Coldrainwater's Log

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coldrainwater
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:43 pm

I finished two more LR books by Jules Verne. Verne was blessed with a reasonably long life and I get the impression from reading his wiki write-up that his reality was an interesting world that rivalled many of the stories he told.

Das Karpathenschloss was the first and most challenging for me. It felt like it took about 25% of the book for me to get used to the style. For those that want to read the storyline: Das Karpatenschloss - de.wikipedia (mit Handlung). A common thread I get from all Verne novels is that they tend to be positive reads that are more entertainment-oriented with a mix of elements tailored toward a strong interest in science + mystery/crime and a natural sense of adventure, stemming from many of his own life experiences.

The second book I finished was In 80 Tagen um die Welt. Of the three tales I have read recently, this was by far the most interesting and I felt like I made the right decision by reading more from Verne rather than abandoning the effort after a first shaky experience. An 80 day bet on circumnavigating the world using various transport means is a great theme. In some respects, I would have preferred to travel in Verne's day. Every time I have slowed my own personal travel and added more effort, I notice more and get more from the venture as a whole. In my experience, hiking travel trumps bike travel trumps car travel etc. since I experience so much more by slowing down. In contrast, being spit out of a cramped plane terminal with 1-2 days of jetlag to look forward to isn't my favourite way to get across the world.

For language learning purposes, across at least a few novels, Verne seems to be a pretty decent overall pick if you want a bit of extra challenge in the middle stages of learning a language and are okay with some pre/early sci-fi, adventure and light crime/mystery.
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german2k01
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby german2k01 » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:36 am

Since literary language is quite different from spoken language thus how do you tackle it if you are not living in your target language country?
Do you follow any systematic approach for it? Watching a lot of TV shows unassisted or studying subtitles separately then watching shows again?
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:53 pm

german2k01 wrote:Since literary language is quite different from spoken language thus how do you tackle it if you are not living in your target language country?

In a sense, German is the first language I have studied without direct immersion. My overall evaluation is that it has been quite a bit tougher learning without direct immersion and the net result may be less satisfying. I am unclear if I will devote enough practice to speaking or writing to achieve fluency in those two areas any time soon.

In contrast, living in Houston, I technically had access to willing and highly motivated Spanish language partners nearly every day while I studied Spanish, so I did not need to make any special accommodations. It was very close to full immersion, but without the stress of it being compulsory. With that higher overall language level, I could also use the full extent of my literary knowledge in speech, provided that I took into account with whom I spoke. Imagine even being able to activate 19th-century Spanish lit and use it in daily speech while being fully understood. That is what happened to me. It was much more of a boon to have and actively use precise vocabulary and careful literary articulation than it was a detriment (knowing and using the boundary between worlds was great and opportunities more or less fell in my lap).

With German, the process of learning to read is taking much longer, and it is that extra effort and time invested that ultimately slows the process of learning to speak/write/listen (that and a 40-60 hour career mostly in English). I am an example of what not to do in terms of learning to write and speak in the sense that I have completely deferred the task without having a plan to address it later on. For the record, if learning to read did not take so long or if it was not a top priority for me, I would have traversed a more balanced path.

german2k01 wrote:Do you follow any systematic approach for it? Watching a lot of TV shows unassisted or studying subtitles separately then watching shows again?

For Spanish, I took the advice given to me on the forum and worked my way through at least one long native TV series (100 hours+). iguanamon has one or more excellent entries on how to listen intensively and/or work your way through something like that. I did a variant on the theme and ended up tackling several TV series to make sure I extracted the colloquial listening benefit. It was the right move and I would have done it whether or not I was otherwise immersed. That type of experience trumps physical location as I see it. Bear in mind that my approach was audiobooks + podcasts + tv (and I used TV to a much lesser extent overall).

My wants differ with respect to German however and I need not follow the same route. I plan to use German as an academic and learning language in addition to a literary/reading language, so my listening experience and with it and the content I choose should be reflective of that differing intent.

As a separate note, in case you missed it, Patrick's excellent logs have been mentioned before recently on the forum and he handled a similar need immersed living in Berlin. His near forty-page HTLAL language log is one of the best and most useful German language logs I have ever read. Patrick chose movies and if I recall, in addition to reading books, he watched way over 1000 movies and ended up with very strong colloquial listening skills.
Last edited by coldrainwater on Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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german2k01
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby german2k01 » Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:16 pm

Thanks for your informative post. Really appreciate it. I can vouch for the fact that TV series are very closer to the real thing in terms of speed and informal language used by native speakers. Living in Germany has simply confirmed that belief. The number of collocations and informal words I have picked up through watching TV series is also used by native Germans. Thus, it is very much possible to close that gap without actually landing in Germany.

Yesterday I purchased the audiobook of "Der Name Der Rose" which I will go through very soon. The audiobook which is available on Youtube recorded in speech-to-text voice, unfortunately. Thanks for your recommendation, though.

Right now I am engaged with "The Idiot" by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Looking forward to reading your future updates.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Sun Oct 24, 2021 8:37 pm

Der Steppenwolf

I had a good experience reading Der Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. I did it via LR with narration by Peter Wapnewski. He added quite a bit to the language learning experience with excellent timing, intonation and voice-to-character fit. I don't know if I have ever heard an adult capture high-brow tantrums so well, poking fun at historical characters, at society, and at himself with plenty of introspection. The reading was about seven hours worth and expressed varying degrees of tension quite well. My overall impression is that it was a very intense experience and you are not given long to breathe. Minute for minute, the prose definitely felt denser and richer than the average text, but the vocabulary was overall very approachable. I had to work harder than usual, but was able to follow along with it well since the storyline is highly introspective with a coherent theme and a plot that is not excessively complex.

Frankenstein
More or less simultaneously, I listened to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It was written under abnormal circumstances stemming from the Jahr ohne Sommer. That certainly gives plenty of time and opportunity to write.

Mary Godwin begann den Roman in der Villa Diodati in der Nähe des Genfersees..Dieses Jahr ging aufgrund des Ausbruchs des Vulkans Tambora im Jahr zuvor als das Jahr ohne Sommer in die Geschichte ein. Aufgrund des extrem schlechten Wetters konnten die Anwesenden das Haus oft nicht verlassen. So beschlossen sie, jeweils eine Schauergeschichte zu schreiben und den anderen vorzutragen.

A monster can subsist off acorns and berries (Frankenstein's creation) as easily as it can from the blood of humans (Dracula). I didn't have any trouble understanding this one by listening only, so I think would be a good approachable option for an audiobook.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby german2k01 » Mon Oct 25, 2021 7:17 pm

I had a good experience reading Der Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. I did it via LR with narration by Peter Wapnewski.


I wonder if you are reading/following along a text at someone else's pace, don't you think your overall comprehension drops significantly?
Or do you simply read the book again without using audio as a crutch? Sure, with L-R you can finish the book within the assigned time( duration of the audiobook)but how much did you acquire/understand the language? (Is it simple L-R or that famous L-R as a whole system?)
Whether you are reading a bilingual text or watching a movie with subtitles or doing L-R, any extra medium in between really prevents my subconscious mind from being immersed into the language? That's been my impression of using these tools/language learning strategies.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Mon Oct 25, 2021 9:11 pm

german2k01 wrote:I wonder if you are reading/following along a text at someone else's pace, don't you think your overall comprehension drops significantly?
Or do you simply read the book again without using audio as a crutch? Sure, with L-R you can finish the book within the assigned time( duration of the audiobook)but how much did you acquire/understand the language? (Is it simple L-R or that famous L-R as a whole system?)
Whether you are reading a bilingual text or watching a movie with subtitles or doing L-R, any extra medium in between really prevents my subconscious mind from being immersed into the language? That's been my impression of using these tools/language learning strategies.


Comprehension likely takes a slight hit compared to reading the book outright, but it has a net impact that has to consider factors driving in both directions. Factors such as voice intonation, emotion, and overall storytelling ability of the narrator tend to add to rather than subtract from comprehension. Compared to my subvocalization, the audiobooks offer quite a rich experience. Very often I tend to see words spelled out in my head as I listen, so L2->L2 LR feels like a natural extension of something I would do anyway. This has happened to me in both languages that I have studied and routinely (sometimes predominantly) occurs in my native English.

In addition, when reading, it is possible to bog yourself down by going too slow and missing the sentence for the word. The narrator pace of an audiobook helps to prevent that, making the overall experience more extensive. Highly complimentary as I see it. My natural tendency is to read slowly and intensively and to pick hard material, so LR provides a very nice counterbalance. In retrospect, it seems to have worked decently as a primer against more intensive reading that I now plan to undertake. Misses do occur on account of the fast pace of narration and I have handled those by stopping the audio and either relistening, rereading or even translating as the case warrants. Those are small snippets rather than long sections, so a re-read of the entire book isn't necessary.

Keep in mind that I select material for LR that is at or below what I would be technically capable of reading, so raw comprehension wasn't the main aim. Even if there is a slight hit to comprehension, from the get-go, I knew I could absorb it. I am using the LR to map word-to-sound (working quite well), and to secondarily improve reading fluency (working also albeit slowly). Both of those goals differ quite a bit from trying to decipher passages that I simply don't comprehend.

For the latter goal, I initially chose reading books via parallel text to boost comprehension and am now interested in moving to direct reading to capture the many benefits available from monolingual texts and to build greater comprehension overall. Time for thinking and reflecting at my own pace is a huge benefit to reading and is mostly absent from LR (there is time to analyze a bit of structure and read ahead, but you can't dawdle and have to be pretty quick about noticing things). I can also skip ahead and won't be surprised by the verb once it surfaces on the far end of the sentence while reading. In an overall analysis, I plan to use several techniques and take benefit from all of them while learning to read, but the LR aspect has been one of the most efficient that I have tried given the goals I set out to accomplish. What comprehension is lost is made up for in spades considering the greater exposure and abilities that it has helped to unlock for me. Objectively speaking it might even be one of the most efficient things I could do going forward. Practically, I prefer alternating techniques every so often.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby german2k01 » Tue Oct 26, 2021 10:00 am

Keep in mind that I select material for LR that is at or below what I would be technically capable of reading, so raw comprehension wasn't the main aim. Even if there is a slight hit to comprehension, from the get-go, I knew I could absorb it. I am using the LR to map word-to-sound (working quite well), and to secondarily improve reading fluency (working also albeit slowly). Both of those goals differ quite a bit from trying to decipher passages that I simply don't comprehend.



Agreed. The L-R has its own share of benefits than outright reading as it negates the effects of subvocalization and you get to hear the native pronunciation. As a counter-question, do you have any "specific number" in your mind to do "L-R" in order to develop "reading fluency"?
Or you will be doing it "auf ewig" as long as your "gut feeling" is satisfied or there is a threshold level that once you reach it - you will make a transition into reading monolingual texts exclusively. Your thoughts, please.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby coldrainwater » Tue Oct 26, 2021 3:27 pm

german2k01 wrote:Agreed. The L-R has its own share of benefits than outright reading as it negates the effects of subvocalization and you get to hear the native pronunciation. As a counter-question, do you have any "specific number" in your mind to do "L-R" in order to develop "reading fluency"?
Or you will be doing it "auf ewig" as long as your "gut feeling" is satisfied or there is a threshold level that once you reach it - you will make a transition into reading monolingual texts exclusively. Your thoughts, please.

For practical reasons, I am ready to transition to monolingual texts now even though it will be rough going at first. The turning point has more to do with now being able to listen to moderate audiobooks without needing the text (the main driver) than with reading fluency (I can also increase that via plain reading that I will do naturally). That in turn is more about bringing up my overall listening ability to the benefit of the entire language than anything more precise.

One of several reasons that I would not have a specific number with LR for reading fluency is that from what I can tell, that well won't run dry for a long time. I haven't hit a sense of diminishing returns and I see multiple use cases for LR at more advanced stages of learning making it a useful part of my repertoire for a long time. For example, the extra attention that LR requires is a nice way to prevent diversion and increase the benefit I get from audio. TV has the advantage of transfixing you with its visual appeal while following the text via LR has a similar impact on audiobooks for me. I get more out of the audio when I am willing to employ LR even after I develop the capacity to listen without the text due to that extra attention.

LR also seems like a good idea for easing into some works of literature since paying closer attention to the first part of an audiobook sets the stage for later enjoyment. It is also a good way to consume ultra-long books that are not overly dense in content, but that have useful diction and prose for language development. There are quite a few books that fit that category as authors are often long-winded and I want to make sure that I spend an appropriate amount of time-consuming them (not giving more or less than they deserve).

I find that LR is tailored well to certain types of books (literature, fiction for entertainment/self-help, light to moderate factbooks) and there is a negotiation between what I happen to find available as a perfectly matched audiobook and what I might otherwise choose to read. However, there seems to be a major cap preventing more difficult material from being presented in audiobook form. The way I see it, that comes down to needing much more support than just audio or just books to learn harder academic subjects (need lectures, visual props/diagrams, for sure text etc).

One of the reasons for transitioning to monolingual reading now is that I would like to control and select what I read without needing to play a matching game. Additional reading fluency will ease the burden, but it isn't going to save the day given what I intend to tackle. Harder subjects are still going to be hard, no matter how much 'easy entertainment' I manage to consume, so I might as well get busy learning. As a lead-in, I want to spend some time with Wikipedia (doing that now), getting an overview of different disciplines, so that I can choose how to pursue the part of my education that happens in German on my own terms.

If anything goes afoul and I need to prioritize more LR than I end up consuming naturally in the coming months, it is extremely easy to invoke. The habit is built, several hundred hours under the belt and plenty of audiobooks loaded anytime I want. I could put the technique on autopilot and if that is what ends up needing to happen, then I will be happy to make progress that way.
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Re: Coldrainwater's German Log

Postby german2k01 » Wed Oct 27, 2021 8:18 am

Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson - read as parallel text, DE/ES. In total, about 3300 pages read at 300 words per page.

Der Weg der Könige
Der Pfad Der Winde
Die Worte des Lichts
Die Stürme des Zorns
Die Tänzerin am Abgrund
Der Ruf der Klingen
Der Splitter Der Macht


Did you use a translation tool? How did you go about it? Typically, how many hours did you spend finishing one book reading in this way? Thanks.
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