Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

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Doitsujin
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Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Doitsujin » Sun Apr 26, 2020 3:18 pm

IIRC, the Listening-Reading method was often mentioned on HTLAL. I'm wondering whether it was just a fad or if some language learners actually found it beneficial.

I could imagine that one advantage might be that a learner is gradually exposed to the sound inventory of a new language and might be able to associate words or word parts with the correct pronunciation. However, I'm somewhat skeptical about the remaining claims, especially when it comes to learning languages that belong to totally different language families.

For example, I don't speak Portuguese, but I think that even learners, who haven't studied a Romance language, might often be able to figure out that the following sentence from the first Harry Potter book is about the manager of a company named Grunnings that manufactures something called "brocas" in Portuguese.

Mr. Dursley era director de uma empresa chamada Grunnings que fabricava brocas.

However, if a learner looked at the same sentence in the Finnish translation:

Herra Dursley oli johtaja yhtiössä, jonka nimi oli Grunnings ja joka valmisti poria.

I somewhat doubt that s/he would be able to make many meaningful inferences, due to the lack of cognates.

(BTW, the original sentence was: Mr Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills.)

If you've used this method, please answer the following questions:

1. Would you recommend this method? If so, what kind of learners would you recommend it to?
2. Did you use it to learn a language that belongs to the same language family as your native language or another language that you're familiar with?
3. Do you know of any scientific studies that suggest that this method might actually work?
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Dragon27
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Dragon27 » Sun Apr 26, 2020 4:05 pm

Doitsujin wrote:1. Would you recommend this method? If so, what kind of learners would you recommend it to?

I would recommend it to those learners who are, like me, quickly bored with beginner's learning materials and are not afraid to face head-on the authentic native material and are not discouraged by its difficulty. Here's a similar attitude from a different thread:
One trend that I noticed throughout all of Vladimir's descriptions is that he always works with material that is a level above his own. For example, without knowing a word of many of his new languages, he jumps right in with news broadcasts and novels. It's as if beginner materials are a waste of time and beginner materials keep you at a beginner level. Whereas when he focuses on deciphering language at a more difficult level, he makes huge gains in his progress. And we can see this in many areas of his life and his accomplishments.

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=14225

2. Did you use it to learn a language that belongs to the same language family as your native language or another language that you're familiar with?

Yes. Using it is especially efficient with the languages that are close to the ones you already know. Almost like cheating (but it's the good kind of cheating). The more different the language the more preparation you have to do for using the method.
I did use it for a language outside of the Indo-European family, but not for long because of the lack of audiobooks in it (New Testament is pretty much it).

3. Do you know of any scientific studies that suggest that this method might actually work?

It doesn't seem to contradict our scientific model of reality and that's good enough for me. You may try to see what is there in the original notes in Polish (I don't remember much, but there were some references to research supporting some of the ideas; something very basic like Ebbinghaus curve or the like). But this whole field of language learning is still rather immature so don't expect much.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby sporedandroid » Sun Apr 26, 2020 4:31 pm

I personally didn’t have much luck doing this with Hebrew. Maybe because it’s not Indo-European or maybe because I didn’t have enough hours. I may be more successful doing this with French.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby IronMike » Sun Apr 26, 2020 11:01 pm

I like doing L-R L2 to L2, haven't done it any other way yet. Has it helped? Who knows. I've only done it for Russian and I've been variously 2/2/2 to 2+/2+/2+ for years. So my scores could be from any of the various things I do. But L-R does keep my attention, so that's a good thing.

Looking up ristening now...
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Axon » Mon Apr 27, 2020 2:19 am

Hashimi wrote:In the early stages, I prefer the "ristening" method:

http://bsk1.com/Ear2Memory.pdf

Page 27: the difference between "risening" and "L-R."

Pages 156-160: the author's experiments with languages that belong to totally different language families.


Thanks for that link, Hashimi! That's a very motivating read.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Apr 27, 2020 6:34 am

Re: scientific evidence
You could look for studies involving the use of subtitles in films.

Countries that have a tradition of subtitling foreign language films rather than dubbing them, and have better L2 (English) skills than countries with a tradition of dubbing foreign language films, are sometimes cited as a example of the educational benefits of subtitles.

Mr Arguelles mentioned L-R briefly in one of his presentations: Reading Literature in Foreign Languages (42m28s into the video).
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby tungemål » Mon Apr 27, 2020 8:35 am

I don't like to listen and read at the same time. Are you able to focus on two things at the same time? I think it is more beneficial to separate the activities.

  • Only listening, afterwards reading the transcript - very good for improving listening comprehension.
  • Listening and reading L2 - in this case I rely on the reading. Hearing the words pronounced at the same time will probably help getting used to the sound but in fact I might as well just read.
  • Listening and reading L1 - this makes no sense. In that case you are only reading your native language, and will block out the language you are trying to learn.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby rdearman » Mon Apr 27, 2020 10:27 am

tungemål wrote:I don't like to listen and read at the same time. Are you able to focus on two things at the same time? I think it is more beneficial to separate the activities.

  • Only listening, afterwards reading the transcript - very good for improving listening comprehension.
  • Listening and reading L2 - in this case I rely on the reading. Hearing the words pronounced at the same time will probably help getting used to the sound but in fact I might as well just read.
  • Listening and reading L1 - this makes no sense. In that case you are only reading your native language, and will block out the language you are trying to learn.

The point of LR is you actually supposed to focus on listening and only using the reading for quick reference when you get lost.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby thevagrant88 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:11 pm

I did this with Spanish and currently doing this with Japanese. The short answer is yes. It basically forces the language to become comprehensible input. Combine with shadowing, pause and repeat, and reviewing unclear grammar bits then you are putting yourself in a good spot to make great progress.

I'm using it with Japanese and one of the things I've found very helpful to make it more effective is writing down the entire sentence, passage, or phrase in a hyper-literal, word for word English translation to wrap my head around the different syntax. Vladimir Skultety calls this "cave man" speak and really makes the listening-reading method more approachable with a language that has such a different structure.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby thevagrant88 » Mon Apr 27, 2020 12:47 pm

Hashimi wrote:In the early stages, I prefer the "ristening" method:

http://bsk1.com/Ear2Memory.pdf

Page 27: the difference between "risening" and "L-R."

Pages 156-160: the author's experiments with languages that belong to totally different language families.



I've never read this before, but it's very similar to how I'm using Audacity with Japanese. Glad to see there is a precedent haha
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