Question about L/R

[Xmmm]

For people who are using L/R heavily, how many times do you read a given text?

I've been doing L/R for about a year, and 99% of them I read a text once. Partially that is due to pathological boredom, but it's also because I originally thought reading once only would maximize my acquisition of vocabulary.

On reflection, I'm not sure that's true. If I only read once, then I see a faster stream of unknown ("blue") words go by. Which is good. But if I can't really nail that word and say "I know that", it turns into a yellow word and I may not see it again for a long time.

I'm thinking if I read a book three times, I might be able to convert some of those yellow words to known words.

Do you usually read once, three times, five times? Is there an optimal number? I read those mega threads at HTLAL from bygone days, but they were all about L2/R1 which (I think) never really caught on and which I was/am fairly skeptical of (why should I spend language learning time staring at a page of English, etc.). Correct me if I'm wrong about that!

My current practice is L2/R2 one shot only. I'm wondering if I should do L2/R2 3x.

[Dragon27]

I read those mega threads at HTLAL from bygone days, but they were all about L2/R1 which (I think) never really caught on and which I was/am fairly skeptical of (why should I spend language learning time staring at a page of English, etc.). Correct me if I'm wrong about that!

Well, according to the creator of L-R herself, this is actually the most important part (actual "proper" L-R proper)! Listening/reading to L2 is mostly to practice parsing words and getting used to the speed of the foreign language.

[Sizen]

I LR'ed The Hobbit in Spanish/English back when I was studying Spanish and I did it in the way it was originally described. That is, I read a section in English, then listened in Spanish while reading in Spanish, then listening in Spanish while reading in English. I did this for three hours a day until I finished the book.

My personal experience is that it was some of the most productive and exciting studying I'd ever done. I obviously can't easily quantify the number of words I learned for more than just one reason, but my comprehension of Spanish in general improved by leaps and bounds when I was done. I personally found the last step (simultaneously listening to L2 and reading L1) to be where I actually learned the most, but that's perhaps neither here nor there.

The catch is that I haven't quite been able to reproduce those results with LR since then. I've tried all sorts of books, short stories and subtitled series in all sorts of language combinations and varying numbers of read-throughs, but nothing has really stuck like the time I read The Hobbit. I think I know why, too.

Multiple readings of the same text may very well yield better results for you. But what might influence how much you learn and what stays vivid in your mind is the degree to which you enjoy the text. I myself suffer from a form of what you call pathological boredom, though mine verges on apathy, and I simply haven't been as invested in a book since I read The Hobbit.

If you're anything like me, LR'ing the same text multiple times will result in better retention, but isn't worth the sheer boredom of the activity. I would just continue LR'ing new texts until one came along that I wanted to reread.

[Xmmm]

I read those mega threads at HTLAL from bygone days, but they were all about L2/R1 which (I think) never really caught on and which I was/am fairly skeptical of (why should I spend language learning time staring at a page of English, etc.). Correct me if I'm wrong about that!

Well, according to the creator of L-R herself, this is actually the most important part (actual "proper" L-R proper)! Listening/reading to L2 is mostly to practice parsing words and getting used to the speed of the foreign language.

You're talking about the creator of L2/R1.

L2/R2 is also reading/listening, and was not invented by aya?kzaa/wallygumboat (I forget the creator's exact internet handles).

I don't know if Steve Kaufmann actually invented L2/R2 (I assume not), but he's certainly promoted it pretty well. I would have to imagine L2/R2 people outnumber L2/R1 by 100 to 1.


If people have had success with L2/R1 I'd like to hear about that, but was originally asking how many times L/Rers listen to stuff. I'm wondering if -- by failing to drag myself through the same material over and over again -- I'm being less than efficient with my learning technique.

[Xmmm]

I LR'ed The Hobbit in Spanish/English back when I was studying Spanish and I did it in the way it was originally described. That is, I read a section in English, then listened in Spanish while reading in Spanish, then listening in Spanish while reading in English. I did this for three hours a day until I finished the book.

My personal experience is that it was some of the most productive and exciting studying I'd ever done. I obviously can't easily quantify the number of words I learned for more than just one reason, but my comprehension of Spanish in general improved by leaps and bounds when I was done. I personally found the last step (simultaneously listening to L2 and reading L1) to be where I actually learned the most, but that's perhaps neither here nor there.

The catch is that I haven't quite been able to reproduce those results with LR since then. I've tried all sorts of books, short stories and subtitled series in all sorts of language combinations and varying numbers of read-throughs, but nothing has really stuck like the time I read The Hobbit. I think I know why, too.

Multiple readings of the same text may very well yield better results for you. But what might influence how much you learn and what stays vivid in your mind is the degree to which you enjoy the text. I myself suffer from a form of what you call pathological boredom, though mine verges on apathy, and I simply haven't been as invested in a book since I read The Hobbit.

If you're anything like me, LR'ing the same text multiple times will result in better retention, but isn't worth the sheer boredom of the activity. I would just continue LR'ing new texts until one came along that I wanted to reread.

Thanks, Sizen. This is gold!

[Dragon27]

You're talking about the creator of L2/R1.

Yeah, I was talking about the originator of this system. All those methods were probably "created" by some unknown people long before that, so it would probably be more appropriate to say "rediscovered".
If you're talking about L-R in general, not just Phi-Staszek's L-R, then it's safe to say that there are much more people doing L2/R2 than L2/R1 (and many of them don't even call it "L-R").
I myself used mostly L2/R1 when I was learning Polish (I did some L-Ring of English, but not much, since I already had some decent listening comprehension by the time I learned about L-R). I did some L2/R2 at the beginning (a couple of hours, till I was confident that I got the basic word parsing skill down - honestly, till I was confident I would be bored out of my mind if I continued doing it). I read a couple of books in translation to prepare myself for the "proper" L-R only to discover that the translation deviated from the original Polish text so much that I was unable to follow the audiobook no matter how hard I tried (despite all the similarities between Polish and Russian). Thankfully, I was then able to find a series of books (The Trilogy by Henryk Sienkiewicz) that had a very faithful translation (at least, for the first book). Even though I've never read them before I was able to do L2/L1 L-R on them without much trouble (I had to pause the recording after each sentence at first to read the next one). It was a very pleasant experience watching myself progress from crawling to slowly walking to running and to, finally, flying (starting from the second book the translation began to act naughty again, omitting whole passages, but that was no more problem for me). I never listened to the same text twice (I do intend to read what I've listened to in the future, though).
I also did some "repeating after the tape" (for a short children's book Ferdynand Wspaniały - Ferdinand the Magnificent). I didn't do any L-R once I got past the Natural listening stage (pure listening, or reading seems to me more effective at this stage), so I'm already starting to forget what L-R feels like... Not to worry, Spanish is on its way into my life this year, or the next one, so that should be corrected.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I quote myself:

My take on L-R: I skipped the first "read the whole book in L1", and instead immediately listened to L2 and read L1, and finally L2-L2 (once). I've done this with a couple of books, in languages I already knew.

The more you know of the story beforehand, the language and the writing system, the more beneficial it will be. I know that I did a couple of L-R rounds with The Little Prince in Mandarin, and it just didn't work, despite being a lot shorter than the Dan Brown novels in Spanish.

By all means, read the whole thread (and the posts after the one I quoted). While being somewhat conviced that it's one of the better methods out there if you want to turbo-boost your listening and reading skills, I've never followed siomotteikiru's suggestions 100% - and I never find the right content.

Give me a page-turner in a new language, in a script I can read - but not faster than the narrator speaks, and I'm willing to give it a proper try.