Reading 3.000.000 words in German

[Lawyer&Mom]

I agree, I don’t see the point of graded readers for a reasonably transparent language, but I have a high tolerance for ambiguity and a low tolerance for graded readers. I started reading French books after finishing Assimil. The first few were slow and painful but it got much easier pretty quickly...

I’m very curious how your scores will change after 1M words!

[Cenwalh]

I love this! And you are plowing through the pages! I can read maybe 300 pages of German in a good week, so I’m very impressed! What is your German background? How much have you read before starting this project? Where are you getting your books? Have you noticed any improvement yet? (A couple thousand pages can make a huge difference, or not much at all, depending on where you are starting from!)

Thanks for your interest. I started self-studying German about 10 years ago as a hobby, but then I stopped and switched to Chinese when I went to China to work. My German has been neglected ever since.

Before starting this project, I'd read a total of 2-3 books in addition to random stuff online. Forum posts, video subtitles, Der Spiegel articles, and whatnot. Nothing as difficult as what I've been reading recently.

As for results, I've noticed quite a difference. In December, before the log began, I was spending about 6-8 minutes to read a single page of Crime and Punishment. Really rough. Maybe not the best book to start with. But by the end of Crime and Punishment, it took 2-3 minutes/p with even better comprehension. (The L-R method thread starter was right about idiolects.) This initial progress was highly motivating.

2 or 3 minutes per page puts you at about 6 hours of reading per day with your 1,000 pages per week current rate. Are you really spending that long on it or have you had another big increase in speed?

Either way it's very impressive and I'm interested to see the results!

[slowmoon]

2 or 3 minutes per page puts you at about 6 hours of reading per day with your 1,000 pages per week current rate. Are you really spending that long on it or have you had another big increase in speed?

Either way it's very impressive and I'm interested to see the results!

It was 2-3 mins per page at the end of Crime and Punishment. When I switched over to Animorphs and Harry Potter, it was more like 1 minute per page. Stuff like the Nimoy autobiography fell somewhere in between. But yes, it's many hours a day either way. I'm unemployed, so it's doable.

I'm also curious about the results. As far as I know, this has never been done on this scale. The studies I've seen on vocabulary acquisition through reading (e.g. Clockwork Orange nonsense-word studies) were done with one novel worth of input at most. Usually much less. I offer myself as a case study.

[lusan]

Sign me on. I wonder if you are really enjoying the extensive reading experience with 90 % rate. I have more than 98 % rate in French and I hate missing anything. I feel that even 95 % is painful. I will be following you.

[tungemål]

Thanks for the tip, I think I will read "Der Hungerkünstler", seems interesting. Did you like it? Allthough I read about 1 million times slower than you.

[slowmoon]

Thanks for the tip, I think I will read "Der Hungerkünstler", seems interesting. Did you like it? Allthough I read about 1 million times slower than you.

Yeah, it's a fascinating story. The main character is the last of his kind, and he's totally dedicated to his bizarre profession. It's amazing that these people actually existed in real life and attracted big audiences all over Europe. It was nice to read some high-quality, original, non-Anglicized German. I want to get back to that kind of literature when my reading is stronger.

[slowmoon]

1.000.000 Words Read Update

Second Leipzig Test Result: 118/150 correct
Dialang Reading Test Result: B1

Ihr Testergebnis zeigt, dass Sie sich im Leseverstehen auf Stufe B1 der Skala des Europarats befinden. Auf dieser Stufe kann man Texte verstehen, welche alltägliche oder berufsbezogene Sprache beinhalten. Man kann persönliche Briefe verstehen, in welchen der Verfasser Ereignisse, Gefühle oder Wünsche beschreibt.

Notes:

1. Both tests indicate that my reading level is around B1. This seems about right.
2. 108/150 -> 118/150 was not much of an improvement. Maybe not significant at all.
3. Maybe I would've made more progress with graded readers and deliberate study with flashcards, but I just don't want to do that.
4. It seems unlikely that I will reach nine thousand word families by reading two million more words, but perhaps B2 is possible.
5. We continue.

[DaveAgain]

Onward!

[DaveAgain]

Onward!

[tungemål]

Interesting result. Statistically you learned 333 new words (of the 5000). But of course you would've learned a lot more from all that reading. How many words would you say you looked up, approximately?