s_allard wrote:I wonder if there are any language learning advantages in doing like this. One thing that comes to mind is a kind of immersion effect that comes from a massive dose of input. This does not of course replace regular daily or periodic work but could it be a way of giving oneself a big boost with some long-term effects? It may be the sort of thing one can do once a month.
I've decided to give this a whirl. Tomorrow I'm going to spend 6-8 hours reading that Spanish novel that I've been nursing for over a month. I wonder if other people have any experience with this.
Indeed, that is the point. Immersion. Forcing the brain to switch to the other language and think in it. I wish you a lot of fun and good results.
It does give a huge boost, from my experience, especially during the first book or two in the langauge. Later on, it is a matter of preference. But A few long reading session, during which the learner can get through the introductory focusing moments and really improve in the meantime, have much better effect than trying to get get the same "momentum" two pages per day.
reineke wrote:No, Binge-Reading Isn’t The New Binge-Watching
HuffPost (excerpts)
"For a long time, the word binge generally meant one thing in American conversation: eating way too much in one sitting. The word connotes overindulgence, unhealthy excess;...
Thus, this word did seem appropriate to attach to the new trend of watching many episodes of a TV show in a row....
Proud binge-watchers were quick, however, to recast the term as a hip new activity. Where’s the shame, they asked, in devoting several consecutive hours to a finely crafted drama like Orange Is the New Black?
Soon, well-meaning booklovers decided TV shouldn’t get all the binging. It was time for reading to become a binge activity as well.
Sorry guys, that’s where I draw the line. Here’s why: Reading is not a binge activity. Reading for long hours at a time is mentally engaging, surrounds the reader with an aura of productivity, and does not leave one with a sense of remorse and embarrassment...
Besides, the idea that spending several hours with a book needs a new term is an absurd concept. It’s called reading. The activity of sitting down with a novel for the afternoon is not a trend; it’s just how reading has almost always worked.
The push to make “binge-reading” a thing arises from a wonderful impulse. In the age of prestige TV dramas, book lovers want to reaffirm the value of reading. Awkwardly tying books into the binge-watching trend is a valiant attempt to make reading just as hip as watching the first two seasons of Game of Thrones in less than a week.
The joy of reading has always been its ability to transport us, to not only occupy a quiet Saturday but to stimulate our minds and hearts. A day spent reading is never a day wasted. And it’s also not a day spent binging."
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5050240
I totally don't agree with this author. Except the fact the term is perhaps not necessary, but it is definitely useful in the context of long reading sessions vs. short ones. The point is not to show that reading is a cool activity, the point is giving a name to certain characteristics that are common to binge series and to huge amounts of reading over a small period of time. Contrary to the author's probable beliefs, people don't do everything just to seem cool. Certainly readers don't. If our priority was being considered cool, we would have stopped reading long ago and started a socially more praised activity.
The author of this article clearly got stuck decades ago, while the situation has changed, as Neofight78 describes it. These days, normal reading is either reading something other than books (whether it is a paper magazine, newspaper, or websites),or reading something a cruel tearcher forced upon us. It is not considered normal, that someone would willingly spend whole evening with a book.
" Reading for long hours at a time is mentally engaging, surrounds the reader with an aura of productivity, and does not leave one with a sense of remorse and embarrassment... "
This is absolutely not true.
These days, spending a lot of time reading books, other than obligatory reading for school, is often seen as waste of time. Back when I was a teenager, I had been criticised many times by both other teenagers and adults for wasting so much time reading, instead of doing something. Like sports, the usual example of an activity worthy of spending time on. (Or more house chores, my mother's favourite example).
Mentally engaging: the author has probably forgotten, that books are not just the huge works by Tolstoi or Joyce. There are as well tons of authors, whose only purpose is to amuse the reader, let the reader relax with a story. And large part of those writes "crap" that is definitely not mentally engaging. Most people read various stuff, from high literature, threw their favourite lower genres, down to the stuff we don't know even our friends to know about I certainly wouldn't be so arrogant or snobish to claim that everything I read and every hour I spend on it is a mentally engaging intellectual analogy of heavy lifting.
Remorse: of course my conscience is not clean, when I spend majority of the night with a book I simply couldn't close, instead of studying. No difference between spending the "study" night with a tv series and with a book.
Overindulgence: It depends on who judges it. If we assume, like the author, that reading is always a great mental exercise, and that spending a whole afternoon reading is totally normal, than only zenmonkey's example fits the term. But if we use the optics of most today's people, than reading more than we are forced to by school, reading other stuff than obligatory books or textbooks, or reading for longer than during a commute, all that can be confidence overindulgence in an unproductive pleasure.
If we say that watching the whole season of Game of Thrones in a week is binge watching, as it is disrupting the "normal life" (whatever that is) and usually interfering with our obligations during the week, that what else is reading 4 volumes of the Song of Ice and Fire in a week?
The author means well, but is completely torn from reality.