Ben tries to read German books

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BenTriesToRead
White Belt
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Sun Jan 16, 2022 6:24 pm

Aloyse wrote:Could you do paragraphs please?
It's a little difficult to read a wall of text.


Das kann Ich.

Thanks for the feedback. I've edited my post. I should probably edit and revise my writing more than I do. I think I'm overly eager to post my updates and get them out of the way so that I don't forget to do so or so I don't procrastinate and as a result I don't take the time to revise.
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BenTriesToRead
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Thu Jan 27, 2022 8:33 pm

I finished reading Spy: Highspeed London by Arno Strobel. This book felt noticeably more difficult despite me knowing approximately the same number of words as the previous books I've read. I suspect this is because it was written by a German native speaker instead of being translated. I've also decided that I'll try and track the amount of conversation and listening practice that I do. I'm not going to religiously track my listening but I will total up the number of hours that I listen to podcasts. I've also totaled up the number of pages I've read and included my usual anki stats.

I ended up taking two online vocabulary tests that gave me estimates of 5736 and 7700 words known. I personally feel that these are both overestimates and are likely the result of me making educated guesses. I also estimated my reading speed at just under 80 words per minute. This is a much lower than the average speed I've seen quoted in various papers but it may be lower because I'm not targeting reading material with 98% lexical coverage. I'll measure it again in the future to see if it improves.

I've also managed to find two different list of German science fiction award winning novels. Science fiction is my favorite genre so I'm going to try and make my way through a few of the books on these lists starting with the ones made both lists the year they won. I've started on "Das Schiff" and I'm enjoying it so far.

If anyone is interested here are links to the award lists I found as well as the science fiction forum I've been browsing and the vocabulary tests I took.

Award lists:
https://www.literaturpreisgewinner.de/s ... tion-preis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutscher ... tion_Preis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurd_La%C3%9Fwitz_Award

Sci fi forum:
https://www.scifi-forum.de/forum/off-to ... cher-forum

Vocab tests:
https://www.arealme.com/german-vocabulary-size-test/en/
https://wortschatz.tk/

Total conversation hours: 5 hours
Total tracked listening hours: 4 hours
Total pages read: 3595

Lexical coverage for Spy: Highspeed London

Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%
Sample 1 | 19 | 244 | 92.21%
Sample 2 | 18 | 224 | 91.96%
Sample 3 | 10 | 217 | 95.39%
Sample 4 | 16 | 247 | 93.52%
Sample 5 | 20 | 229 | 91.27%
Sample 6 | 16 | 209 | 92.34%
Sample 7 | 18 | 227 | 92.07%
Sample 8 | 8 | 187 | 95.72%
Sample 9 | 11 | 215 | 94.88%
Sample 10 | 13 | 226 | 94.25%
Total | 149 | 2225 | 93.3%

Anki Stats:
New: 184
Due: 429
Learning: 13
Relearning: 21
Young: 197
Mature: 1272
Total: 1664
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BenTriesToRead
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Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Thu Feb 10, 2022 3:14 pm

On the 9th I finished reading "Das Schiff" which is the first non translated book for adults that I've read. It didn't feel particularly more challenging than the previous books I've read but certain scenes and chapters contained a deluge of new vocabulary especially when they were describing a character's consciousness being transferred into machines on alien worlds.

Here are the updated stats for the remainder of the stuff that I'm tracking. I'm also trying to make a deliberate attempt to get more output practice beyond just italki conversations and I'm dedicating a bit of time to practicing declensions.

Stats:

Total conversation hours: 6 hours
Total tracked listening hours: 18.85 hours
Total pages read: 4139

Lexical coverage for Das Schiff
Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%

Sample 1 | 14 | 215 | 93.49%
Sample 2 | 26 | 209 | 87.56%
Sample 3 | 21 | 205 | 89.76%
Sample 4 | 17 | 240 | 92.92%
Sample 5 | 12 | 217 | 94.47%
Sample 6 | 15 | 243 | 93.83%
Sample 7 | 8 | 185 | 95.68%
Sample 8 | 4 | 197 | 97.97%
Sample 9 | 17 | 188 | 90.96%
Sample 10 | 9 | 208 | 95.67%
Total | 143 | 2107 | 93.21%

Anki Stats:
New: 89
Due: 495
Learning: 4
Relearning: 14
Young: 283
Mature: 1274
Total: 1664
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lichtrausch
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Languages: English (N), German, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Feb 10, 2022 6:26 pm

BenTriesToRead wrote:On the 9th I finished reading "Das Schiff" which is the first non translated book for adults that I've read. It didn't feel particularly more challenging than the previous books I've read but certain scenes and chapters contained a deluge of new vocabulary especially when they were describing a character's consciousness being transferred into machines on alien worlds.

I thought Das Schiff was decent, and certainly better than Die Haarteppichknüpfer which often gets mentioned in discussions about German SF.
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BenTriesToRead
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Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Thu Feb 10, 2022 7:49 pm

lichtrausch wrote:
BenTriesToRead wrote:On the 9th I finished reading "Das Schiff" which is the first non translated book for adults that I've read. It didn't feel particularly more challenging than the previous books I've read but certain scenes and chapters contained a deluge of new vocabulary especially when they were describing a character's consciousness being transferred into machines on alien worlds.

I thought Das Schiff was decent, and certainly better than Die Haarteppichknüpfer which often gets mentioned in discussions about German SF.


It wasn't bad but it felt like the first half of the book could have been condensed. There are so many flashbacks to his relationship with his family and with Rebecca that didn't feel like they really payed off. The book beats you over the head with the biblical allegory when it really didn't need to and the ending felt extremely cliche. While the cluster may have been concerned with the unknown ship for the duration of the story I don't feel like that it feels like an urgent threat to the reader until about two thirds through the book.

It felt like it was trying to start out as a sort of mystery followed by a threat from within and then a final external existential threat and while I think it tied together nicely I don't feel like I enjoyed the earlier parts as much until all the pieces fell into place towards the end.
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BenTriesToRead
White Belt
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Mon Feb 21, 2022 4:39 am

I finished reading Percy Jackson: Die letzte Göttin.

Stats:
Total conversation hours: 7 hours
Total tracked listening hours: 26.76 hours
Total pages read: 4383

Lexical coverage for Percy Jackson: Die letzte Göttin
Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%
Sample 1 | 9 | 247 | 96.36%
Sample 2 | 18 | 282 | 93.62%
Sample 3 | 17 | 273 | 93.77%
Sample 4 | 20 | 252 | 92.06%
Sample 5 | 16 | 265 | 93.96%
Sample 6 | 15 | 254 | 94.09%
Sample 7 | 15 | 277 | 94.58%
Sample 8 | 11 | 240 | 95.42%
Sample 9 | 10 | 266 | 96.24%
Sample 10 | 13 | 247 | 94.74%
Total | 144 | 2603 | 94.47%

Anki Stats:
New: 36
Due: 329
Learning: 4
Relearning: 16
Young: 255
Mature: 1353
Total: 1664
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Lisa
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Posts: 309
Joined: Tue Jul 30, 2019 8:08 pm
Location: Oregon, United States
Languages: English (N), German (intermediate) Idle: French (beginner) Esperanto (beginner) Spanish (was intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=10854
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby Lisa » Tue Mar 15, 2022 8:44 pm

I tried that german vocabulary tester - it gave me a score of 19,744, "the level of a white collar professional"! This is clearly not reflecting my actual language skills, by any means, since I still can't read without finding multiple unknown words per page... my anki is about 5400 and a lot of them I get wrong. Still... being able to guess at a meaning is perhaps also a useful skill.
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BenTriesToRead
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Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Sat May 28, 2022 3:52 pm

Hi again,

I haven't been keeping up with posting here but I also haven't stopped reading during that time. Rather than write a novel of a post I'll just list the stats I collected for the books I've read since I last posted. I did do an experiement where I attempted to increase my reading speed which I'll detail in a follow up post.

On 3/2/22 I finished Warhammer Adventures: Die Geheimnisse der Tau

Lexical coverage for Warhammer Adventures: Die Geheimnisse der Tau
Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%

Sample 1 | 11 | 249 | 95.58%
Sample 2 | 15 | 263 | 94.3%
Sample 3 | 17 | 278 | 93.88%
Sample 4 | 18 | 242 | 92.56%
Sample 5 | 23 | 285 | 91.93%
Sample 6 | 25 | 234 | 89.32%
Sample 7 | 13 | 269 | 95.17%
Sample 8 | 21 | 277 | 92.42%
Sample 9 | 21 | 279 | 92.47%
Sample 10 | 22 | 217 | 89.86%
Total | 186 | 2593 | 92.83%

On 5/2/22 I finished Sandsturm by James Rollins

Lexical coverage for Sandsturm
Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%

Sample 1 | 24 | 248 | 90.32%
Sample 2 | 16 | 269 | 94.05%
Sample 3 | 30 | 256 | 88.28%
Sample 4 | 19 | 247 | 92.31%
Sample 5 | 19 | 263 | 92.78%
Sample 6 | 20 | 223 | 91.03%
Sample 7 | 14 | 226 | 93.81%
Sample 8 | 23 | 252 | 90.87%
Sample 9 | 9 | 252 | 96.43%
Sample 10 | 10 | 243 | 95.88%
Total | 184 | 2479 | 92.58%

On 5/14/22 I finished Mord auf dem Golfplatz

Lexical coverage for Mord auf dem Golfplatz
Sample #| Unknown Words | Total Words | Estimated Known Vocabulary%

Sample 1 | 18 | 254 | 92.91%
Sample 2 | 21 | 236 | 91.1%
Sample 3 | 19 | 236 | 91.95%
Sample 4 | 15 | 239 | 93.72%
Sample 5 | 9 | 227 | 96.04%
Sample 6 | 7 | 259 | 97.3%
Sample 7 | 15 | 232 | 93.53%
Sample 8 | 13 | 272 | 95.22%
Sample 9 | 21 | 269 | 92.19%
Sample 10 | 11 | 256 | 95.7%
Total | 149 | 2480 | 93.99%
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BenTriesToRead
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Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Thu Jul 14, 2022 10:31 pm

Hi again,

I've read several more books but I've neglected to post an update. I had resolved to post updates to this thread in German which would serve as a kind of log of my writing progress. I wrote several updates and got corrections on some of them. I've been wavering over if I should post the corrected or uncorrected updates. I'm currently leaning towards posting the uncorrected updates as they should better represent my writing ability. I'll make an effort to post them sometime soon.

Not much else has changed with regards to my approach to language learning. I have been experimenting with making sentence cards both with and without audio in anki. I find that my retention rate for these cards is higher than my single word cards. I'm sure that the context helps with remembering the meaning. This probably forms a weaker connection than learning the word on it's own and I may not be as likely to recall the meaning out of context but I also don't expect anki to be the end all be all of learning a word. It should merely be the introduction to it's meaning. Reading, listening and eventually production should hopefully carry me the rest of the way.

Out of curiosity I ended up taking the Dialang listening test which placed me at a B1 listening level which is a result I'm content with. There was also a marked improvement in my placement result. It increased from 425 the last time I took the placement in September to 627. I plan on retaking the reading test but I want to read a couple thousand more pages before that point. I've also tallied up more listening hours. I've tracked some of them but I try not to let tracking get in the way of listening or watching what I want to when I want to.

With all of that out of the way here are the stats for the books I read plus my current anki stats and listening hours.

Tintenherz
Sample 1 | 21 | 290 | 92.76%
Sample 2 | 15 | 278 | 94.6%
Sample 3 | 16 | 296 | 94.59%
Sample 4 | 14 | 291 | 95.19%
Sample 5 | 17 | 272 | 93.75%
Sample 6 | 25 | 275 | 90.91%
Sample 7 | 21 | 314 | 93.31%
Sample 8 | 15 | 256 | 94.14%
Sample 9 | 19 | 300 | 93.67%
Sample 10 | 18 | 302 | 94.04%
Total | 181 | 2874 | 93.7%

Walpar Tonraffir und der Zeigefinger Gottes
This book had noticeably richer vocabulary than what I'm used to reading and I struggled to follow it at times but I still enjoyed it. I'll probably revisit it in the future or at least read the sequel.

Sample 1 | 19 | 299 | 93.65%
Sample 2 | 37 | 223 | 83.41%
Sample 3 | 16 | 265 | 93.96%
Sample 4 | 20 | 242 | 91.74%
Sample 5 | 33 | 302 | 89.07%
Sample 6 | 35 | 291 | 87.97%
Sample 7 | 25 | 258 | 90.31%
Sample 8 | 33 | 296 | 88.85%
Sample 9 | 23 | 282 | 91.84%
Sample 10 | 18 | 260 | 93.08%
Total | 259 | 2718 | 90.47%

Warhammer Adventures: Der Planet der Orks
Sample 1 | 18 | 239 | 92.47%
Sample 2 | 20 | 239 | 91.63%
Sample 3 | 6 | 225 | 97.33%
Sample 4 | 21 | 264 | 92.05%
Sample 5 | 30 | 247 | 87.85%
Sample 6 | 17 | 211 | 91.94%
Sample 7 | 15 | 203 | 92.61%
Sample 8 | 19 | 230 | 91.74%
Sample 9 | 10 | 224 | 95.54%
Sample 10 | 15 | 230 | 93.48%
Total | 171 | 2312 | 92.6%

Miss Merkel: Mord in der Uckermark
Sample 1 | 12 | 229 | 94.76%
Sample 2 | 16 | 216 | 92.59%
Sample 3 | 7 | 187 | 96.26%
Sample 4 | 16 | 223 | 92.83%
Sample 5 | 20 | 223 | 91.03%
Sample 6 | 10 | 224 | 95.54%
Sample 7 | 15 | 270 | 94.44%
Sample 8 | 20 | 187 | 89.3%
Sample 9 | 13 | 216 | 93.98%
Sample 10 | 13 | 217 | 94.01%
Total | 142 | 2192 | 93.52%

Anki:
New: 5
Due: 125
Learning: 0
Relearning: 19
Young: 168
Mature: 1715
Total Cards: 1907
Estimated Words: 1074

Listening:
Total tracked hours: 49
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BenTriesToRead
White Belt
Posts: 25
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2021 3:29 am
Languages: English, German(Beginner)
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Re: Ben tries to read German books

Postby BenTriesToRead » Wed Sep 28, 2022 2:13 pm

I've done a horrible job of updating this log but I haven't slowed down on my journey to learn German. Since my last update I've finished an additional four books and am reading a fifth one now. In addition to this I've done a bunch of listening which I've failed to track and had another italki class.

It's been a year since I last took the dialang reading test and in that time I've read twenty books. I went ahead and took the dialang reading test again and this time I scored a B2 result compared to my A2 from a year ago. I've shared my anki stats here and it's clear to me that I have not added enough cards to reach the required vocabulary for this level and that this increase has come from the listening and reading that I've done during that time. With that said I will continue to use anki in addition to my usual listening and reading because I believe it's an efficient way to begin learning a word's meaning.

I also took the dialang structures and vocabulary tests. I scored an A2 in structures which is not a surprise to me given my lack of formal study and relatively little output. I scored a B1 in vocabulary which also doesn't feel horribly off the mark for me. I was hoping for B2 on vocabulary but the point of taking these for me is to ground my expectations and provide a self evaluation.

I still feel that my output is one of my weak points and I want to continue to work on it. To that end I've joined an intermediate conversation class at a local cultural center and I will make an attempt to continue with italki lessons. I have also done some writing throughout this year and would like to do more. There are still gaps in my production probably because I never spent the time to study many aspects of grammar and just kind of jumped into reading after learning enough words to start. Hopefully I'll be able to shore up some of those gaps.

I didn't intend for this to be a yearly review but since it's become one I'm fairly confident that I've improved by leaps and bounds the past year and had a enjoyable time doing so. I've had my first conversations in another language, read approximately 1.5 million estimated words increasing my total to over 2 million. My listening has improved considerably and I'm at least able to follow the main points(and many of the details) of several podcasts intended for native speakers. With that said, I'm still not satisfied with my level of comprehension. The more I understand the more I realize how much I'm missing and I want to fill in those gaps. Also my productive skills are severly lagging my receptive skills. I'd like to practice those more and hopefully reach some degree of automaticity in my speech and writing.

Und jetzt ein bisschen auf Deutsch. Ich muss akzeptieren, dass mein deutsch ziemlich schlecht ist oder ich würde nie auf Deutsch posten. Ich habe die letzte vier Bücher sehr geneißen. Mein lieblings war "Das Jesus Video". Ich weiß nicht warum aber dieses Buch war so aufregend. Es hat die richtige mischung auf scifi und Abentuer. Also habe ich Tintenblut geneißen aber weniger als die erste. Also habe ich ein lustige Geschichte. Ein Fruend von mir hat mich ein Buch empfohlen. Ich hat die Titel auf Deutsch übersetzt und es nachgeschlacht. Er fragte mich, ob es mir gefallen hat. Ich habe nein gesagt. Ich hat die falche Buch gelesen. Die titel war nicht "Die Tochter des Henkers" aber "Die Henkerstochter". Nun habe ich ein weitere Buch zu lesen.

If you don't care about stats you can stop here and if you do here is the usual stat dump.

Lexical coverage estimates for the books I read.

Das Jesus Video
Sample 1 | 24 | 272 | 91.18%
Sample 2 | 23 | 302 | 92.38%
Sample 3 | 22 | 251 | 91.24%
Sample 4 | 27 | 306 | 91.18%
Sample 5 | 21 | 299 | 92.98%
Sample 6 | 24 | 316 | 92.41%
Sample 7 | 25 | 300 | 91.67%
Sample 8 | 32 | 276 | 88.41%
Sample 9 | 26 | 308 | 91.56%
Sample 10 | 20 | 309 | 93.53%
Total | 244 | 2939 | 91.7%

Die Tochter des Henker
Sample 1 | 20 | 301 | 93.36%
Sample 2 | 26 | 307 | 91.53%
Sample 3 | 18 | 302 | 94.04%
Sample 4 | 19 | 276 | 93.12%
Sample 5 | 21 | 305 | 93.11%
Sample 6 | 12 | 274 | 95.62%
Sample 7 | 20 | 324 | 93.83%
Sample 8 | 28 | 321 | 91.28%
Sample 9 | 27 | 301 | 91.03%
Sample 10 | 25 | 319 | 92.16%
Total | 216 | 3030 | 92.87%

Tintenblut
Sample 1 | 17 | 279 | 93.91%
Sample 2 | 13 | 294 | 95.58%
Sample 3 | 19 | 303 | 93.73%
Sample 4 | 6 | 264 | 97.73%
Sample 5 | 13 | 272 | 95.22%
Sample 6 | 5 | 267 | 98.13%
Sample 7 | 17 | 294 | 94.22%
Sample 8 | 6 | 283 | 97.88%
Sample 9 | 12 | 306 | 96.08%
Sample 10 | 5 | 295 | 98.31%
Total | 113 | 2857 | 96.04%

Warhammer Adventures: Die Seuche der Nurglinge
Sample 1 | 15 | 232 | 93.53%
Sample 2 | 15 | 223 | 93.27%
Sample 3 | 17 | 247 | 93.12%
Sample 4 | 19 | 214 | 91.12%
Sample 5 | 11 | 240 | 95.42%
Sample 6 | 9 | 247 | 96.36%
Sample 7 | 8 | 204 | 96.08%
Sample 8 | 18 | 251 | 92.83%
Sample 9 | 9 | 218 | 95.87%
Sample 10 | 16 | 247 | 93.52%
Total | 137 | 2323 | 94.1%

Anki Stats:
New: 0
Due: 86
Learning: 0
Relearning: 2
Young: 66
Mature: 1865
Total Cards: 1933
Estimated Words: 1100

Total conversation hours: 8 hours
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