Suggestions for language book?

General discussion about learning languages

What would you like to see in an ideal language book?

Poll ended at Sun Jun 04, 2017 10:19 pm

Lots of repetition.
9
13%
Lots of exercises.
12
17%
Bilingual texts
10
14%
Lingua Latina style monolingual texts
8
11%
An interesting story
11
15%
Grammar charts
14
20%
Word lists.
7
10%
 
Total votes: 71

Descarte72
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Languages: English, German, Latin, Greek
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Suggestions for language book?

Postby Descarte72 » Fri May 05, 2017 10:19 pm

When began learning Latin I came across a book called Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. It is completely written in Latin, for absolute beginners, starting from the most basic of sentences and works up to more complicated ones by making the words obvious from the context, having pictures, or description of the meaning in Latin. It also follows along a cohesive story and repeats the words enough that you very rarely have to look them up. I discovered this then look at how I was learning before and was amazed that this isn't a more popular way of doing this.
I was able to get myself up to a very descent level in German and I'm wanting to write something similar but improving on all of Lingua Latina' weak points. For one, making a much more interesting story (I won't tell what it is yet) with a genuinely interesting plot and character development. Although I though it was cool that Lingua Latina was all in Latina I found it much more limiting and inefficient. The fact that the words either have to be repeated enough to be figured out from context makes the story unnecessarily boring or it using descriptions that get often too vague and I have to look it up anyways. I've gone more the route of having superscript numbers over the new words with corresponding translations at the bottom, then enough spaced repetition to never have to be looked up.
So my question is, are there any suggestions that you would like to have if you were using it? I have a strong aversion to 'exercises' and would like to avoid them if possible.
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Tomás
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Re: Suggestions for language book?

Postby Tomás » Sat May 06, 2017 1:02 am

What you're describing is the "natural method", and has been used by many authors. Unfortunately, few of them made an extended story, much less an interesting story, so I think you're on the right track. One common solution you find in these books is to use photos or drawings to indicate the meaning of new words.
Last edited by Tomás on Wed May 10, 2017 9:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Systematiker
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Re: Suggestions for language book?

Postby Systematiker » Sat May 06, 2017 1:36 am

Actually wrap up the story.

Years later and I still wish I knew how those two runaway slaves from LLPSI turned out.
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jeff_lindqvist
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Re: Suggestions for language book?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun May 07, 2017 4:48 pm

All of the above (excercises are fine, but possibly not as necessary depending on the the rest of the book). If monolingual texts are intuitive enough, and the grammar concepts are cystal clear, there may be no need for charts, vocabulary lists or even bilingual texts.
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