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Reading is perfect, but inefficient | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4807 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 17 of 56 12 September 2013 at 10:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think there is a huge difference between extensive reading being your only form of study and being one of your main forms of studying.
Of course you won't get other skills if you practice just one. And I know a lot of people with your trouble, blabla. But if you do other things in the language as well, than you will find extensive reading to be a great asset in my opinion. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5005 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 56 12 September 2013 at 11:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally I've met far too many people who've read a lot in their target language, including famous literature, but still make many basic mistakes when speaking for me to believe that extensive reading should be the priority. Or maybe it's indeed just inefficient and these people need to read a few hundred more books. I do think that reading is very useful as a compliment to other study, both for learning/revising vocabulary and for getting used to the language, and I've been trying to do it more myself recently. But I prefer to focus on more efficient and intensive activities like speaking, watching films, and "traditional" studying, and leave the reading for when I have time to spare after these, am in situations where they're not practical, or am too tired for them. Edited by garyb on 12 September 2013 at 11:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 3927 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 19 of 56 12 September 2013 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Of course, Caveza, but in my case it's not that much of a problem or trouble since I have a clear picture of my priorities and goals, a little obsession with efficiency (nothing too neurotic) and usually focus on those areas that need the most attention. Another aspect I have mentioned before (and probably never get tired of mentioning, the job again, lol) is that I can 'read', 'listen' and even 'shadow' --- moreless passive consumption in the worst case --- almost asleep while actively creating something from scratch forces me to stay awake and fully focused - for many hours if need be. These days I create far more than I consume - on the macro level that is - and enjoy it immensely. 1 person has 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 20 of 56 12 September 2013 at 1:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm personally probably one of those people and that's why I've decided to try to focus more on speaking in future. I won't stop reading, or listening to audiobooks/podcasts, but I can all-too-easily fall into a fairly passive stupor. It depends what you want, of course: If you are only interested in reading literature, then reading it is the most efficient thing you can do. The only specific I might differ from you is that I don't find watching films particularly efficient. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4331 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 21 of 56 12 September 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
I find that statement a little surprising. You have read about 2975 books in English, which if we assume are on average 250 pages long and have about 250 words per page, means you've read about 1.8 BILLION words in English. Or to put it another way you've been reading a book and a half PER WEEK for 40 YEARS and yet you think this didn't help your writing or speaking much at all. Could you elaborate? What's your evidence that such a prolonged and extensive reading program didn't help you a great deal? I've read less than a thousandth of what you've read in my TL and found it helped by speaking skills enormously. Edited by patrickwilken on 12 September 2013 at 3:13pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4357 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 22 of 56 12 September 2013 at 4:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm also very much an "input guy" and recognize many of the same symptoms in myself. I think extensive reading after a certain point becomes chiefly a vocabulary accumulation and maintenance activity, and most of the things you learn before that point of diminishing returns can probably be learned through conversation just as well—better in some ways, in fact, as producing correct output certainly requires everything to be more deeply internalized: grammar, patterns, vocabulary, and so on. As for its efficacy in improving speaking, in my experience good passive skills can accelerate the development of active skills, without actually contributing much towards them. For example, my spoken Swedish is probably pretty good for someone with around 30 hours (and I'm guessing here, I haven't kept any logs) of conversation practice, but you can only get so far in such a short time. Real fluency would obviously take a considerably greater amount of consistent practice. I suppose garyb meant that for input, he chooses to focus on films, as they arguably offer the biggest boost to his conversational abilities. Input, as a rule, doesn't count as intensive in my book. EDIT: I also meant to comment on the observation that many people, despite having read a lot, still make elementary mistakes. This is something we've touched on in the thread Why grammar does not help (some of us), or closely related at least. Many posters, myself included, have reported that despite careful grammar study beforehand, they learn to speak by making mistakes and being corrected. It's very similar here, I think: input can do a world of good to a language learner but ultimately you get better at output by practicing output. Edited by sans-serif on 12 September 2013 at 6:32pm 1 person has 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 23 of 56 12 September 2013 at 4:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For a dozen years I tried and failed to learn many languages to any usable level. After several months of
extensive reading of familiar texts, I had gained appreciable skills in French, Dutch, and Italian, such skills being directly proportional to the amount of reading done. After 1.5 years, I can read books and listen to radio or watch tv with reasonable comfort in two of these three. It was the magic bullet for me with Germanic and Romance languages. Now, predictably, my active skills lag far behind...but that's a lot better than having no skills of any sort, right? 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| BlaBla Triglot Groupie Spain Joined 3927 days ago 45 posts - 72 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin | Message 24 of 56 12 September 2013 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, thanks for letting me set that straight, Patrick. Most of them are scientific books and I certainly haven't read through them all, lol, but I sure read an awful lot. I mainly wanted to make a point that all the reading didn't help me as much with my active skills as maybe someone would expect. It simply doesn't work that way for me. I'd rate my current writing/speaking skills in English at around B2 and after 40 years of almost daily exposure that's downright miserable, almost pathetic but then I haven't lived in an English speaking country in a while and for me that would be the real deal. Back in California where I used to live I was closer to C1 or even C2 in some areas but that's some years ago and I simply don't have that many opportunities to train these days. On the other hand I'd be back on the C track in no time if I had more contact with native speakers but at the moment it's all locals, mostly Bavarians on top of that, alas ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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