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Reading is perfect, but inefficient | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4505 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 9 of 56 09 September 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Was referring to Schoenewalder's post, not yours.
Of course word frequency varies across books. I know a lot of scientific terminology for that reason. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5358 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 10 of 56 09 September 2013 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought I was thinking of unique words, but a bit of googling tells me that some people
think the typical English novel contains only 5 to 10 thousand unique words, so my example probably means all forms of words are counted and/or my estimates are very unreliable. In any event, my own experience is, that when trying to gather vocabulary from novels, it is surprising how infrequently the new/unknown words occur. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4807 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 11 of 56 09 September 2013 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Inefficient at doing what?
If you want to learn a lot of vocabulary fast, than get a frequency, thematic or just normal dictionary and anki. And google whenever you need more exemples of the word in situ. That will give you the next few thousand words much faster, true. But there are things at which I find the extensive reading to be the most valuable and reliable method. But only when you read things you enjoy and can get lost in (that usually means not graded readers, just things you find interesting for the content). And you need to understand that extensive reading requires extended amounts of time and material. One thin book won't be enough. 1.Seeing tons of examples of grammar that is really used in the language. It isn't as easy to measure as the word count in anki but it makes a world of difference when using the language. It is the same feeling for correct grammar and ortograph we cultivate in our native languages through extensive reading both during our education and for fun. People who read a lot don't need to remember rules ten times when writing an email. 2.Thinking in the language. Immersion is much easier with a good story (or nonfiction, depends on your preferences) than with the learner aimed tools. And this absence of translation makes you better at learning from context (or making educated guesses which is a needed skill), at reading comprehension, sometimes at listening comprehension (even though you need to add other skills to make this transfer), and secondarily you need exactly this for your active skills. You won't consult a dictionary when speaking with someone. 3.Activity for the tired times. If you strive to spend time with the target language as often and as long as possible, extensive reading and extensive listening are among the ways to go. When I am too tired or just not feeling like doing any serious studying, I read a few chapters and have great time. And over time, I found effects I am very content with. Perhaps, the word efficiency is a bit strange when refering to the extensive activities. If you define efficient as having the best time/result ratio, than you might like other things more and I wish you a lot of success with them. But if you take efficient as doing the job well during the expected amount of time, than I can't see any trouble. 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4626 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 12 of 56 09 September 2013 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Continuing from Cavesa's theme, perhaps we could think more in terms like "language
satisfaction" (but I'm sure there is a better way of describing what I'm thinking of). If we read a book (or article) that we know 95% or more (but not 100%) of the vocabulary in what is being read, then (assuming it was something we wanted to read in the first place), we will, - get the satisfaction of having read something we enjoyed - probably pick up some words by context - possibly pick up some more words if we look them up [and in both cases, we are seeing them in a context which we mostly understand, so have a good chance of remembering] - Will have had a book's worth of exposure to the language which will remind us of how it is actually used by native writers (or (hopefully expert) translators at least), which should reinforce our existing knowledge. We might even be reminded of a few words we might have been in danger of forgetting, for example. BTW (and I'm sure this isn't an original suggestion), but for those who are really into grammar, reading grammar books or articles in the native language should be particularly satisfying and reinforcing, I would have thought. Similarly, histories of the evolution of the language. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| shapd Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5947 days ago 126 posts - 208 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Modern Hebrew, French, Russian | Message 13 of 56 11 September 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There is a lot of evidence, including Krashen's work, that the amount of extensive reading is a good predictor of progress in a language. As Khatzumoto (AJATT) says, you don't learn a language, you get used to it. And the best way to do that is to read as much as possible at a level you can cope with. You have to be able to recognise words and phrases instantly, not after ten seconds puzzling over them in Anki. If you can't find simple stories or magazine/Wikipedia articles, try reading with a native language translation at hand to carry you over the difficult bits.
Even if you only pick up a few words per page, you are more likely to remember them in context. Each author has their own idiolect ie preferred vocabulary, so long books are actually easier than short stories after the first few pages as the words are repeated. I think it was Ogrim who suggested the million word aim for "fluency" of reading - about 20 average books. It is not compulsory to finish books if you get bored - it is not school. I find that transfers very well into listening skills. If I improve my reading level, my listening ability also suddenly jumps a level. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4331 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 14 of 56 11 September 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with all your points, but don't think the million word mark will get you to fluency. I'm at about 1.5 Million now (+6000 pages) and would only regard myself as B2 in German. Reading helps immensely, but it takes a while to get there.
Yeah. I exactly the same impression. The more I read the more and faster I understand spoken words. Of course, speech tends to be much simpler than the written word, so you are essentially stepping down a bit when you start listening (and speaking). Edited by patrickwilken on 11 September 2013 at 6:58pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4486 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 15 of 56 12 September 2013 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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With apologies to Churchill, extensive reading is the worst form of study, except for all the others.
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| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 3927 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 16 of 56 12 September 2013 at 9:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I've been learning English for around 40 years; around 85 percent of my 3500+ books are in
that language and I'd rate my reading skills somewhere close to C2. How much has it helped with my speaking or writing ? Certainly not too much. To keep it short and at the risk of repeating myself - I posted something similar two days ago and it might have been discussed ad nauseum anyway - I've started to create my own little Assimil style booklets and mp3 recordings some years ago, based on written English and German audio as L1 (nice side effect), a mix of high frequency vocabulary, phrases, idioms, fixed phrases, blocks, etc... with imaginary dialogues in all kinds of situations, reports, essays - pretty much the contents that I use on a daily basis anyway - privately and in professional situations. I constantly create new contents (the essential activation part!), print it all out on A6, record my mp3's and shadow everything until it becomes second nature and stays active - at least for a while to come. Once I'm at A2 and beyond this works much more efficiently and deeply satisfactorily than the standard fare provided by Assimil & Co, that I study parallely. I just mark the more difficult terms with a colour code(pencil>yellow>orange>red), collect the red items, print them out seperately or sometimes add them to my SRS collection of nasty terms. That's about the only stuff I SRS these days, if at all. Another advantage is that I can principally use the same English/German base for any other target language that I'm interested in, pretty much the old Linguaphone way. Edited by BlaBla on 12 September 2013 at 9:36am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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