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 » Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:04 pm

zenmonkey wrote:I've been thinking about this exact issue - SOV - caveman or Tarzan speak - and L-R or Shadowing and how the word order makes these methods less effective or a bigger and unnecessary mental exercise.


Yes, that's what basically happened to me when I tried to use the original L-R method (I cause it the "original" because earlier in this thread I wrote that the method worked for me while in reality what I practiced is more or less the extension of the Assimil method). I picked up Kafka's Castle and it worked fine for short sentences and dialogues. But I simply couldn't follow the narrative and connect the dots on the fly with longer sentences because the world order difference in German and Russian.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Tue May 10, 2022 4:36 pm

I picked up Kafka's Castle and it worked fine for short sentences and dialogues. But I simply couldn't follow the narrative and connect the dots on the fly with longer sentences because the world order difference in German and Russian.


I would give it a shot again but this time with my native language translation Urdu. To my surprise, German kind of follows the same logic as Urdu does while formulating sentences. In 7 out of 10 sentences most of the words are placed in the same position as in Urdu. Also, in my native language, I not only acquired words through passive immersion but also through personal experiences. Therefore, I can relate German words with those of Urdu ones on a deeper level - paying away for better retention of German words.
I only did it with a short text so I am going to do it with one of Kafkas novels just to see if there is an improvement in the retention of words and the overall understanding of the novel through listening. However, I will use Urdu translation rather than English translation because word order in both German and Urdu follows pretty much the same order. It was a revelation a couple of days ago.

Let's see how it goes.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Tue May 10, 2022 5:00 pm

Its definitely worked for me with languages using different word order, just sometimes you need more of a foundation or to start with easier works to handle text and audio not corresponding as closely.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby german2k01 » Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:27 am

I have a query. I do not know if it was already answered by the inventor of the L-R method.

Since she used long novels and corresponding audiobooks how did she overcome gaps in her listening ability for understanding spontaneous unscripted conversations of native speakers who did not speak as clearly as an audiobook narrator?
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby RyanSmallwood » Sat Nov 12, 2022 2:17 pm

Well, unless there's additional stuff in the Polish notes, I'm not sure the author ever said they did or how. But regardless, I don't see why this would be something you'd need to specifically go to the Listening-Reading method for, which is just meant for internalizing a good chunk of the language.

Presumably you'd do it the same way everyone else does, by listening to more unscripted content both intensively and extensively, having more unscripted conversations, if need be find a native speaker who will let you record a conversation with so you can also study it later.

If you wanted to only use the Listening-Reading method, you'd want to find unscripted recordings with transcripts, IPA transcripts if possible, or pay someone to help generate them for you. But if you're at the point you can understand audiobooks, you can probably get by just by more kinds of listening activities.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Le Baron » Sat Nov 12, 2022 9:24 pm

RyanSmallwood wrote:Well, unless there's additional stuff in the Polish notes, I'm not sure the author ever said they did or how. But regardless, I don't see why this would be something you'd need to specifically go to the Listening-Reading method for, which is just meant for internalizing a good chunk of the language.

Quite so and this is where I was going awry previously when considering employing this for Spanish intended to become quickly active. It wasn't what I needed for Spanish because I have different opportunities, the chance to speak to Spanish speakers and access to places like Instituto Cervantes.

I think now that were I to be learning a different kind of language in a different way and perhaps even for a different purpose (e.g. reading and listening to old Greek), listening-reading would be much more suitable as a part of this for me. You have to choose the right tool for the job.
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