Listening - Reading

Discussion in 'Learning Techniques and Advice' started by pat tou, Oct 2, 2014.

  1. pat tou

    pat tou New Member VIP member

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    I'm assuming most of you have heard/experienced with Listening - Reading (L-R).
    http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_mountain/! L-R the most important passages.htm

    I know this is a topic that has been thoroughly discused on HTLAL, but hey, I never managed to get my account validated there despite filling out all that information they ask for. So here goes.

    Anyone here a fan of this method? I would appreciate some input on my current approach to this method. I discovered it late this summer and have been doing it for about 4 months now. It's been great. I feel that my Russian has improved quite nicely.

    I am a little handicapped by my current approach since I generally don't like to re-read books.
    So I simply stuck with step 2 - Reading in L1 and listening to L2 audio.

    My approach:
    - Read a new book in L1 and listen to L2
    - Once I am finished, never re-read that book again
    - I haven't experimented with Step 3 (Parallel texts + L2 recording). According to the creator of the method, this is where the true learning happens.

    Where it wins:
    - No fiddling with millions of files, just L1 text and L2 audio then good to go!
    - New content, always
    - Not getting bored with the same old story for the 4th time in a row
    - Fast. Usually no pausing to understand, just plow through the audio with whatever % of comprehension.

    Where it fails:
    - Not knowing the story beforehand
    - Hard to follow the L2 audio
    - Not achieving critical frequency to properly learn the words
    - It's just L2 audio, no text support

    Has anyone here experienced good results simply reading in L1 and listening to L2? Where does this approach fail? I have read 5 books and spent about 100+ hours doing this activity. Should I continue?

    Any input will be appreciated,
    Thanks,
    Pat Tou
  2. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    I have never used L-R but have read a lot about it on HTLAL. For me the biggest turnoff is how much effort it takes to find a L2 original novel (i.e. not a translation), an audio book for that, then also a L1 translation that is literal enough to be of use instead of a flowery free translation, i.e. the kind of translation of literary novels one typically finds. Then of course you have to align the texts so that you can quickly peek if needed during listening. If I could do this with non-fiction without too much fiddling, like pdfs for both L1 and L2 and audio for L2 (harder to find for non-fiction), then perhaps I would be tempted.

    Whatever success users on HTLAL claim to have with it seems to be mainly by those following the "official" instructions. You are not doing that and are not having good results since you say you are not learning the vocabulary (up to half the words in typical literary novels might only occur 1 or 2 times). So why would you continue with your current version of the method? If the results for pronunciation, listening comprehension and grammar learned are good enough then perhaps it might be worth it to you to continue. Otherwise, why not give the official way a try for a fresh novel and see how things work out? If you can get an approach that you are pleased with, then you can add or subtract from there to see what is really critical and what is not.

    I realize I am not the replier you are looking for, but with far fewer members than HTLAL, I am not sure how many if any posters here use L-R, at least regularly.

    One last thing to consider is that with an investment of 100 hours, one could complete an Assimil or other beginning course and get a decent base in a new language on which to build. Polyglot Kato Lomb would do such a beginning course along with an overview of the grammar, and only then would she read a novel (no audio) with a dictionary to advance further.
  3. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    I find various forms of listen/reading (L/R) to be helpful and I do some of it most days. I call things L/R when use both a text and audio. Although the original recipe is perhaps ideal, I've used it in these ways:

    Listen L1/Read L2 (with or without a bilingual text)
    Listen L2/Read L1
    Listen L2/Read L2.

    I prefer a literal translation, but sometimes you have to just use what's available.

    Other tweaks I sometimes make:
    Using http://translate.google.com
    If a text gets boring, move on.
    Come back after some weeks or months and use the same material again.
    pat tou likes this.
  4. Stelle

    Stelle Active Member VIP member

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    Hmmmm...I think L-R only works if you're willing to use the same text more than once. Honestly, I'm not sure that your approach will yield much results at a beginner level.

    L-R isn't for me, except for with short dialogues. I'm using it in a modified way to work my way through Teach Yourself Filipino, and I'm finding it very useful. In about 15 minutes I can listen to a short piece of text multiple times, alternating listen L2/read L1 with listen L2/read L2. I don't have the audio in L1, so I'm not doing a "true" L-R. Still, it's a very powerful approach.

    I'm just not sure it would be engaging enough to do with a full novel.

    If I wanted to try L-R with a novel (which, at least at this point, I don't), I'd probably pick Harry Potter (despite the fact that I often speak against HP as a first novel for language learners). It's easily accessible in multiple languages, both text and audio, and the movies have also been dubbed into many languages.
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  5. iguanamon

    iguanamon New Member

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    Language learning on one's own is highly individual and to me, more like a restaurant buffet- a little from here, a little from there. I never used the official LR recipe primarily for the reasons Peregrinus gives. It's just too complex, however; if I have text and audio in L2, especially in the early stages, that's gold for me. I can read first, then listen, then listen and read, then listen again. If I have a translation, even better. I can make my own bilingual text. For me this works best with short audio like a news story or someone talking about daily life topics in a video- as long as it is native-speed audio not "dumbed-down" for learners. Of course, this won't work on its own. I'm pursuing the TL on all fronts at the same time.
  6. Wise owl chick

    Wise owl chick Active Member

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    I agree with iguanamon that you can do LR in many ways.

    Mine is to watch a programme with the subtitles. I've learned 80 or 90 % of my Dutch this way, and after 6 months I had passed their C1 exam. I was only about 13, and this is relevant because when you are so young you can learn so well, much better. But nevertheless now I am adult (22) I fidn that to watch a film or programme and read the subtitles is veyr helpful for the languages. You can be a beginner, it doesn't matter your level.

    I don't read books at all but I read many things online and in my 5 different languages, but seldom can you find this with the listening. I like the essays' and journals' structures, not the books. Personally, I like to read the articles and reports, this type of litterature. You can find some translations of this things, but not the listening.

    In ym old school we had the choice to use the written text or the speech option when we've read the things, mostly my class perfered the speech one but I preferred to read the written one.

    I also agree with iguanamon that it must be not dumbed down, althouhg when you are a beginner it's overwhelming to listen without the subtitles.
    pat tou likes this.
  7. pat tou

    pat tou New Member VIP member

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    Thanks for the replies everyone. It gives some insight on how to "L-R". Seems like you who do use it are customizing it to suit your interests/needs. Buffet style as iguanamon said. I like that.


    Definitely agree there. Getting all the required materials is the biggest hurdle. I started by trying to align Dune by Frank Herbert...I quickly realized what a time sink that was, even using LF Aligner. So I gave up rather quickly. Ideally, one would have it all prepared by someone else. Since that was not possible, I decided to just wing it with an L1 book and an L2 audiobook. I'm lucky for Russian as there are tons of audiobooks online.

    I agree I should try the original method, however that is on hold since I don't have any parallel books already aligned (any that I feel like reading that is..hehe).
    I have created an interlinear text from a random Russian fantasy book that seemed to have decent ratings on a few sites, so I will be attempting to read the L2 interlinear text with english translations of each word while listening the L2 audiobook. It might work.

    I am satisfied with the progress have made these past 4 months doing L-R. I really found it to be enjoyable and relatively easy. I just want to confirm if others have had the same experience.
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  8. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    Hmmm.. I've suggested before that most of those will be description that is superfluous to the story... I might have to do a little investigation to see whether or not I'm right about that.
  9. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    With literary novels this is likely true for any individual word, but one loses the subtleties and nuances, which in aggregate are important. One doesn't read such works just to get the bare plotline. And what about detective novels? Every word could be a clue and thus important to the reader who is supposed to be in suspense and trying to figure out the situation. Which is why I prefer to look them all up and learn them explicitly. The cumulative effect of learning such vocabulary, low frequency though it might be, is to hopefully make subsequent books easier to read with fewer unknown words. Which overcomes the drawback of novels not providing enough repetition of so many words to possibly learn them in context (and still possibly wrongly).
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  10. Cainntear

    Cainntear Active Member VIP member

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    True, but just as missing out on words can degrade your experience, so can slowing down your reading. The book loses immediacy and impact if you go too slow.

    Plus, some language is more superfluous than others. Similes, for example, are almost always unnecessary to understanding the story -- eg "he slipped behind the sofa, like a cat slinking into long grass". Yes, you lose colour without it, but it's something that is hardly likely to really interfere with your enjoyment of the book.
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  11. Peregrinus

    Peregrinus Active Member

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    With literary novels, immediacy and impact depends on such "superfluous" words, as they are not plot driven like popular novels. They are character, issue, millieu, etc. driven, which depends on details.

    The solution I now believe, is to read the novel through once and look up/study the unknown words, and then some period of time later reread it for pleasure. I generally don't like rereading unless it is years apart, but I don't see a good alternative in foreign language novels where one is still shy of the lexical threshold.


    Returning to the topic of this thread, i.e. the L-R method, I think it should be clear that whatever degree of effectiveness it can have in learning vocabulary depends upon repetition, since one has not yet reached the lexical threshold as L-R is a beginning/intermediate method, and that it thus must fail with a large portion of new vocabulary which is not repeated more than a couple times.
  12. luke

    luke Member VIP member

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    I listen/read most stuff several times over the course of days, weeks, months and years. That's were my primary vocabulary acquisition comes from.

    I recently listen/read a short book, Vol de Nuit, four times in four days. The book is about 110 minutes in audio form. I'm not usually quite that disciplined, but with a good book, it's doable when the time is available. On the first listen/read I just got the gist of the story. By the fourth listen/read, I was understanding a good deal of the story. I could do that book a few more times and get more out of it. I also did a fifth listen only pass a couple days later. I've set the book down for a bit, but I'm still interested enough in the characters and story that I will likely return to it for another pass or two in a few weeks or a couple months. Then, I may set it down for several months and listen/read of listen to the book again with even more enjoyment.

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