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How effective is LR really? | ||
Tags: Listening-Reading (L-R) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4397 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 10 03 April 2013 at 5:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been interested in LR but have had a couple false starts. I tried Crime and Punishment, however, the translation was way
too different. Similarly, The Master and the Margarita is a play reading and skips around a lot. I've realized that it's best to use books originally written in German. With that in mind, and before I take the plunge I was just wondering has anyone had much success with this method? I'm not an absolute beginner, I'd say I'm somewhere around high A2 so I can make a out quite a few words while I'm reading and I can distinguish every word even if I don't know the meaning so I don't think I'll really need the German translations with me. Here's what I have: Inkheart by Cornelia Funke I have an English and German version of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix but no German audio yet. Perfume by Patrick Süskind The Trial by Frank Kafka The Man Without Qualities (Part 1) by Robert Musil - 35 hours of audio!!! Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann - Haven't read this one yet but I know Mann is extremely dense. Someone recorded the whole book and put it on Youtube though so no audiobooks to buy. Depending on the feedback I get from this, I was planning on using these books in this order (progressively more difficult) but I'm wondering if I should use Musil and Mann at all (both use vocabularies as large as Joyce). Thanks for any input! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Antanas Tetraglot Groupie Lithuania Joined 4624 days ago 91 posts - 172 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Russian, German Studies: FrenchB1, Spanish | Message 2 of 10 03 April 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Why? A good translation can be as good as an original. Maybe even better, because translators usually have lesser egos than writers. That results in less creative but also more common language. And that is your goal. I never used LR, I just began listening to "serious" audiobooks after I have finished Assimil Perfectionnement allemand. For me it is much easier to guess the meaning of an unknown word while listening to a good interpreter than while just reading. From the ones you have mentioned I would go for Kafka. His grammar is rather easy. By the way, there is a good interpretation of Buddenbrooks by Westphal. With small, if any, omissions of the text. If the quality of literature is not important, I would go for "pulp" first: Connelly, Coben, Nesser (translations; Nesser's interpreters are usually good and much better that in original). These books are even more interesting in a language you know relatively bad than in one you know good enough. There is also much German original production of this kind you can choose from. Then, perhaps, Karl May. There is an excellent interpretation by Westphal of May's Der Schatz im Silbersee. Murakami would be a relatively easy but a more "serious" option. Paul Auster is another good writer with a minimalistic style. For this reason, his books are also very useful for learning languages. I'm surprised that he was mentioned only a couple of times in this forum, so far. I have listened to almost all of them in German and I believe they are a really good piece of literature. And they are easy to understand for an intermediate language learner. If you are concerned with the quality of literature you are LR-ing, then, I believe, a translation of a book by Auster could be both interesting and useful. Edited by Antanas on 03 April 2013 at 4:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5595 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 3 of 10 03 April 2013 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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The only bad experience I've had with LR and German is with Terry Pratchett. The German
translators just don't get the jokes and so constantly mistranslate them. It was just too frustrating. The Harry Potter books are well translated and well read: a real pleasure to LR. I'll try that Paul Aster recommendation. Edited by Random review on 03 April 2013 at 4:29pm 2 persons have 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 4 of 10 03 April 2013 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, LR is effective, especially for related languages. English and German are related.
Choose the book that you WANT to read most of all. Joy is crucial. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4397 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 5 of 10 03 April 2013 at 10:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Antanas, It's not that I don't think need I to use books originally written in German, it's just that I've found
it far too difficult and distant to use, for example, Crime and Punishment or Madame Bovary both of which are difficult novels to translate in their own right (so I hear) because translators have different interpretations of how literal to be with the Russian or French text. However, you've had experience with this so I'll trust you. For me, however, I don't think I'm ready to simply listen to the audio book, my vocab is pretty pathetic considering I've been studying almost a year now. Have you LRed any Mann or Musil. I LOVE Musil but I'm afraid of the difficulty. Same with Mann, especially with those long sentences. Also, Paul Auster as in the writer of The New York trilogy? I love those books! I completely forgot about them. I'll have to see if I can get a Hörbuch and try them out. Edited by Bobb328 on 03 April 2013 at 10:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Antanas Tetraglot Groupie Lithuania Joined 4624 days ago 91 posts - 172 votes Speaks: Lithuanian*, English, Russian, German Studies: FrenchB1, Spanish | Message 6 of 10 04 April 2013 at 12:40am | IP Logged | ||
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@Bobb328, Well, sometimes you have to choose whether you study a language or an individual book of an individual author. Does it really matter if the translation is literal enough (true to the original), if you study German and not the Crime and Punishment? Of course, ideally you would be studying both. But in the best of the possible worlds it is not always possible. A bad translation of a certain book into German is as German as any good translation, provided it is made of good (grammatically correct) German sentences. It might even be a better _German_ book.
What concerns Mann, I have listened only to Buddenbrooks. The plot is relatively simple. You don't need to understand every word to appreciate this book. Now, I'm reading Der Zauberberg. It is much more linguistically challenging book than Buddenbrooks. I have not tried listening to Musil's MoE. I have read it a little. It seemed to me more difficult than Buddenbrooks. If you feel that your vocabulary is poor, then you could use an e-book reader with a good dictionary to make it richer by reading e-books in German. I don't remember which polyglot said that, but when you read/listen to a book the point is not to analyze the language but to understand what is written/being said. Not _how_ it is said but _what_ is said. Understanding a language is forgetting that it exists, that it is between you and the things said. So, give it a try. Maybe you will be able to understand portions of a book. You can read those portions you don't understand in German in English. Remember that MT said that not every unknown word is worthy looking for its meaning in the dictionary. You have to encounter it at least five times (or something like that; I don't remember his exact words). Yes, it's the same Paul Auster. Unfortunately, there is no German audiobook of The NY Trilogy, only a "dramatized" version, which is terrible and hard to understand. Anyway, good luck with German. I think that after another year of your studies of German you will be able to see that it is, in fact, a language that is very close to English. That was my personal experience. And another thing. In Germany they seem to think (or at least used to think) that interpreting a book is a high form of art on a par with interpreting classical music. If there are any cultural reasons to learn German then an ability to enjoy works of literature read by Westphal, Quadflieg and other famous German interpreters would be certainly among the most important ones. Edited by Antanas on 04 April 2013 at 1:02am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bobb328 Groupie Canada Joined 4397 days ago 52 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian | Message 7 of 10 12 April 2013 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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One more question. I've read it's important not to skip a day or else I'll rapidly begin to forget words. How long
should I approach this so I don't forget? Move directly to the next book? From what I've gathered around 5 hours a day for a week on a book has given pretty good results to most people. Then should I just keep exposing myself so I don't forget the words? I'm already at the "natural listening" stage from my studies alone so I can distinguish the words 95% of the time. I haven't read Inkheart yet so I can probably knock that out in a day or two. Thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sehiralti Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 4569 days ago 15 posts - 27 votes Speaks: Turkish*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 8 of 10 12 April 2013 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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If people are interested in some kind of a report, I just started LR'ing to learn Swedish (using English as L1). I would
be willing to post my results. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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