, and most have been translated into my target language Dutch. I expect they have been translated into many other languages as well. I find that translated books tend to have easier words, sentences and expressions, although I think some expressions get translated a bit too literally. The purists will say it is better to read native target language books but I think translated material is better until you become a fluent reader. The Hammond Innes books have lots of action and are fast moving. The stories are straightforward, easy to follow, and use relatively easy words. For me, they are interesting and I find it easy to continue reading. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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