Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

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einzelne
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby einzelne » Fri Feb 05, 2021 3:41 am

It worked for me. I didn't make parallel texts. I used the Kindle app on my iPad for L2 and a printed translation next to it. As was mentioned above, translations sometimes can be quite liberal and, personally, I really need to know the exact translation of the word. Pop-up dictionaries are the lifesaver.

I finished Assimil French with Ease in 2 months (passively) and immediately started to listen to audiobooks. I cut my audiobook into short pieces, 1-3 minutes long, depending on the vocabulary density. So for me it was, as it were, an organic continuation of Assimil, its "advanced" version adjusted to my own needs and interests.

Yes, you really need to looove the book, otherwise you'll get bored pretty quickly. Non-fiction works better than fiction. Philosophy is ideal (for those who love reading philosophical texts, of course): you read and reread philosophical text in order to internalize the ideas and see the connections better. I started with Camus' Le Mythe de Sisyphe, then his La Peste (which a philosophical novel after all). I was in love in Modiani's Rue Des Boutiques Obscures (suprerb audiobook by Jean-Louis Trintignant!). But even in these cases, I skipped boring parts, i.e. I didn't re-listen to them as much as I should in order to master new vocabulary. Still, it's a nice technique for increasing your vocabulary for those who cannot stand flashcards (like me). I did shadowing time and then but since I didn't care about production I wasn't diligent about it.

I tried to perform the same trick with the French translation of Stieg Larsson in order to increase my everyday vocabulary and it didn't work for me at all. It really needs to be something that you really care.

In sum, it works. But there's nothing magical about it and I don't think it's a shortcut. At the end of the day, your success depends on how much pages you read and listened to. But it's a nice method for those who are interested mostly in reading in L2 (like me). As a nice bonus you also develop your listening skills. You won't be able to understand natives or TV series after audiobooks, of course, but lectures and radio won't be a problem (provided you have passive vocabulary for that).
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby coldrainwater » Fri Feb 05, 2021 3:57 am

It may be occasionally that cold hard efficiency bumps up against pleasant and fun...and loses. I tend to agree with leo in that nearly any form of it seems to be really beneficial, implemented in nearly any sensible manner. The first time I read and digested the primary HTLAL LR reference, it took me quite a while to absorb it all and at least two passes through the text. So there is a complexity factor that may impact beginning learners.

I personally don't have any excuse or reason why I haven't done it yet, at least in grasshopper or another like-form that would allow me to bend the rules all out of shape. I suspect if anything, I am putting it off until a later point in my studies. There is also the combined factor that I may only start a new language once every 3-5 years, which provided fewer opportunities compared to the many competing methods.

Path of least resistance is also a factor even though I tend to love challenges. I do quite a bit of language learning in motion (Polyglot fitness challenge habit) and while I can read that way (using Anki), watch that way (smartdevice + running) and listen like that (podcasts for example), doing LR feels like a desk-bound activity to me and I am just now implementing habits that will provide more desk-study hours. Life and work both get in the way pretty often for me and in the past, I needed methods that were as flexible as possible to build up exposure hours. That flexibility of Anki partly explains why I picked it up before an LR variant.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby lusan » Sat Feb 06, 2021 2:53 pm

einzelne wrote:It worked for me. I didn't make parallel texts. I used the Kindle app on my iPad for L2 and a printed translation next to it. As was mentioned above, translations sometimes can be quite liberal and, personally, I really need to know the exact translation of the word. Pop-up dictionaries are the lifesaver.

I finished Assimil French with Ease in 2 months (passively) and immediately started to listen to audiobooks. I cut my audiobook into short pieces, 1-3 minutes long, depending on the vocabulary density. So for me it was, as it were, an organic continuation of Assimil, its "advanced" version adjusted to my own needs and interests.

Yes, you really need to looove the book, otherwise you'll get bored pretty quickly. Non-fiction works better than fiction. Philosophy is ideal (for those who love reading philosophical texts, of course): you read and reread philosophical text in order to internalize the ideas and see the connections better. I started with Camus' Le Mythe de Sisyphe, then his La Peste (which a philosophical novel after all). I was in love in Modiani's Rue Des Boutiques Obscures (suprerb audiobook by Jean-Louis Trintignant!). But even in these cases, I skipped boring parts, i.e. I didn't re-listen to them as much as I should in order to master new vocabulary. Still, it's a nice technique for increasing your vocabulary for those who cannot stand flashcards (like me). I did shadowing time and then but since I didn't care about production I wasn't diligent about it.

I tried to perform the same trick with the French translation of Stieg Larsson in order to increase my everyday vocabulary and it didn't work for me at all. It really needs to be something that you really care.

In sum, it works. But there's nothing magical about it and I don't think it's a shortcut. At the end of the day, your success depends on how much pages you read and listened to. But it's a nice method for those who are interested mostly in reading in L2 (like me). As a nice bonus you also develop your listening skills. You won't be able to understand natives or TV series after audiobooks, of course, but lectures and radio won't be a problem (provided you have passive vocabulary for that).


I did something similar with several Polish Agatha Christi's books plus the first HP book. I used Audacity and Audio books to create Anki cards. I listen-read a 5 min card everyday as well as several review of old cards. Did it work? I can still remember very well some of the material, however I would prefer to watch good serial and intensive reading. It is a lot of work. I am not sure I would do it again.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby einzelne » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:34 am

lusan wrote: I did something similar with several Polish Agatha Christi's books plus the first HP book. I used Audacity and Audio books to create Anki cards. I listen-read a 5 min card everyday as well as several review of old cards. Did it work? I can still remember very well some of the material, however I would prefer to watch good serial and intensive reading. It is a lot of work. I am not sure I would do it again.


Yes, once you reached a certain level, the LR method becomes painful and, frankly speaking, counter-productive. I mean, once a 15 minutes chapter has only around 20 unknown words, it's better to use some classical methods for vocabulary reviewing instead of keeping the same chapter on repeat. It would definitely be an overkill.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Serpent » Mon Feb 15, 2021 8:04 pm

einzelne wrote:Yes, once you reached a certain level, the LR method becomes painful and, frankly speaking, counter-productive. I mean, once a 15 minutes chapter has only around 20 unknown words, it's better to use some classical methods for vocabulary reviewing instead of keeping the same chapter on repeat. It would definitely be an overkill.
At this point you've reached what siomotteikiru calls the "natural listening" stage :)
Personally I'm not sure I've ever repeated chapters while doing LR, maybe in Danish. Normally I would just do the L1/L2 (L2/L3) part. Of course this only makes sense if you're not learning from scratch and/or speak a related language.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:13 pm

For me Listening-Reading has helped a lot with sustaining language learning as a long term hobby, since it lets me spend more of my time at the earlier stages doing what I actually want to do with the language. Recently I've been focusing a lot on Mandarin which has a huge audiobook selection and seeing good progress with it.

My variation is that when I'm not obsessed enough with a book to want to re-read it right away, I find it helps to pick longer books/series and just repeat a chunk of the beginning, then finish the book in 1 pass, and only repeat the whole book when I feel like it months or even years later (for me reading is the higher priority than language learning at the moment, but its nice to keep progress in my languages up while exploring literature). Sometimes I think it keeps it interesting to expand the section I repeat, so I may repeat the first chapter a few times, then the first two chapters, then four etc. until I feel like I've gotten used to some key vocabulary and can finish reading. For difficult books with lots of characters or that are very intricate I find being extra familiar with the beginning is helpful anyways.

Sometimes I split my L-R into two time slots, 1 slot for pre-studying books I want to read in the future, and 1 that I'm just going through extensively and enjoying, its easier for me to re-read if I have something new to look forward to later. For more distant languages it definitely helps to keep doing some formal or deliberate study activities to see good progress in the earlier stages.

Also if the audio is too slow for you, I think after you get used to listening a bit you can speed up the audio and still pick up new words. I know some people are really opposed to speeding up audiobooks and hate it, but for me I always find my brain adapts and after a while it starts sounding "normal". So I usually pick the speed that I can best enjoy/focus at.

Not doing it as intensively as the original methods suggest, I would say I don't see any exceptionally fast progress compared to other good methods. But for me its the easiest way to incorporate native materials efficiently at the early stages, makes it easy to get more hours of focused engagement with the language, and is a great bridge to unassisted listening and reading by themselves.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby jackwhite44 » Sat May 29, 2021 6:12 pm

Nogon wrote:
Beli Tsar wrote:These results seem very impressive. Why aren't more of us doing this? Is it from fear that it is a fad? Because most of us don't have enough time clear for it? Or are most of us on this forum just not quite as interested in pure efficiency as people were a few years back on HTLAL?

I tried to do it with Polish last autumn, but stopped after two and a half days. Why? The main difficulty was to find a good book, where both audio, polish text and german or swedish text were available. I'm quite demanding regarding audiobooks. I want them well read, the reader having a nice voice with the ability to make clear which person is talking without adjusting his/her own voice too much. Furthermore it should be a book, which I could imagine reading several times in a row! I tried several books but was utterly bored the third day and couldn't imagine to continue.
It might be effective, but it wasn't pleasurable.
I might try it again, if I find the perfect material.


If you still would like to test the method on Polish material. I could easily prepare for you something I believe interesting. Check the materials made by me for Polish learners listening-reading.com/nauka just for impression. If you would like to try I would do for you. I am a Polish native speaker, so it shouldnt be a problem.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:40 pm

I am learning German intensively. I have done L-R with a few books the way the method is described by an original author(Polish polyglot). I listened to each book 5 times in total.

1. Metamorphosis by Kafka
2. The Trial by Kafka
3. Furchtlos by Marie Force
4. Passigier 23 by Sebestian Fitzek.
5. Game of Thrones book 1.
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. A Man in Moscow by Amor Towles
8. The Penal colony by Kafka

Few observations:
1. After completing one cycle of doing L-R(doing total 5 times of listening while following along text in both L1(German, 1 time) and L2(English, 3 times) languages and then finally listening(1 time) without any text.) My brain really feels tired/cooked up. 5 days straight.
2. A couple of words from the book "keeps hovering inside my head whether I am cooking or going to a grocery store.)
3. When I close my eyes, I feel like "summary/central idea of the book is etched on my subconscious mind. I really feel characters having some sort of life.)
4. Other than that, I do not feel any extraordinary results on my fluency or output when interacting with German native speakers.

(I missed the last part of the method that is shadowing and reciting. Repeating after the speaker. I just checked the real source. I will start doing it with one of these books and see how it goes and further witness if it has any noticeable effects on my speaking fluency.). I will share my experience here if there are any).

In short, what this L-R method is supposed to do? And how many books in total once should do L-R to see its true magic in action? In the end, what are we supposed to achieve?
These are my counter questions for you guys if you can reply to them I will really appreciate it.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sun Aug 15, 2021 12:02 pm

german2k01 wrote:In short, what this L-R method is supposed to do? And how many books in total once should do L-R to see its true magic in action? In the end, what are we supposed to achieve?
These are my counter questions for you guys if you can reply to them I will really appreciate it.


As I understand it the main goal is natural listening, so the goal is to be able to move onto extensive listening, and having internalized good pronunciation, extensive reading as well. I just see it mostly its just a way to incorporate books into your studies earlier for people who like reading a lot. For me personally since I'm learning languages specifically for reading and other kinds of media its especially helpful because I can do that very early on in the process.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Sun Aug 15, 2021 2:09 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:
german2k01 wrote:In short, what this L-R method is supposed to do? In the end, what are we supposed to achieve? These are my counter questions for you guys if you can reply to them I will really appreciate it.


As I understand it the main goal is natural listening, so the goal is to be able to move onto extensive listening, and having internalized good pronunciation, extensive reading as well. I just see it mostly its just a way to incorporate books into your studies earlier for people who like reading a lot. For me personally since I'm learning languages specifically for reading and other kinds of media its especially helpful because I can do that very early on in the process.

Natural listening - being able to listen to and understand other books without the translation - does seem to be one of the major goals.

I haven't done it as diligently as either of you, nor specifically used it to start natural listening, but one of the things I've found helpful with it is to go through a book I'm interested in more than once. I wouldn't say "going through a book more than once" is a better technique for language learning than some other method, but it does let me use variety with the same material. I might be ADHD when things are either hard or boring. By using variety in L/R, I keep "getting back on the horse" and don't feel like I'm failing in some way.

Switching languages on the reading and listening sides, switching narrators, making annotations in the books, changing the speed of the audio, etc, all have been ways to keep getting back on the horse. I might learn better with a tamer horse instead of a bucking bronco, I won't deny that, but there what I characterized as ADHD kicks in, and riding a Shetland pony led by someone holding the reins doesn't doesn't seem engaging, even though it might be the faster track to fluency.
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