A language learners’ forum

After around 300 hours of listening to Brazilian Portuguese, the texts written in this language finally have a flavor (it's not piña colada).

Ani wrote:I think FSI French Phonology is actually a very weak course. I never see anyone post that opinion so I am jumping in to say it I did it as a beginner, very very thoroughly. I hand wrote each lesson and listened to the tracks a minimum of 5x each, often quite a few times more. I actually can't believe now how much I ended up missing, either through lack of clarity of the course or omission. I am not even sure. I would very much recommend CLE's phonétique progressive du français as an alternative, and taking the time to learn IPA (which is included in the CLE course).

I agree, and I'm happy to see somebody suggest an alternative! My opinion so far has been "it's not great, but I'm not sure what's better!".

I don't have much to contribute to the topic itself; I can only agree on listening first, reading later.

I am not a learner of multiple languages like OP but my struggles stem from listening too little in the beginning of my learning.

Next language will be intensive and extensive listening 3 to 1 vs reading in the early stages. Just my opinion.

In my opinion it's a bad idea to start reading before you've mastered spelling, pronunciation and prosody because if you haven't done so you'll encounter later problems with speaking "like a native" due "subvoicing" you're using while reading. Yes, you can start reading without mastering those three things if you don't care much about "sounding like a native".

After many, many hours of learning English I started reading and listening simultaneously to improve my prosody and pronunciation and it works but it'll take much more time to master it than it would have taken if I had started to do it in the beginning of my study. Unforunately, I couldn't do so due learning the language in primary school where methods of teaching were lame.

Now I'm using the L-R method (reading in Polish and listening to the Swedish audio) for studying Swedish and when I've acquired sufficient vocabulary I'll start reading and listening simultaneously to the language. I'm definitely not going to start reading in Swedish only until I've reached a sufficient level (C1, I guess). It would ruin the effects of my prosody and pronunciation training. I'm using the Swedish frequency word list so I only have to be patient and "wait" until I will be able to use that method (L-R in a TL).

I' use Anki for vocabulary acquisition and the L-R method for "connecting" words, for building "a linguistic web". It works like a charm and I only spend one hour a day for building this web plus 1,5 hour for putting words into it and reviewing them. I don't claim that it's the best method and will work for everyone but for me it's perfect.

Voytek wrote:Now I'm using the L-R method (reading in Polish and listening in Swedish) with my study of Swedish and when I've acquired a sufficient vocabulary I'll start reading and listening simultaneously in the language. I'm definitely not going to start reading in Swedish untill I've reached a sufficient level (C1, I guess). It would ruin the effects of my prosody and pronunciation training. I'm using the Swedish frequency word list so I only have to be patient and "wait" untill I will be able to use that method (L-R in a TL).

I'm using Anki for the vocabulary acquisition and the L-R method for "connecting" words, for building "a linguistic web". It works like a charm and I only spend one hour a day for buildig this web plus 1,5 hour for putting words into it and reviewing them. I don't claim that it's the best method and will work for everyone but for me it's perfect.

I am just wondering how the L-R method has worked for you. I am a big fan of audio with text for the same reasons you point in your blogs.
Thanks.

mentecuerpo wrote:I am just wondering how the L-R method has worked for you. I am a big fan of audio with text for the same reasons you point in your blogs. Thanks.

It worked great but you have to bare in mind I used the combo Anki + the frequency list for vocabulary acquisition too. I used to read books (in Polish) and listen to the Swedish audio 10-15 minutes per day and it's brought remarkable results. In two years I've developed my listening skills to a C1+ level. Nowadays I read and listen to Swedish at the same time and at some point (probably in three months) I'm going to switch to listening to the radio only. My Spanish teacher (a Polish native speaker) told me once one should listen to the radio as much as possible to get proficient fast. She was proficient in Spanish, French and Italian. There's also that Japanese guy Teppei who got fluent in Spanish and English by listening to the radio only.

If it comes to the L-R method the only drawback is these are books so the frequency of basic conversational structures and patterns is pretty low. Therefore I understand Swedish very well but if it comes to speaking I struggle a bit.

Voytek wrote:It worked great but you have to bare in mind I used the combo Anki + the frequency list for vocabulary acquisition too. I used to read books (in Polish) and listen to the Swedish audio 10-15 minutes per day and it's brought remarkable results. In two years I've developed my listening skills to a C1+ level. Nowadays I read and listen to Swedish at the same time and at some point (probably in three months) I'm going to switch to listening to the radio only. My Spanish teacher (a Polish native speaker) told me once one should listen to the radio as much as possible to get proficient fast. She was proficient in Spanish, French and Italian. There's also that Japanese guy Teppei who got fluent in Spanish and English by listening to the radio only.

If it comes to the L-R method the only drawback is these are books so the frequency of basic conversational structures and patterns is pretty low. Therefore I understand Swedish very well but if it comes to speaking I struggle a bit.

Thank you for your reply.

All what you say make perfect sense to me.
what you say here it is something I have noticed too:

the L-R method the only drawback is these are books so the frequency of basic conversational structures and patterns is pretty low. Therefore I understand Swedish very well but if it comes to speaking I struggle a bit.

Voytek wrote:In my opinion it's a bad idea to start reading before you've mastered spelling, pronunciation and prosody because if you haven't done so you'll encounter later problems with speaking "like a native" due "subvoicing" you're using while reading. Yes, you can start reading without mastering those three things if you don't care much about "sounding like a native".

After many, many hours of learning English I started reading and listening simultaneously to improve my prosody and pronunciation and it works but it'll take much more time to master it than it would have taken if I had started to do it in the beginning of my study. Unforunately, I couldn't do so due learning the language in primary school where methods of teaching were lame.

Now I'm using the L-R method (reading in Polish and listening in Swedish) for studying Swedish and when I've acquired sufficient vocabulary I'll start reading and listening simultaneously to the language. I'm definitely not going to start reading in Swedish only until I've reached a sufficient level (C1, I guess). It would ruin the effects of my prosody and pronunciation training. I'm using the Swedish frequency word list so I only have to be patient and "wait" until I will be able to use that method (L-R in a TL).

I' use Anki for vocabulary acquisition and the L-R method for "connecting" words, for building "a linguistic web". It works like a charm and I only spend one hour a day for building this web plus 1,5 hour for putting words into it and reviewing them. I don't claim that it's the best method and will work for everyone but for me it's perfect.

The way my subvocalization sounds when I read Hebrew annoys me, so I mostly listen. I’m not noticing much changes in how my subvocalization sounds even though I’ve listened a lot. I’ve done some prosody training. For the few times I spoke I actually sounded better than my subvocalization did. How do you make subvocalization sound better?

sporedandroid wrote:The way my subvocalization sounds when I read Hebrew annoys me, so I mostly listen. I’m not noticing much changes in how my subvocalization sounds even though I’ve listened a lot. I’ve done some prosody training. For the few times I spoke I actually sounded better than my subvocalization did. How do you make subvocalization sound better?

I'm afraid it's going to stay native forever all we can do is not relying on reading much. My target in every language is to "finish it" with listening to discussion podcast. They're very fast (so the ratio words/minute is extremely high, there are many different voices and the grammar structures are more common and natural .

sporedandroid wrote:The way my subvocalization sounds when I read Hebrew annoys me, so I mostly listen. I’m not noticing much changes in how my subvocalization sounds even though I’ve listened a lot. I’ve done some prosody training. For the few times I spoke I actually sounded better than my subvocalization did. How do you make subvocalization sound better?

You can try to stop subvocalising. I've done this when reading a series that was too repetitive.

Also, this may get better when you're more comfortable with the script.