Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

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

Postby AML » Tue Feb 02, 2021 6:35 pm

I combine L-R with shadowing, and I have found that combination to be the most useful technique I've ever done in the beginner stages of language learning. I need L1 text + L2 text + L2 audio to accomplish this. For example, when learning a sentence I will shadowing while reading L1, shadow while reading L2, shadow while reading romanization. And I'll repeat this for the same block of sentences over a week or so, and I really understand the words and sentence much better, in both written and audio form, by the end.

I have not really done L-R in the classical sense of reading a novel, but I will eventually using my variation.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby lusan » Tue Feb 02, 2021 7:16 pm

AML wrote:I combine L-R with shadowing, and I have found that combination to be the most useful technique I've ever done in the beginner stages of language learning. I need L1 text + L2 text + L2 audio to accomplish this. For example, when learning a sentence I will shadowing while reading L1, shadow while reading L2, shadow while reading romanization. And I'll repeat this for the same block of sentences over a week or so, and I really understand the words and sentence much better, in both written and audio form, by the end.

I have not really done L-R in the classical sense of reading a novel, but I will eventually using my variation.


Interesting... I don't memorize sentences...nor words when I study... I used Anki for words... When I do Assimil I listen using a routine:
6X Listen + 9X repeat + in the following 5 days (1X repeat + 1X Loud read).. That gives 25X repeat every sentence... I ended memorizing without any other work the meaning of the sentence very well. I really very carefully work each sentence during my repetitions. It takes more than 1 hour of intense study. I guess it a form of intense listening. A lot of work that was very effective for Polish, French and, so far, Italian. I tried quite a few Polish books as L2+L1 = a real waste as far as I am concerned.

I really believe a good grammar book/method + Assimil and ready to go into the unknown vast language universe.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby leosmith » Wed Feb 03, 2021 5:11 am

Doitsujin wrote: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?

You know, everybody seems to have their own way of doing this, so I'll post the steps from the wiki the OP linked to.
wiki wrote:1. listening (for getting used to the spoken language)
2. listening while reading L1 (for learning the meaning of the spoken words)
3. listening while reading L2 (for learning to associate the spoken and written text)
4. listening while reading L2 and mimicking the speaker (for learning to pronounce the language, see Shadowing)

1. I would recommend step 1 above of course, but not 2, 3 or 4 because in my experience they are not as effective as my normal method. I do 1-5-1, and 5 covers 2, 3 and 4 imo: I read L2 out loud and hover my cursor over a word to get an instant translation or click a word to get TTS when I get stuck.
2. For step 2, another language family. 1, 3 and 4 both.
3. I think reading and listening, regardless of how they are implemented, are going to be beneficial to language learning.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby Beli Tsar » Thu Feb 04, 2021 12:12 pm

Serpent wrote:Be sure to check out Volte's LR logs on the old forum if you haven't yet. At one point, a challenge was organized where several experienced members would learn Finnish (because everyone already spoke 2-3 FIGS languages) for 6 weeks. Volte did LR in Finnish. Everyone passed A2 (conversation only, I think?).

http://www.how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=9047&PN=0&TPN=1
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21098&PN=1
smallwhite wrote:Have you seen Yuurei's experiment, complete with before- and after- Dialang tests?
Yuurei's Language Log (ZH, KO, FR, JA, ES)
Introduction
First Impressions
Second Impressions
Results & Final Impressions


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

Postby Nogon » Thu Feb 04, 2021 3:30 pm

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

Postby lusan » Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:02 pm

Nogon wrote: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.


Look into Agata Christie books read by Danuta Stenka. I loved here voice. Of course, you should be able to find translations without problems.

Another great one I found was "Rico, Oskar i zlamanie serca" by Andreas Steinhofel read by Artur Barcis. I love this one too.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Feb 04, 2021 5:20 pm

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?


My guess: probably because you have to invest a lot of hours from the get-go. I've been thinking of spending a weekend on Listening-Reading for more than a decade now. But I never find the right material, nor do I have the endurance.

Something similar: LunaMoonsilver just posted about a 24in48 Readathon. While it looks interesting - and while I'm an avid reader - I'm not sure I can devote (even the mere) 24 hours in such a short time.

An interesting thing is that it's more or less a one-time investment, but I and many others just find it impossible.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Thu Feb 04, 2021 6:17 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.
This is it in a nutshell for me. I tried with Norwegian, but putting together the right book of suitable length and the right translation and the right audio and the right voices proved impossible. I have no beloved book I've read over and over and over
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby kanewai » Thu Feb 04, 2021 8:02 pm

To me it always seemed to me that Assimil did a form of listening-reading, but the doctrinaire version requires that you need full books with 20-40 hours of new audio material.

I gave L-R "light" a shot with Candide (only 3 1/2 hours) and Mémoires d'Hadrien (closer to ten hours, but I only lasted a few chapters). It was useful, to be sure, but I didn't continue for a couple reasons:

1. It was hard to find good audio, though I think a lot more is available these days.
2. It was challenging to find parallel texts where the translation was true to the original.
2. It took me a very long time to format the parallel texts properly, though I was working with a budget computer. They've got more fire power these days.
3. I just got bored. This was really the main issue - I didn't want to read each chapter of Candide over and over and over. Eventually I just wanted to finish the dang book. I can't imagine doing it with a longer book (the audiobook for Anna Karenina isn't even 40 hours)

I saved a zip file with a bunch of French-language parallel texts, if anyone is interested:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8zg0W ... sp=sharing

The link should be shareable (if not, I'll try and fix it). These are all public-domain. People had shared texts in other languages on HTLAL, so hopefully someone saved those too.

I'll still use variations of it, though generally only for the first chapter or two of a book, enough to get a feel for the author's voice or dialect. For a novel like Patria, which is in Spanish but has characters who use a lot of Euskara (Basque) phrases, it was really helpful to get a sense of how the Euskara should sound. It was similar with Elena Ferrante's novels, where the Italian characters will use Naupolitano phrases. Eventually though, I'll just read the book and listen to the audiobook later.


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

I'd definitely recommend it, but I recommend that learners use a variety of approaches & keep the ones that work for them. For some it will work, for some they might only take a few tricks and techniques away from it. I suspect you'd need to have a basic familiarity with the overall language structure, beyond A1 at least.


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?

I tried the "classic" version with English > French, and will eventually give "L-R light" a chance with English > Greek.


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

There are so many variables that are hard to control in language learning that I'm skeptical of most studies that claim to be scientific.
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Re: Did the Listening-Reading method work for you?

Postby leosmith » Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:47 am

Beli Tsar wrote: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 don't think that's the reason. I say that because there are still many members who spend a high percentage of their time using SRS's and such. I mentioned before that there are many ways to do LR, but most people do at least one step that has them reading and listening at the same time. Unless you just ignore one of the two, such a technique is really intense. Although the activity is very different, I would say the intensity is similar to doing SRS reps. It's not for everyone.
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