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LRing books you haven’t ever read | ||
Tags: Listening-Reading (L-R) | Book | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| nystagmatic Triglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4121 days ago 47 posts - 58 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: German | Message 1 of 8 27 March 2013 at 1:58pm | IP Logged |
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I've been wanting to do LR more intensively, but I haven't read many books originally written in any of my target languages (currently French, later German and Russian). I was wondering, then, how well would it work if I, after achieving natural listening by blindly using L2 audio and L2 text, followed L2 audio with L1 text of books I don't know yet. Has anyone tried this? How did it go?
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6251 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 8 27 March 2013 at 2:29pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not entirely sure I understand your question.
If you're suggesting reaching natural listening with your target language audio (and corresponding target language text), with material that you've never looked at before and no material in a language you know, that's a legitimate way to learn a language (although a somewhat slow one), but it's certainly not LR! Check out AJATT ("all Japanese all the time"), antimoon, and reineke's posts on this forum if that's what you want to do. LR involves L2 listening to familiar material - ideally with a parallel text (in a pinch, you could read or listen to L1 in advance instead of having a parallel text, especially if the L2 is fairly transparent to you), but it really does require *familiar* material, and a parallel text is really a huge help. It's worth at least reading your material once in advance in your L1; when I skip this step, I end up regretting it. The original language of the books you use isn't crucially important; all else being equal, I prefer ones which are originally in the L2, but ones which are originally in your L1 are ok. You can also have both the L1 and L2 books be translations from some other language, but this in turn is a bit worse - more information is lost/changed. Does this help at all? Feel free to ask more questions. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nystagmatic Triglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4121 days ago 47 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 8 27 March 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Volte. It had been a while since I read the "important passages" compilation, and some other, more recent readings seem to have made porridge out of half-remembered stuff in my head.
What I was thinking of was: I'd start by reading L2 with L2 audio until I grew an intuitive link between L2 as written and L2 as spoken — which is what I mistakenly called "natural listening" —; I planned on doing this with different texts than the ones I'd be working with on the next step, mostly because I know I'd get tired of using the same material more than once or twice from end to end. Then I'd get something else and listen to L2 while reading L1, now hopefully already able to link the meaning on the page with the speech in my ears with an approximate orthography in my head. All the while I'd be using unfamiliar texts (novels, mostly). Based on what you said, though, it wouldn't work, so I suppose I already have my answer. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6251 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 4 of 8 27 March 2013 at 7:07pm | IP Logged |
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Ahh, you meant step 2; yes, that can be usefully done with unfamiliar material, and you can switch to something else for step 3 - but be aware that if the speakers are different enough, it can be a slightly more difficult switch than you would expect.
For step 3, I find there's a hierarchy of how well things work. Worst of all is a text I'm bored with, followed by one I've never read in any language. A bit better is one I've read once in L1, and best of all is one I know well from having read it several times in lots of languages - but still like and am not bored with. Any option can work, although a text one is bored with can be unpleasant; some just work better. So, no, it actually sounds like what you're suggesting would work, now that I know what you mean - it's not absolutely optimal, but it should be doable. Edit: basically, you can become familiar on the material in advance (reading or listening to L1), or on the fly as you go along (with a proper parallel text - or in a pinch, by doing a page repeatedly, first in L1, then in L2; some people have written about the latter, but I've only used parallel texts on the fly). In advance works better, but on the fly works, if you read fast enough and don't get too caught up in reading ahead. Edited by Volte on 27 March 2013 at 7:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nystagmatic Triglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4121 days ago 47 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 8 27 March 2013 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
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Ah, glad to know. Thanks again!
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 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 6 of 8 28 March 2013 at 1:03am | IP Logged |
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I'd never bother to read HP if I couldn't learn languages while I'm at it. I did watch the movies though, and I read some random stuff for example in the HP wikia.
I would say it's good to be familiar with the material, not necessarily with the text. Another instance was that I LR'ed Dorian Gray in Italian after passing an exam that could've included a question on it (but it didn't), and without previously reading most of it. I did prepare for the possibility and I read a fellow student's answers to the standard questions. Volte, would you say your experience is limited to the cases where LR was more or less your only source of input? I've had some nice results with LR'ing new material, but of course I also watched a lot of football and in some cases read Ilya Frank texts. OP, L2 text+L2 audio won't necessarily take all that long to figure out. If you are basically afraid that it will be boring to listen without an understanding - well, first of all try it. Then there's also the alternative that would be learning the spelling rules and/or using multimedia tools. Finally, you can learn to understand the spoken language without worrying about the written one at first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nystagmatic Triglot Groupie Brazil Joined 4121 days ago 47 posts - 58 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: German | Message 7 of 8 28 March 2013 at 1:33am | IP Logged |
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Nah, what I think would be boring is using the same material for reading L1 then LRing L2-L2 then LRing L2-L1, which would amount to reading a single text three times in a short period of time. Cutting out step 1, then, and doing step 2 with a certain set of novels and step 3 with another, seems like it would be far more entertaining, if not as efficient.
Either way, LR is far from my sole resource: I'm just about done with Michel Thomas and Karl Sandberg's spectacular French for Reading, and I've been following both levels of Assimil, plus the French in Action videos and some native materials here and there. My main goal is to be able to read complex texts ASAP, for which I now mostly lack vocabulary and expertise with some more exotic kinds of construction. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 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 8 of 8 28 March 2013 at 2:38am | IP Logged |
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For reading, check out GLOSS! (they have great audio lessons too, and the reading lessons also come with an audio)
I love the site so much that I've done some French lessons despite hating French :P Also, if your goal is to be able to read, try to use parallel texts for LR rather than L1 only with L2 audio. Edited by Serpent on 28 March 2013 at 2:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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