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How long in order to read | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4701 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 28 24 January 2015 at 9:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I actually have my old notes! For French, I had two years in college, then nothing for a
couple decades. It took me twelve months of active studying, plus three weeks immersion, before I tackled my first major novel (Madame Bovary). I still relied on the kindle dictionary a lot, and referred to an English translation a lot. After another year of intensive reading I tried Proust, and it took me ten weeks to finish the first volume. After that, reading French seemed easy. I studied Spanish on my own for a year, and was able to handle bilingual texts after that. I didn't make the leap into independent reading. For Italian it has been exactly twelve months of semi-regular studying, and this week for the first time I was able to read fifty pages with only a small amount of trouble (Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini). I have been trying to read since May, but it's been challenging. I haven't realized until now, looking at my excel spreadsheets, that it was twelve months for each of the Romance languages. On the other hand, after ten months of Turkish and fifteen months of Ancient Greek I wasn't even close. I should note that I focus a lot more on reading and listening, and only focus intensively on speaking if I have a trip coming up. And I neglect writing almost entirely. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 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 10 of 28 24 January 2015 at 9:14am | IP Logged | ||
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It actually sounds like you've reached the "natural listening" stage already and gotten the most out of LR already. Switch to subtitled video and shorter content like articles and songs.
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| glidefloss Senior Member United States Joined 5780 days ago 138 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 11 of 28 24 January 2015 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Why shorter articles? I can't read those either, or wikipedia, maybe just the gist, but it's frustrating. Maybe it should
be frustrating. So after natural listening stage of LR, the bilingual step doesn't help much? On the third run of a HP book, I'm still learning some phrases and individual words, and noticing grammar changes and conjugations. Shoulddn't I go onto the monolingual audio/text stage after natural listening? Edited by glidefloss on 24 January 2015 at 9:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 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 12 of 28 24 January 2015 at 11:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, because you need to get used to the process of reading. And shorter texts are more likely to have recordings, at least those at GLOSS (click "source") and I think some of those iguanamon recommended too. The resources we mentioned are indeed an introduction to native materials. And frustration is normal, yes. Don't bang your head against the wall, but don't wait until it suddenly gets easy.
Of course you can always do more LR, but if you're tired of HP, sounds like it's time for a change. (consider also reading or LR'ing selectively if you're familiar with the whole story) The more subtle things are picked up through reading more easily anyway. Or at least LR more challenging materials. Honestly, Spanish is like the only language where I can have anything I need. Also, did you do the L2 audio/L2 text stage in the beginning? Maybe it's time to do some more of this? I don't necessarily mean going through a whole book btw. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4701 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 13 of 28 24 January 2015 at 12:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I would actually argue for longer books rather than shorter. It will be hard at first, maybe
really hard, but after 100-200 pages you will learn the author's voice and it will be easier after that. Then, of course, you need to move on to the next author ... but hopefully it will only take 150 pages to learn his or her voice. And then 100 pages for the next book. And soon (relatively) it will come within the first chapter. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| glidefloss Senior Member United States Joined 5780 days ago 138 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 14 of 28 24 January 2015 at 12:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't do the L2/L2 stage at the beginning. I've only done if for about 40 minutes, not enough to help, but just
enough to show me it was easier than reading without audio. Maybe I made a mistake in skipping that step. I misremembered the process as doing L2/L2 after L1/L2. Sorry if you've mentioned it elsewhere, but where can I find Spanish audiobooks? Movies and TV shows are pretty easy to find, but I haven't found many audiobooks. I got the Harry Potter ones from a torrent site, and ripped some from youtube. There are a lot on youtube. They have Moby Dick, for instance, which I'd love to read, but it's a shortened 3 hour version, and there are others than have a computer voice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5048 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 15 of 28 24 January 2015 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Free Public Domain Audio Books in Many Languages. (https://librivox.org/)
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6409 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 16 of 28 24 January 2015 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
In general I also support longer books/stories, like I wrote in the wikia article too. The thing here is that it's not the typical problem of not being familiar with the vocabulary/language (after finishing a textbook etc), but being less familiar with the written form than the spoken. With just a little effort the OP will soon surpass those who can read coursebook-style texts/articles but not longer stuff. as for the sources, yeah, torrents. or you can buy them legally. edit: I don't think it was an actual mistake to skip the L2-L2 stage, but remember that for a language like Spanish you're supposed to gain familiarity with the spelling-pronunciation correspondences quickly, and prior to that (or in other languages like Japanese, Russian, or even English for beginners) it's ideal to use parallel texts rather than L1-only (I never bothered tbh). Basically, it's fine that you skipped it then, but it might be time to try it again now. Edited by Serpent on 24 January 2015 at 3:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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