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Reading is perfect, but inefficient

  Tags: Reading
 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
56 messages over 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
BlaBla
Triglot
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Spain
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Studies: Nepali, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin

 
 Message 49 of 56
17 September 2013 at 10:02am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:

Well, that might be inefficient, but it is highly effective. The main reason for doing
extensive reading is to see both known and unknown words in varied contexts. When you read
anything in a language, you can't avoid the core, let's say 500, words of a language. The
reason these words occur so often is that a) many of them, especially the first 100, are
function or grammatical words, and b) these high-frequency words often have many
different meanings or uses such as in idiomatic expressions. So, it is every important to
see as many instances of these words as possible.

For example, if you take the four most common verbs in French (être, avoir, aller, faire),
they have so many different uses that you could see them dozens of times before seeing all
their uses in various contexts. And even we are looking at the same meaning, you want to
reinforce what you know. How can you call this inefficient ? It's very effective.


Effective in what way ?

Mere knowledge or appreciation of the existence of those idiomatic expressions in all sorts
of contexts ?
If I look up any of the 50/100 or even 500 most common Spanish words in my dictionary I find
several A4 pages worth of different, moreless idiomatic uses for most of them, more often
than not so much that it makes me dizzy and leaves me feeling pretty hopeless. How much does
that help me in regard to long term retention or active application ? Again, not too much I'm
afraid unless I take action and do something more 'efficient'- something beyond mere, passive
reading.
Maybe it's about time to discuss our different ideas or understandings of the term
'effectiveness'.
1 person has voted this message useful



Kami_77
Diglot
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Italy
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 Message 50 of 56
17 September 2013 at 10:11am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:

I'm going to have to disagree totally with this idea of inefficiency. If I understand
what is being said, reading is called inefficient because some or much of the material
is not new, i.e. it has been seen before. Therefore one is wasting one's time reading
something one has read before.

Well, that might be inefficient, but it is highly effective. The main reason for doing
extensive reading is to see both known and unknown words in varied contexts. When you
read anything in a language, you can't avoid the core, let's say 500, words of a
language. The reason these words occur so often is that a) many of them, especially the
first 100, are function or grammatical words, and b) these high-frequency words often
have many different meanings or uses such as in idiomatic expressions. So, it is every
important to see as many instances of these words as possible.

For example, if you take the four most common verbs in French (être, avoir, aller,
faire), they have so many different uses that you could see them dozens of times before
seeing all their uses in various contexts. And even we are looking at the same meaning,
you want to reinforce what you know. How can you call this inefficient ? It's very
effective.


I completely agree on this.

My main complaint is that learning new words after having reached a quite high level of
proficiency in the language is inefficient because those words are rare to come across
when reading.

Bear in mind that I am not referring to rare and obscure words that no one knows, I am
referring to rare words that a native speaker is likely to know nevertheless.

Edited by Kami_77 on 17 September 2013 at 10:26am
1 person has voted this message useful



s_allard
Triglot
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 Message 51 of 56
17 September 2013 at 3:33pm | IP Logged 
BlaBla wrote:
s_allard wrote:

Well, that might be inefficient, but it is highly effective. The main reason for doing
extensive reading is to see both known and unknown words in varied contexts. When you read
anything in a language, you can't avoid the core, let's say 500, words of a language. The
reason these words occur so often is that a) many of them, especially the first 100, are
function or grammatical words, and b) these high-frequency words often have many
different meanings or uses such as in idiomatic expressions. So, it is every important to
see as many instances of these words as possible.

For example, if you take the four most common verbs in French (être, avoir, aller, faire),
they have so many different uses that you could see them dozens of times before seeing all
their uses in various contexts. And even we are looking at the same meaning, you want to
reinforce what you know. How can you call this inefficient ? It's very effective.


Effective in what way ?

Mere knowledge or appreciation of the existence of those idiomatic expressions in all sorts
of contexts ?
If I look up any of the 50/100 or even 500 most common Spanish words in my dictionary I find
several A4 pages worth of different, moreless idiomatic uses for most of them, more often
than not so much that it makes me dizzy and leaves me feeling pretty hopeless. How much does
that help me in regard to long term retention or active application ? Again, not too much I'm
afraid unless I take action and do something more 'efficient'- something beyond mere, passive
reading.
Maybe it's about time to discuss our different ideas or understandings of the term
'effectiveness'.

Why is reading effective? It's pretty simple. As has been said by others and by myself, reading allows you to see
how words are used. What you do with this knowledge is another story. If you do nothing, i.e. you do not put
these words to use, then you will not develop any active skills. But that is not the fault of reading.

Similarly, if you listen to recordings or watch television in your target language without actually speaking, you
will develop great passive skills. What you do with these skills is up to you.

Reading is effective for what it can do. Reading alone will not give you great pronunciation or speaking skills.
5 persons have voted this message useful



montmorency
Diglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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 Message 52 of 56
17 September 2013 at 4:03pm | IP Logged 
Andrew C wrote:
I happen to think extensive reading is a very inefficient way to
learn a language for the following reasons:
1. It is very difficult to deduce words from context.
2. You do not know the pronunciation.
3. Finding material of the correct level is impossible.

These problems can be alleviated by having the audio with the text and a dictionary or
a translation.

Also it should be pointed out that if the language you are learning is similar to your
own it is easier to deduce
the words.



I haven't voted for this post because there (sadly) isn't a "yes, I somewhat agree,
but..." button. :)

1. Certainly not as easy as it's sometimes portrayed. Also, words have different
meanings in different contexts. OTOH, it's enough to understand it in the context in
which you meet it in this particular case, i.e. you will meet the other meanings
another time.

2. You've given your own answer, plus some people will know the pronunciation

3. Not impossible, but can be difficult or time consuming.

Edited by montmorency on 17 September 2013 at 8:28pm
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
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 Message 53 of 56
17 September 2013 at 4:09pm | IP Logged 
If it is said that you need to do a lot of reading, which is true, that does not mean
read exclusively. There's no need to be so strict.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4707 days ago
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 Message 54 of 56
17 September 2013 at 5:26pm | IP Logged 
BlaBla wrote:
Effective in what way ?

Mere knowledge or appreciation of the existence of those idiomatic expressions in all sorts
of contexts ?
If I look up any of the 50/100 or even 500 most common Spanish words in my dictionary I find
several A4 pages worth of different, moreless idiomatic uses for most of them, more often
than not so much that it makes me dizzy and leaves me feeling pretty hopeless. How much does
that help me in regard to long term retention or active application ? Again, not too much I'm
afraid unless I take action and do something more 'efficient'- something beyond mere, passive
reading.
Maybe it's about time to discuss our different ideas or understandings of the term
'effectiveness'.


This post confuses me. Are you complaining about reading a dictionary? What "action" are you talking about taking? The only real action in language learning is experience, and reading is very efficient because you can do loads of it anytime you want.

Reading (+ listening and watching) is a very efficient way to get a handle on all of those idioms, unless you are a computer and can look it up once and remember it. Maybe you could put a load of idioms into Anki and learn them, but even 10,000 sentences wouldn't be enough.

As S_allard was saying, you need to see an idiom used in various contexts in order to really understand how it's used, not look it up in a dictionary. For example, if a character says, "Aw come on!" you might be tempted to think that they are asking the other character to accompany them. The context would usually rule this out. So you dig through 3 pages of uses in your dictionary and possibly find the right one, or maybe not. But see/hear the phrase in several different contexts and you begin to understand it.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
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Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 55 of 56
17 September 2013 at 11:34pm | IP Logged 
Actually the fact that you see the most important patterns most often is another good reason to read extensively as one of the methods you are using.

Extensive reading is one of the ways to immerse in the real language. If you want the text which is covering your gaps one by one so that you know "everything", stay with a coursebook.

But have you ever noticed how many learners who do not get much real input (no matter in which form) have trouble using just the patterns you complain to see too much? A lot of people who just got through the courses are trying to put all the diligently acquired knowledge to use at all cost. And as a consequence, their active skills are at least unnatural but often just plain wrong. I was fully guilty at some point as well. Before I started getting much more French input, I was trying to put complicated structures where a simple one would have done a better job. It's like the KISS rule: Keep It Short and Simple. That is one of the things extensive input teaches anyone willing to learn. Without it, people are often taking a huge hammer to deal with a small screw.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Jeffers
Senior Member
United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German

 
 Message 56 of 56
18 September 2013 at 8:12am | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
Actually the fact that you see the most important patterns most often is another good reason to read extensively as one of the methods you are using.


That's an excellent point. A coursebook, dictionary, grammar, etc, will tell you what is possible, but don't always tell you which of the possibilities are most common. They also usually don't tell you which of the possibilities are most appropriate in particular situations.


3 persons have voted this message useful



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