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One or several books at any one time?

 Language Learning Forum : Books, Literature & Reading Post Reply
20 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
Bakunin
Diglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
outerkhmer.blogspot.
Joined 4889 days ago

531 posts - 1126 votes 
Speaks: German*, Thai
Studies: Khmer

 
 Message 1 of 20
08 September 2013 at 8:59pm | IP Logged 
Reading is an activity I enjoy a lot in my foreign languages, but unfortunately there is never enough time to read all the books I want to read. I usually read one book per language switching freely between books. This leads to slow progress in all books, and I've been wondering lately whether it wouldn't be smarter (more rewarding, more efficient?) to read one book at a time in just one language, and then move on to the next book and next language.

I guess I'm doing what I'm doing because I want to have language contact with as many of my foreign languages as often as possible (i.e., daily). The main argument for the other approach might be that it's more fun and more intense to focus on one book at a time.

What do you think? Do you read books in several languages at the same time, or do you tend to focus on one book in one language and then switch languages?
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mahasiswa
Pentaglot
Groupie
Canada
Joined 4191 days ago

91 posts - 142 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Malay
Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), Persian, Russian, Turkish, Mandarin, Hindi

 
 Message 2 of 20
08 September 2013 at 9:28pm | IP Logged 
It depends on the genre, too, meaning, there's poetry, theatre and short stories that I read more often
than novels. Reading novels (I'm reading Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn in German and Le rouge et le noir
in French right now) is a lot slower, and it takes me about 6-9 months to finish reading one because I have
to keep up with my studies at university. Whereas I feel a lot more accomplished and enlightened (in the
short term) having read most of the stories in a short story collection that I'm reading in Spanish.

Some books of poetry can be read in a single sitting. I even read a book of poetry once in an hour, albeit, a
minimalist's poetry and in English!

So it can be fun to read, yes, a lot more fun than watching or reading the daily news. But when I don't have
the energy for any of these activities, I like to listen to or watch discussion programmes where people talk
about books, arts, philosophy and politics.
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nonneb
Pentaglot
Groupie
SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4510 days ago

80 posts - 173 votes 
Speaks: English*, Ancient Greek, Latin, German, Spanish
Studies: Mandarin, Hungarian, French

 
 Message 3 of 20
08 September 2013 at 10:37pm | IP Logged 
I feel about focusing on one book a lot like I feel about focusing on one language: It's probably great, but I lose interest too quickly to read only one book at a time. I remember only two times in my life where I've been reading only one book (after beginning to read books that last more than a sitting), both when I was a child: When I first started reading the Redwall books, and when I read The Hobbit/LOTR. I'd say I'm usually reading 3-4 books, whether all in one language or in different languages.

In this case, I'm not really sure I understand the argument for reading fewer books at once. It's more fun? How so? More intense? Is that a good thing?
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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4292 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 4 of 20
09 September 2013 at 11:05am | IP Logged 
I guess this is a question of how fast you read. I am trying to read a book in TL each week. It's certainly a lot more fun for me when I move through the story relatively fast. If I was reading a book every six months I don't think it would make any difference how many other books I was reading - I would have probably forgotten most of the story by the time I was halfway through.
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montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4587 days ago

2371 posts - 3676 votes 
Speaks: English*, German
Studies: Danish, Welsh

 
 Message 5 of 20
09 September 2013 at 12:09pm | IP Logged 
If you are OK with translations, how about reading the same book in each of your target
languages? Each should reinforce the other.


A possible disadvantage is that you might become heartily sick of the book by the time
you've finished.


The other disadvantage is that translations sometimes leave a lot to be desired (there
are quite a few old HTLAL threads on that subject). On the other hand, coping with that
is part of the fun, I suppose, and also part of the learning process. Comparing different
translations can also be nerdish fun. :-)
3 persons have voted this message useful



Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3903 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 6 of 20
09 September 2013 at 1:30pm | IP Logged 
Given the perfect circumstances (ie once I'm fluent in Spanish), I'd like to read one book at a time, alternating
between English, French and Spanish. I read quickly, and I like to immerse myself in a book - so one book at a time
is best for me.

But for now, since my reading levels vary so widely from Spanish to English/French, I can only read children's novels
in Spanish. I wouldn't be satisfied reading only that, so I always have two books on the go.

My main problem is how EXPENSIVE French and Spanish books are. When I lived in a major city, it was no problem -
the library had books for just about any language. But there's not a lot of selection here, so I find myself on Amazon
a little too often. :/

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Bao
Diglot
Senior Member
Germany
tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5
Joined 5525 days ago

2256 posts - 4046 votes 
Speaks: German*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin

 
 Message 7 of 20
09 September 2013 at 2:50pm | IP Logged 
montmorency wrote:
If you are OK with translations, how about reading the same book in each of your target
languages? Each should reinforce the other.

Shouldn't that be 'if you're okay with repetition'? :P
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jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6668 days ago

4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
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 Message 8 of 20
11 September 2013 at 7:18pm | IP Logged 
Most of the books I'm reading are in Swedish and English, but whenever I've read something in another languagee, it has been "at the same time" as my other books. How many minutes/hours I spend on reading any given day is unpredictable. Sometimes I don't manage anything at all, and other days I can read for hours. It's easy to switch languages those days.


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