Montmorency wrote:PeterMollenburg wrote:I completed my first novel length non-novel (it was non-fiction) last year only reading out loud. And in practise this is something I always attempt to do unless i'm in a public place. Now that I have dropped all use of SRS and dictionary dependence in terms of my extensive reading (not the same for intensive, but different materials used then anyway) the only time i refer to a monolingual French dictionary is to verify the occasional phonetics of a word. I don't look at the meaning, only the phonetics. More often than not these are words of foreign origin and usually English. Despite English being my mother tongue, I can't assume and for good reason that my English pronunciation of a French word borrowed from English will be said in an English way. Nor for that matter can I assume it will pronounced in a predictable French way. All in all pronunciation is very important to me. If i'm to learn the language (a big part of that for me is speaking and being able to pronounce words) in part from extensive reading then I must know how to pronounce them. Speaking out loud is a big part of this. I can't tell you if it helps because to be quite honest it's all I do when I read at home (95% of the time) so I have no real comparison.
Interesting, Peter.
Do you think (although you don't have much silent reading to compare it with) that reading aloud slowed you down a great deal, compared to the time it might have taken you reading the same material silently?
It appears I missed this question from a year and a half ago. I'll answer now. Yeah I do believe it has slowed me down, as nowadays on the odd occasion when I read silently, it's noticeably quicker, but not lightning speed quicker. That could depend on how (quickly) one reads in their L1 perhaps. I believe I'm considerably slower in my L1 than most (not snail pace slow, but avid readers would double or tripple my speed I believe).
I don't think I would've liked setting out with silent reading from the outset. I feel it's very important (for me) to read out loud a lot, as it trains my pronunciation, intonation and listening skills.
, nut nevertheless, I notice that my muscles adapt to foreign sounds.