Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

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

Postby luke » Fri Sep 24, 2021 1:40 am

Le Baron wrote:
luke wrote:Music is sound. So is a narrated story.
Stories are written. Music can be scored (written with scales, tablature, etc).

It's not a complete analogue because both types of score are useful to musicians/composers. However, just specifically on that point, the piano reduction of a work is different than the orchestral score. It seems bizarre to me that if someone wanted to work out exactly what was going on in an orchestral work (specifically its structure and content) they would choose the piano reduction.

Start with the piano reduction.

What I hear you saying is:
orchestral score: L2 literary masterpiece
piano reduction: a simplified portion of the original

If one thinks of the orchestral score as a key to an orchestral performance, one can think of the L1 text as a key to help understand the narration in L2.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Sep 24, 2021 2:42 pm

I'd already abandoned by this analogy because it doesn't parallel the situation entirely. The thing you sketched out though is not right, because a piano score reduction is a reduction of the same thing in the same language, not a different language you need to learn. Both are readable by the same person who can already read scores, there is no 'learning' necessary, beyond the normal curve of developing the skill of reading the intervals as piano chords and fixing them to the orchestral representation.

The thing is you don't need it as a 'key' to understand the orchestral score, you just read the orchestral score. Using a score reduction has other uses (space, portability, overview, a tool for orchestrating from etc). If you want to see exactly what's going on in the audio you need that orchestral score.

Two books of the same novel written in different languages are not the same structurally, as expected because they are adapted to the peculiarities of separate languages. L1 text matches L1 audio, L2 text matches L2 audio. We know that in most cases these are not mutually intelligible -and when they are why bother struggling anyway? I'm feeling there's some kind of crossed-wires concerning detail here, as if I am dismissing the use of L1 text as a tool in its place. I'm not. I would obviously use it to familiarise myself with what I'm going to embark upon in L2.
Look at it this way (another risky analogy!). Imagine I'm dictating a lecture to someone noting it down for delivery to a German audience and they also get a copy of the transcript. The person takes it down in German. Then the transcripts are handed out and I proceed to give the lecture in Greek. What purpose does the German transcript serve for this non-Greek-speaking audience? They can read it in German and discover what the lecture was about, but how does it help them decipher the Greek lecture? It doesn't, only learning Greek will do that and what would have been the point in giving the lecture anyway, they could have just read the transcript.

Now before anyone dives-in to say 'yes, but that's not a language learning scenario!' Well, what really happens in a language-learning scenario? Haven't we all done it, multiple times? Even in the most basic of books to the most dedicated the audio material is provided with matching transcripts. Sometimes there is a translation, but this is a mere support guide. Like reading the novel in L1 beforehand (though that's extensive). You're not meant to read L1 and listen to L2 to and map them together to get a synthesis. It's a little crutch to tell you what's going on, then you get on with working out how this generally universal information is spoken and written in the target language. The so-called 'direct method' relies upon the universal character of communication; that language is a representation of universal thoughts/images and not words or writing requiring translation. You learn a language and how it works by (largely) working in that language, not by translating. Little crutches - as grammar points, looking up words/idioms - are fine to jog you along.

In this respect the business of going through an entire novel in L1 with L2 audio when they don't represent one another is just a wasted effort. What is it supposed to produce? L1 has served its very best purpose by making you generally familiar of the content in a language you understand.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:18 pm

Le Baron wrote:I'd already abandoned by this analogy because it doesn't parallel the situation entirely. Both are readable by the same person who can already read scores, there is no 'learning' necessary.

The thing is you don't need it as a 'key' to understand the orchestral score, you just read the orchestral score.

But for the person who can't read the orchestral score but can read a piano reduction, the piano reduction is a way to begin to approach the orchestral score. (understanding the musical piece)

Le Baron wrote:Two books of the same novel written in different languages are not the same structurally, as expected because they are adapted to the peculiarities of separate languages.

Two books of the same novel written in different languages should be the same structurally. Going from larger to smaller: Tell the same story. Same number of chapters. It's nice when the paragraphs are split in the same place and the sentences begin and end in the same place and the word representation is as close as the translator is capable of. The closer the translation adheres to the message and style of the original author, the better the book is for listen-reading.

Le Baron wrote:In this respect the business of going through an entire novel in L1 with L2 audio when they don't represent one another is just a wasted effort.

The part in bold would mean the translation is bad or unfaithful. The translation should tell the same story in the same way. An allegory of the book may not be helpful. But listening-reading doesn't suggest using allegories. It says to use the most faithful, literal translation of a book you love, told by a good professional actor in the language you want to learn, using a parallel text.

It's not listen-reading per se, but people use movie subtitles to help them understand what characters are saying.

Imagine this. You read L'etranger in French. Juan reads El extranjero in Spanish. Vladimir reads Посторонний in Russian. You all thoroughly enjoyed the book. In addition to your native languages, you all also speak English. Can you get together and discuss Camus' book in English?
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Sep 24, 2021 5:03 pm

luke wrote:But for the person who can't read the orchestral score but can read a piano reduction, the piano reduction is a way to begin to approach the orchestral score. (understanding the musical piece)

Anyone who can read a piano reduction (which is two pianos, sometimes with extra staves for clarity) can read an orchestral score. They're not either/or they're all part of the same thing. No new language needs to be learned, they're not separated by different languages.

luke wrote:Two books of the same novel written in different languages should be the same structurally. Going from larger to smaller: Tell the same story. Same number of chapters. It's nice when the paragraphs are split in the same place and the sentences begin and end in the same place and the word representation is as close as the translator is capable of. The closer the translation adheres to the message and style of the original author, the better the book is for listen-reading.

When I say 'structurally' I mean the structure of a given language (its grammar, its words and idioms, its syntax, the different artistic way in which prose is written), not physical structure of the book. Often the sentences don't fit the same space at all!

luke wrote:The part in bold would mean the translation is bad or unfaithful. The translation should tell the same story in the same way. An allegory of the book may not be helpful. But listening-reading doesn't suggest using allegories. It says to use the most faithful, literal translation of a book you love, told by a good professional actor in the language you want to learn, using a parallel text.

I think it would mean that it is a translation to fulfil the needs of the people who speak and read that language. Not bad or good (though that exists). It's for moving that story into another language complete with that language's requirements, peccadilloes, peculiarities. It's a different book with the same overall shape, but not necessarily the same content. It doesn't matter how good the translation is; in fact the better it is the more a separate work of art it tends to be.

luke wrote:It's not listen-reading per se, but people use movie subtitles to help them understand what characters are saying.

I said that. They use it to translate, because they need that. The subtitles matched to foreign audio doesn't remove the need for further subtitles or teach you the language. They're there because of the difference, to bridge a gap.

luke wrote:Imagine this. You read L'etranger in French. Juan reads El extranjero in Spanish. Vladimir reads Посторонний in Russian. You all thoroughly enjoyed the book. In addition to your native languages, you all also speak English. Can you get together and discuss Camus' book in English?

How does that translate to learning? The book is an idea transmitted through language. I already know I could just read any book translated into English and know what it's about and if we all already know English we are discussing an idea, not a language. The question is can Juan, Vlad and Co. now go off and read that book in (or, more pertinently, listen to foreign audio along with their respective home language text translations) and recognise or learn that language? I say no because they are not the same medium. You have to learn the medium.

Maybe there is a specific mechanism which occurs between reading a text you know alongside an audio you don't know. Maybe I've not perceived, but no-one has described it either. It's like a faith claim.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby luke » Fri Sep 24, 2021 6:43 pm

Le Baron wrote:Anyone who can read a piano reduction (which is two pianos, sometimes with extra staves for clarity) can read an orchestral score.

Anyone, meaning all in the set who can read a piano reduction with any degree of accuracy and any level of facility? Anyone who has some ability has as much ability as everyone else?

Le Baron wrote:
luke wrote:Two books of the same novel written in different languages should be the same structurally.
When I say 'structurally' I mean the structure of a given language (its grammar, its words and idioms, its syntax, the different artistic way in which prose is written), not physical structure of the book.

That's why the translation should be faithful and literary. Ideas in one language are translatable to another.

What are these ideas transmitted with?

Le Baron wrote:In this respect the business of going through an entire novel in L1 with L2 audio when they don't represent one another is just a wasted effort.
luke wrote:The part in bold would mean the translation is bad or unfaithful. The translation should tell the same story in the same way.

I think it would mean that it is a translation to fulfil the needs of the people who speak and read that language. Not bad or good (though that exists).

You can imagine how the quality of the translation might make a difference though, right?

Le Baron wrote:
luke wrote:It's not listen-reading per se, but people use movie subtitles to help them understand what characters are saying.

They use it to translate, because they need that. They're there because of the difference, to bridge a gap.

Can you think of a parallel text as a bridge for the gap between the two languages?

Le Baron wrote:The question is can Juan, Vlad and Co. now go off and read that book in (or, more pertinently, listen to foreign audio along with their respective home language text translations) and recognise that language?

If they can't, they can't listen-read.
Le Baron wrote:or learn

Listen-reading is built around that mysterious notion of "acquisition".
Aya with sentence simplification for clarification wrote:READ the translation a split second before the matching text in the recording reaches your brain and simultaneously attach that meaning to what you're hearing.

If Juan, Vlad and Pierre can't read the text well enough, with enough extra mental bandwidth to be aware that the audio narration is expressing the exact same ideas in the language they want to learn AND mentally link their mental representation of what's happening RIGHT NOW in the text to what they're hearing RIGHT NOW, and keep that "what I'm hearing and what I'm reading are THE SAME" going, they aren't listening-reading.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:14 pm

Le Baron wrote:Maybe there is a specific mechanism which occurs between reading a text you know alongside an audio you don't know. Maybe I've not perceived, but no-one has described it either. It's like a faith claim.


This is getting tiresome, so I probably won’t continue, but I have talked about the mechanism before, but again, portions of the TL Audio jump to my attention when I can match them to some understanding from the Translated text, especially if they repeat in close succession. If I hear the word or grammatical feature without translation and remember noticing it before then I’ll probably continue to understand it in the future. Noticing the same aspect of TL translated multiple times increases the chances of remembering it, so if I go through a long text and notice the frequent vocabulary repeatedly throughout then it will be very easy to remember it when I re-listen without translation. And obviously like with all language learning noticing something translated different ways and used in different contexts improves the nuances of understanding.

If I try to listen to an audiobook of something I read before in a new language I haven’t done much listening in, it will require a lot of focus and my mind will wander a lot.

If I do L2 audio L1 text passes and then re-listen to just the audio, the audio is more familiar and I remember the stuff I noticed in my passes with the translation, and they help me focus easier and guess unknown parts from context.

A foolproof text you can try it with is the Gospel of John which repeats words a ton in the beginning and you can find audio and text for it in most languages. Or any text that re-uses words a lot will make it more immediately obvious what the mechanism.

Honestly I feel like such a fool retyping this again, but here we are. Will endeavor to ignore this topic until something worthwhile comes up to discuss.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:30 pm

It's mostly tiresome because of sticking to positions. I'm fully cognisant of the fact that people will see the matter differently, but being an L-R devotee doesn't confer special knowledge immune from critique. I've been giving this a good run-through and intend to continue as I said. I think I am adding worthwhile analysis, that you might not like or agree with it doesn't really invalidate it.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:48 pm

Le Baron wrote:It's mostly tiresome because of sticking to positions. I'm fully cognisant of the fact that people will see the matter differently, but being an L-R devotee doesn't confer special knowledge immune from critique. I've been giving this a good run-through and intend to continue as I said. I think I am adding worthwhile analysis, that you might not like or agree with it doesn't really invalidate it.

Well as I mentioned before I’m sure it works because I experienced it. There’s tons of stuff I regularly understand because I encountered it with L2 audio and L1 text, I have no idea how else I would have learned it. Barring some big personal epiphany that I’ve been hallucinating most of my language learning, this is unlikely to change especially through discussion which isn’t going to undo my personal experience.

Now this is only ground for my personal belief, so I don’t expect others to agree, all I can offer is a description of what I do and a way for people to try and experience things. If other people can’t replicate it then it might mean there are other factors I’m unaware of, and others are free to think I’m wasting their time for my own amusement if they like.

So as long as I’ve made my position clear that’s all I can or care to do on my end. If you decide to keep trying it and share your experiences, well that will be new information. So there’s no need to keep discussing once there’s nothing new to discuss.

If you want to keep speculating on why you don’t think it can work, I guess have fun. When you say things like no one has explained the mechanism, that throws me off because that’s what I’ve been endeavoring to do and it makes me think there’s a miscommunication somewhere.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:00 pm

luke wrote:Anyone, meaning all in the set who can read a piano reduction with any degree of accuracy and any level of facility? Anyone who has some ability has as much ability as everyone else?

More or less yes. A piano score is not a doddle. However the real point is that the orchestral score is what represents the orchestral performance. Those with 'some' ability probably won't be having a crack at the bigger score, it would mean learning more of the general language. Not running a comparison with anything.

luke wrote:That's why the translation should be faithful and literary. Ideas in one language are translatable to another.

It doesn't matter if it's the best translation ever made in the history of mankind, it is another language with another structure and character. If you want to learn to read a long Greek novel, get good at reading Greek first in steps, then read a long Greek novel. Perhaps one you've read in English. The two never need meet in any other way.

luke wrote:What are these ideas transmitted with?

Different, sometimes mutually unintelligible, languages. Decipherable at the output/reception end by people who understand them.

luke wrote:You can imagine how the quality of the translation might make a difference though, right?

A difference to the person reading that translation only. Transmitting the same idea well doesn't necessarily mean more closely aligning with the structure of the original language.

luke wrote:Can you think of a parallel text as a bridge for the gap between the two languages?

Yes of course, as a side-by-side text translation if that's what someone is looking for. That's different than having a mismatching text/audio though. Can't see any point in that.

luke wrote:If they can't, they can't listen-read.

Why should they be able to? Can you listen to the current book you're reading in Inuit from having read it in Spanish?

luke wrote:Listen-reading is built around that mysterious notion of "acquisition".

That's true, yet you don't need to acquire your native language alongside or fool about with some book of it while listening to the audio of a book you are learning. Your native language is already present in your head, solidly fixed-in. You;ll refer back to it automatically because it's a tool you've mastered. So listening-reading to a target language book is it! That's the one. L1 book to orient you (then set fire to this or put it back on the shelf because you don't no longer need it) and get on the L2. That's listening-reading.

Aya with sentence simplification for clarification wrote:READ the translation a split second before the matching text in the recording reaches your brain and simultaneously attach that meaning to what you're hearing.

Matching written texts? Why? That's not how language acquisition works. This is the bit I think is complete quackery. I'm sure the person is a marvellous person with the best intentions, but it's just some utterance.

luke wrote:If Juan, Vlad and Pierre can't read the text well enough, with enough extra mental bandwidth to be aware that the audio narration is expressing the exact same ideas in the language they want to learn AND mentally link their mental representation of what's happening RIGHT NOW in the text to what they're hearing RIGHT NOW, and keep that "what I'm hearing and what I'm reading are THE SAME" going, they aren't listening-reading.

Now that's interesting. Yet why? Why not listen to L1 and then immediately L2? Why not listen L1 audio and read L2 text. It's just random stuff passed off as a system. Shotgun approach. I don't know why people so strenuously want to take a really good thing like reading books and following the audio, which is a really excellent way of getting input, and add all this sorcery rubbish around it.

Shall we all agree to just leave it, because I doubt there'll be an agreement on this? And it's getting long and silly. This thread can just carry on with people reporting their breakthroughs.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Fri Sep 24, 2021 8:38 pm

I discovered a similar kind of approach by chance. At that time I did not even know a single thing about the L-R method officially.
As part of my academic assignment, I read a book called "Permanent record" by Edward Norton regarding data privacy issues. It was an English edition. I was thinking about learning German seriously and was surfing through Spotify casually there I happened to come across an audiobook of the same book in German. At this point, All I knew was a couple of expressions "How are you?" and "Good bye" in German. An idea popped inside my head why not try listening to audio in German and following along in English as I had a physical copy of it and see whether I could understand anything in GERMAN. To my great surprise, I was PICKING UP a lot of German words and by the end of the book, I literally understood the whole gist of the book in an unknown language (i.e German). In one word, I enjoyed the whole experience because I understood the gist of the story just by following along in English text. Consequently, I was picking up the words PASSIVELY. This step definitely helps with building up your passive vocabulary in an unknown language without resorting to using flashcards or word lists.
In your eyes, this step adds nothing to the L_R system, however, based on the author's experience, at this stage the real language acquisition takes place.
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