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Reading Comprehension | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| destinos Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3768 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 11 28 April 2014 at 7:43am | IP Logged |
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I have been studying Spanish on and off for quite some time not enough to be at a good
level however I am noticing that, though I have a huge vocabulary and usually know what all the words I am reading mean as far as their English counterpart, when I read I do not have a huge comprehension. It is just like I am reading words. I do not translate as I am trying to move away from that but It really bothers me that I am not getting the phrases as I should. Does anyone else have that problem? How would I go about countering that? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6512 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 11 28 April 2014 at 10:36am | IP Logged |
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Maybe some immediate feedback could help you, and you could get that with the help of bilingual texts. I use homemade bilingual printouts using Word files with a series of 2 column tables, where the left column contains the original version and the right one a translation (you can make them parallel by modifying the column widths or font sizes). The translation has to be reasonably close to the original, but it is not important whether it is errorfree - so even a Google translation can be better than no translation at all. Yes, I saw that you try to get away from translations, and that's fine, but the point in using bilinguals as described above is not to lure you into making your own translation, but just to give you a here and now confirmation that you are on the right track (and some useful hints if you aren't). Edited by Iversen on 29 April 2014 at 3:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4342 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 3 of 11 28 April 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
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Are you reading books, or just extracts?
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6406 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 11 28 April 2014 at 2:03pm | IP Logged |
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See reading strategies. You should be also able to find some "reading Spanish" books easily.
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| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4447 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 5 of 11 28 April 2014 at 3:52pm | IP Logged |
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I remember having this problem when I started out with Spanish. I used "Spanish for Reading" by Franco and
Sandberg. It guides you through progressively harder texts. It uses a quite ingenious method. Before you get to the main text of a chapter it goes through sample sentences, explains the grammar of them and shows how they could be varied for different meanings. Books that you've already read are great too because you already have an idea what they're saying. And if you have a copy in the other language then you have a bilingual text yay. Edited by AlexTG on 28 April 2014 at 3:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5341 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 11 28 April 2014 at 4:14pm | IP Logged |
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As far as I can tell, effortless reading is largely a result of previous exposure to more-or-less comprehensible texts. In a nutshell:
1. This means things will get better once you've read, say, 500 pages, and they'll get a lot better after 2,500 pages or so. 2. But this will only work if you can actually more-or-less understand what you're reading. You don't need to understand everything, but you do need to be able to follow along. And since you have a lot of pages to read, you might as well enjoy yourself a bit. (Actually, I recommend enjoying yourself for a fairly specific reason: it's a semi-reliable way to calibrate the difficulty of the texts. If something is so hard that it makes you totally miserable, or so easy that it bores you, try another approach.) So don't hesitate to mess around and try different things. Read translations of your favorite books, or use English & Spanish versions of a text in parallel, or read ebooks with a popup dictionary: Whatever works best for you. If you need to translate in your head to get started, well, it's still a hundred times better than not reading, and it will probably drop away as you get more exposure. Also, don't hesitate to read something a couple of times: translating it in your head the first time, and trying to understand it directly after a few passes. (This works best with short passages.) I still need to translate Middle Egyptian in my head a lot of the time—I can read certain simple phrases directly, but anything hairy tends to slip through my fingers. But that's because I've read maybe a couple dozen pages total, at the absolute most. That's not enough for it to become second nature. Remember: When learning a foreign language on your own, "cheating" is almost always a good thing. It's better to do get right in there and use the language, making whatever compromises you need to keep going. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| destinos Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3768 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 7 of 11 28 April 2014 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
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Wow thanks I bought the Spanish for reading. I used
the German for reading loved it yet I did not think there was a Spanish one. Hmmm I have recently found a site with a ton of bilingual long novels I guess I should just read more. I was concerned because I am taking place in the super challenge and I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't be all for naught. I am hoping to finally start to enjoy books and @serpent that link was great thanks. Good to know I can read romance novels for the sake of learning. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| destinos Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3768 days ago 15 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 8 of 11 28 April 2014 at 10:44pm | IP Logged |
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Sorry to be a pest but I noticed while reading today that
I had it wrong. So if I am reading and the words seem crazy as in just words then I automatically start translating. Then I read nearly as fast as I do when I am reading in English. However I know it is a hindrance on my Spanish but that is the only way that I can enjoy the book. How do I stop translating? I tried learning with images but I feel like it didn't work because the English translation is already engrained. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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