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Extensive vs intensive reading | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| crazyleseratte Pentaglot Newbie Germany crazyleseratte.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3748 days ago 26 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English, German*, Spanish, French, Italian Studies: Dutch, Danish, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian | Message 1 of 13 05 June 2015 at 12:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yesterday I grabbed a Spanish book about history. I am fluent in Spanish, but I
haven't read anything in a while. Also, I am fluent in everyday life talk, but I have not read anything about history in Spanish before. Anyways, there were a few words, which I didn't know, so I was pretty torn between reading merely for pleasure and understanding every word. Later that day, I read a magazine on classical music in French. Again there were words I could not understand, and also I am not as fluent in French as I am in Spanish. So I wondered, what everybody else was doing: Do you read for pleasure only (and do you look words up, if you do)? Or do you look up every word and expression that seems useful? I started off with both. I usually take one article from a magazine, and look up every word, and read the rest for pleasure only. On the other hand, I have the feeling that with those special subjects I'm missing out on lots of things... I know that everyone is different here, but I would be interested in your general experience and opinion. Is it better to read a lot and not look up too much or anything at all? Or should I let my perfectionism kick in, and look up everything I am struggling with or where I feel unsure? What do you think / prefer? Edited by crazyleseratte on 05 June 2015 at 12:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4319 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 13 05 June 2015 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I started reading German I read intensively, looking up every unknown word with a pop-up dictionary. Now that I am more comfortable I still prefer to use a dictionary, but I'll only look up one word per page or two. Mostly if I don't know the word I just keep going and don't worry unless the word seems particularly important.
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| chaotic_thought Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 3328 days ago 129 posts - 274 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Dutch, French | Message 3 of 13 05 June 2015 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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If I read for about one hour, I like to mark the words that I would like to look up, and then later look them all up at once in a dedicated time slot. Most of the time, I tend to want to look up a lot, so if I look them all up at once at the end then I'll avoid spending too much time with the dictionary rather than the material I actually set out to read.
Preferrably you should use a good native language dictionary, not a bilingual dictionary or "pop-up" dictionary. At first it may seem like the traditional dictionary is slower but this is actually a benefit for studying -- suppose you spend 15 minutes looking up words with this dictionary. Then those 15 minutes count towards your reading time in that language. If you had used a popup dictionary then the time "switching away from your text" is not time that you can rightfully count towards your reading time in the language. So, for example, if you spend 60 minutes reading French but in fact you stop every few seconds to click on words and focus your eyes on some pop-up information, then in reality you've probably only focused on reading French for 45 minutes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5318 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 13 05 June 2015 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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When I was at intermediate level in French, my favorite strategy was to only look up words once they started annoying me. :-) Until you reach a very high level, you really don't need to know every word on the page, because you won't see many of them for another 20+ books. So in the beginning, it's probably better to focus on words that appear often enough to annoy you a bit, and which you can't figure out just by seeing them a few times.
That said, Krashen actually did an interesting study on dictionary use:
It may be possible to get the best of both worlds if you have a sufficiently effortless dictionary. In particular, I'm very fond of reading ebooks, where I can just tap a word and see a definition without really breaking my flow. But even there, I don't look up everything. I think your strategy of "mostly extensive with a small mix of intensive" is also very good. Even without looking up unknown words, you can learn an amazing amount from a text, and you also have an opportunity to consolidate anything you can puzzle out into automatic knowledge. It's time for my favorite graphic again. :-) 
Intensive reading is what makes opaque text into something you can decipher. Extensive reading is what makes reading effortless and automatic. 11 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| crazyleseratte Pentaglot Newbie Germany crazyleseratte.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3748 days ago 26 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English, German*, Spanish, French, Italian Studies: Dutch, Danish, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian | Message 5 of 13 05 June 2015 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@emk thx for the link. I read your post on this topic and have two more questions for
you (and of course everyone else, who's reading this) 1. I read that you are putting sentences in anki, do you do this with everything you're looking up or just some idiomatic expressions. Because I do tend to write things down from my classes, from my books and my videos and it takes me forever this way, and I have this feeling of fatigue. 2.Now I know that this second point doesn't have to do with my original post, but since I read your original post on gaining comprehension, I still have to ask: While watching videos, I read you used Buffy (I do too, amongst others) and some transcripts. I sometimes use subtitles for looking up words. You wrote that at later seasons you got less and less problems with understanding, so how did you do it, how did you go about the vocabulary? It's of special interest to me, since my reading skills for French are far more advanced than my listening comprehension, although it's getting better as I practice regularly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4319 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 6 of 13 05 June 2015 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think this is an interesting question, but could it be somewhere else? I don't want to sound grumpy but I was sort of interested in the original post... Perhaps it would be better to post this direct to EMK's log or to start a new thread? Edited by patrickwilken on 05 June 2015 at 4:20pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| crazyleseratte Pentaglot Newbie Germany crazyleseratte.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3748 days ago 26 posts - 33 votes Speaks: English, German*, Spanish, French, Italian Studies: Dutch, Danish, Mandarin, Japanese, Russian | Message 7 of 13 05 June 2015 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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sorry patrick, I know this is off topic, but I did not know where else to post it, and I
didn't want to open a different thread for it... (not another one ;) ) I am not sure that emk's log is the right place either... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5318 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 13 05 June 2015 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I actually have special tools for this: I highlight text in an ereader, upload my highlights to a web app, add definitions and pictures using the web UI, and then import it to Anki using a plugin. I'm hoping to make this available for HTLAL users at some point. I basically don't believe in typing sentences into Anki--if I can't just copy and paste, I'm not going to do it.
My recommendation: Try a couple of TV series. You're looking for one which is easier than average, and which has accurate subtitles or a transcript. You also want something with a lot of episodes available. Assuming you can understand, say, 40% of the dialogue when you start, and you're willing to rewatch early episodes a few times using a transcript or whatever, you will often see huge gains over the course of a season or two. TV series are great for this, because you get 50+ hours of audio with (1) pictures, (2) a continuing story, (3) a small set speakers, and (4) a limited set of topics. This has worked really well for a number of people at HTLAL who had strong reading and weak listening skills, including both me and Cavesa. Plus you get to improve your language by watching TV. :-) If you can't understand even 40% of the dialog when you start, and if you're reasonably good at messing around with technology, then you might have luck with subs2srs. I tried a little experiment along these lines, and I made great progress with one TV show. But of course you don't have to use this particular technique. Listening/Reading also works very well, and we have a wiki page with other ideas. Remember, all you really need is to find something that you can listen to and enjoy, and which offers enough of a "hook" (be it a transcript, or images, or something else) that you can somehow make progress. Don't hesitate to watch a huge volume of easy stuff; that will help you burn common French patterns into your brain. Don't lose any sleep over things that are too hard. Just leave those for later, when they'll be easier. :-) To give you an example, listening to science podcasts in the car with no transcript is an advanced skill. I couldn't do that until I had watched about 5 TV series straight through and read a big stack of novels. And even now, I miss a fair bit, especially when the car is noisy. As long as (1) you're getting lots of input, (2) you're having fun, and (3) you find yourself noticing interesting details and saying "Ah-ha! So that's what that means!" reasonably often, you're on the right track. You don't have to tackle the hardest challenge right away. Instead, you can focus on stuff which is interesting and rewarding, and someday you'll come back to the hard stuff and it will be easier. Update: Sorry, I didn't see your post until after I had posted:
I'm totally happy to split off a new thread, of course. I tried to tie my answer above back to the original extensive vs. intensive question, but I agree I probably didn't do too good a job. :-) Edited by emk on 05 June 2015 at 6:07pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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