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Better to read without translation? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6082 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes  Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 9 of 18 25 September 2007 at 5:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
Edwin,
Not necessarily. When I read the transcripts, I have a blank piece of paper that covers over native part. I cover the native part on each page flip, by doing that first before I start reading. Read the target and only remove the paper when I am totally confused. Doing it this way, leaves the transcript accessible when needed, and removes reliance (or cheating/laziness) when not needed (i.e. covering it up). I find it more distracting and frustrating to open up a dictionary, search for a word or look up the translation elsewhere which just makes everything take longer, when I could just have the translation right next to it. Keeping your eyes off of it (translation) is ultimately under your self-control. I have my transcripts organized this way Target | Nativ e blah blah Covered by Page blah blah Covered by Page blah blah Covered by page I cover the right half of the page and only move it down to the part that confuses me (without going over to the next part). Because I do know what you mean, it becomes easy to "cheat" yourself, when you have the answers so close by and easily accessible. Try it this way, see if it works for you. Edited by xtremelingo on 25 September 2007 at 5:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6413 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 10 of 18 25 September 2007 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I suggest you also try reading without a translation or looking up words in a dictionary. This way you will be reading faster and you will get more reading done. The more reading you do, the more words you will encounter and learn from context. In my experience, words that are learned from context are more easily remembered and become active vocabulary more quickly than words that I have looked up in a dictionary. With extensive reading you will be encountering and acquiring so many words that you have understood from context and your understanding of the subject matter that it doesn't matter if you don't learn every single word, and the words you learn will be the most important words for your level since you will learn the words you encounter most frequently. Research has shown that words are most easily learned from context when 95-98% of the words are already known, in other words 2-5 new words per 100 words is the right level.
Edited by Linguamor on 25 September 2007 at 8:21pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| edwin Triglot Senior Member Canada towerofconfusi&Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6259 days ago 160 posts - 183 votes 9 sounds Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French, Spanish, Portuguese | Message 11 of 18 25 September 2007 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
As I have mentioned in my previous post, I have tried similar methods, in which I can only see the translation when I click or mouse-over the sentences. I still ended up looking at the translation more often than I should.
I understand what you mean. But texts with only 2-5% new words are virtually impossible to find for an intermediate learner. Even if you can find them, you will be learning 2-5 words by reading 100 words. This does not sound very efficient for me. From my experience, I feel that reading texts with about 10-25% unknown words seem to be quite efficient for me. Within this range, I don't really need the translation, but I would need a dictionary. BTW, looking up a dictionary is not as tedious as it had been in the past. Nowadays, you typically need a few mouse-clicks to look up a word. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6413 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 12 of 18 25 September 2007 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
Reading at a rate of 100 words a minute (average native language reading speed is 200-250 wpm), the language learner can read 6000 words in an hour. If 95% of those words are known, the reader will encounter 300 unknown words in an hour of reading. Even if the language learner only learns 5% of these 300 unknown words, he or she will have learned 15 words in an hour of reading - on average one word every 4 minutes. Edited by Linguamor on 25 September 2007 at 10:45pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mumusik Newbie Korea, South Joined 6101 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean | Message 13 of 18 26 September 2007 at 12:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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good answer.
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| xtremelingo Trilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6082 days ago 398 posts - 515 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi*, Punjabi* Studies: German, French, Arabic (Written) | Message 14 of 18 26 September 2007 at 2:25am | IP Logged | |||||
Now you sound like me ;) Linguistic turned Mathematician! Where are all flying pigs? Just joking. This a good explanation. Linguamor, I might have a crush on you!! ;) jk. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6498 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 15 of 18 26 September 2007 at 5:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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As a language learner you go from a situation where you understand 0 % of even the simplest text (except maybe a loanword here and there) to a situation where you understand almost 100% of even the most complicated book or speech (except references to expert knowledge outside your field, - nobody can be omniscient in this world). It would be strange if the same advice would be relevant at all stages through this process.
Generally speaking methods that let you peruse large amounts of text as early as possible are beneficial (extensive reading/listening). Here it is not essential that you understand every single word, the aim to keep the momentum. For the total novice it will be impossible to do this because you can't get genuine stuff that is simple enough. The best way to solve this problem is probably the different variations on the listening-reading technique, including the use of interlaced bilinguals. Later you can just read or listen to your heart's delight. But the intensive reading/listening should be complemented by the use of intensive listening/reading, where you really take the details seriously - which in practice means looking up words (including words that you know, maybe but not in the sense they are used in the text), referring to morphological tables and even checking things in a translation, if you can find one that is useful. The most efficient way to do the intensive reading in the beginning will probably be writing ultra-literal and commented translations, but this is a slow and cumbersome process, so you will automatically cut it down to writing lists of new words and idioms and maybe comments on some grammatical forms as soon as possible. Third part translations are not very useful in this context, because they almost never are close enough to the original. And yes, I know that there are people who learn things without this, but I know what has worked for me and others may have other opinions and do things their way. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6413 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 16 of 18 26 September 2007 at 6:40am | IP Logged | |||||
This why I said "I suggest you ALSO try reading without a translation or looking up words in a dictionary."
Yes, this would be slow and cumbersome, and it is not necessary. If you use language learning materials, the more the better, to acquire about 2000 words and a basic understanding, implicit or explicit, of the grammar, you can read intensively by looking up words as you read. No need to write them down to study later - most people can learn a word more quickly by looking it up maybe 5 times and understanding the word in context each time they encounter it than by learning it by rote from a wordlist. The knowledge of a word learned in this way is different also - the language learner learns how the word contributes to the meaning of sentences, which is what it really means to know a word, rather than simply matching it to a native language word and memorizing that. This also ensures that the language learner is learning the right words for his or her level, since the words that are learned are the words that are encountered and looked up most often. Edited by Linguamor on 26 September 2007 at 6:42am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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