There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

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DaveBee
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby DaveBee » Tue Jul 04, 2017 9:20 am

MamaPata wrote:Plus, in class, we were doing exercises on synonyms - either providing them, or finding the most suitable one - and boy, was that a disaster.

My French is currently fine for all the things I do with it - I can read happily, watch TV. But it's not accurate or precise and this is a problem. Our teacher was saying to us that we really need to be reading regularly, but I already do read a decent amount. I think the issue is that I really need to switch to reading intensively. I tend to read on the bus, so I am unable to look things up. I find LWT faintly irritating (I find intensive reading fairly irritating) but I think I just need to work this into my routine, in order to build my vocabulary and become more exacting with myself. Bleh.
I was looking at an old learn by translation method recently.
1. L2 > L1
(time passes, at least an hour)
2. Your_L1 > L2
3a. Compare original L2 and your_L2_from_L1
b. Pick out synonyms, opposites, metaphors, notable phrases.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Tue Jul 04, 2017 3:30 pm

MamaPata wrote:My French is currently fine for all the things I do with it - I can read happily, watch TV. But it's not accurate or precise and this is a problem. Our teacher was saying to us that we really need to be reading regularly, but I already do read a decent amount. I think the issue is that I really need to switch to reading intensively. I tend to read on the bus, so I am unable to look things up. I find LWT faintly irritating (I find intensive reading fairly irritating) but I think I just need to work this into my routine, in order to build my vocabulary and become more exacting with myself. Bleh.


I totally understand your distaste for intensive reading :-)

A few ideas of possible solutions:

1.Keep reading extensively, just much more. I know many people still doubt it, but that truly is how I got to C2 vocabulary. What does "decent amount" mean to you? If it's not one book (I mean a real book, not the 50 pages unit for the SC) per week, or per 2 weeks at the lightest, your reading plan is not crazy enough.

2.Try other tools for intensive reading. Readlang is an option, if you don't like LWT. Perhaps you will hate it too, perhaps not. It shouldn't hurt to try.

3.Write things down in that bus on your bookmark (possible, if it is not too crowded and you get a nice stable spot or a seat), and look them up later. A good plan, I usually forget to look stuff up later either, but it doesn't matter that much to me, and you might be better than me at this.

4.Work on your vocabulary independently of your reading. The huge Memrise courses by Eunoia, +French Nouns 1, Verbs, Nouns 2,... are great. Or Vocabulaire Progressif goes up to the C levels now, and it is a really good series, but with fewer words than the Eunoia courses based on the Lexique database. Or use any other vocabulary building technique or tool mentioned on the forum, and use it on top of your input.

5.Do you listen a lot? While I definitely don't believe in the visual vs auditory learner theory, I definitely believe that the more you encounter the words, and with both eyes and ears, the stronger memories you'll form.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jul 04, 2017 4:39 pm

Cavesa wrote:I totally understand your distaste for intensive reading :-)

A few ideas of possible solutions:

1.Keep reading extensively, just much more. I know many people still doubt it, but that truly is how I got to C2 vocabulary. What does "decent amount" mean to you? If it's not one book (I mean a real book, not the 50 pages unit for the SC) per week, or per 2 weeks at the lightest, your reading plan is not crazy enough.

2.Try other tools for intensive reading. Readlang is an option, if you don't like LWT. Perhaps you will hate it too, perhaps not. It shouldn't hurt to try.

3.Write things down in that bus on your bookmark (possible, if it is not too crowded and you get a nice stable spot or a seat), and look them up later. A good plan, I usually forget to look stuff up later either, but it doesn't matter that much to me, and you might be better than me at this.

4.Work on your vocabulary independently of your reading. The huge Memrise courses by Eunoia, +French Nouns 1, Verbs, Nouns 2,... are great. Or Vocabulaire Progressif goes up to the C levels now, and it is a really good series, but with fewer words than the Eunoia courses based on the Lexique database. Or use any other vocabulary building technique or tool mentioned on the forum, and use it on top of your input.

5.Do you listen a lot? While I definitely don't believe in the visual vs auditory learner theory, I definitely believe that the more you encounter the words, and with both eyes and ears, the stronger memories you'll form.


1. This is a good point - I'm sure I can speak for many of us on the forum when I say that your experience has been very motivational. I don't read a book a week, for a variety of reasons, but I could definitely push it further.

2. I do actually use Readlang, but I use it for Russian, and as far as I am aware, it is only available for one language at a time.

3. Yes, I have quite a few books with underlinings for this kind of thing. ;) I could definitely try and work in a time to actually look up some of those!

4. Again, I do use memrise, but mostly for Russian, so I'll try and work that in more. (same for listening!)

Thanks for chiming in. :)
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Systematiker » Tue Jul 04, 2017 5:10 pm

MamaPata wrote:2. I do actually use Readlang, but I use it for Russian, and as far as I am aware, it is only available for one language at a time.


If you switch the language (e.g. on the browser shortcut or with a different dedicated link, I've got it set up as the latter on iOS so it works like an app), it's as if each language is the only thing you are doing. Fresh library, etc., but switching back doesn't lose anything.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jul 05, 2017 1:46 pm

You found your own answers. :-) Readlang can easily be used for several languages at once. So can Memrise. I know one book per week is quite challenging to incorporate in daily life, but one book per two weeks is doable for most people, in my opinion (of course, I am talking about the 300-450 pages book, not George Martin or Robert Jordan size of book) I'm looking forward to reading of your results, concerning looking up the underlined or written down words, it might motivate me to do this more seriously too. :-)
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Wed Jul 05, 2017 3:25 pm

Cavesa wrote:You found your own answers. :-) Readlang can easily be used for several languages at once. So can Memrise. I know one book per week is quite challenging to incorporate in daily life, but one book per two weeks is doable for most people, in my opinion (of course, I am talking about the 300-450 pages book, not George Martin or Robert Jordan size of book) I'm looking forward to reading of your results, concerning looking up the underlined or written down words, it might motivate me to do this more seriously too. :-)


Yes, I do use memrise for several languages, as well as other courses, I'm just not always very reliable about it. :D

I don't actually have a problem getting in one book a week - I read fairly fast, so I've read over 50 books this year. But there are a lot of things I want to read in English because I prefer to read them in the original (and I have non language related reading goals) and I have to read quite a lot for class. I'm going to try and increase my French reading, you're definitely right there, but I have a lot of other goals outside languages. So French doesn't always come first.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jul 05, 2017 3:51 pm

MamaPata wrote:
Cavesa wrote:You found your own answers. :-) Readlang can easily be used for several languages at once. So can Memrise. I know one book per week is quite challenging to incorporate in daily life, but one book per two weeks is doable for most people, in my opinion (of course, I am talking about the 300-450 pages book, not George Martin or Robert Jordan size of book) I'm looking forward to reading of your results, concerning looking up the underlined or written down words, it might motivate me to do this more seriously too. :-)


Yes, I do use memrise for several languages, as well as other courses, I'm just not always very reliable about it. :D

I don't actually have a problem getting in one book a week - I read fairly fast, so I've read over 50 books this year. But there are a lot of things I want to read in English because I prefer to read them in the original (and I have non language related reading goals) and I have to read quite a lot for class. I'm going to try and increase my French reading, you're definitely right there, but I have a lot of other goals outside languages. So French doesn't always come first.


Of course, I totally understand!

That is one of the reasons why increasing the non-reading vocab building methods may be useful, if your reading capacities are saturated.

And it depends on your reading needs. Of course the obligatory books cannot be changed.

But in some cases, it is possible to switch from English originals to French originals, without sacrificing quality of the experience or information. For example, I see no problem in mostly switching fantasy to French (I know, I may be already annoying with my favourite genre, sorry :-D ), or thrillers, crime novels, horrors, sci-fi, historical fiction. All these genres can be fully enjoyed in French originals, without lacking the amount or quality. For example, I see that one might not wish to read George Martin in translation or avoid it, but majority of the authors of the same genre are by far not as awesome, not enough to make me cry out of feeling of missing out :-).

When it comes to non obligatory non-fiction, I believe French can satisfy most readers too, whether the interest lies in physics, history, philosophy, or chemistry. Sure, it is definitely possible to argument there are more books being published in English, but you cannot read them all in a lifetime anyways (just like you cannot speak with all the natives of a language). And it is true that the majority of research, and the best research, in most areas is being published in English. But there are many areas where English is just one of the most important languages, where top researchers use English as a second language and publish in French too, and sometimes earlier than in English. And for the needs of an amateur non-fiction reader, it may often be less relevant who the most important archeologist is than who are very good popular archeology writers.

The hard point is the beginning. Looking for the first few quality authors suiting your needs, after that Amazon will give you recommendations :-D :-D

P.S. 50 books this year?!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is awesome!!! I feel ashamed as I am only somewhere around 20. :-)
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby blaurebell » Wed Jul 05, 2017 5:53 pm

Actually there is lots of French stuff in the humanities that never even gets translated into English. My husband was trying to find the works of a French philosopher in English a couple of years ago to cite them and turns out that the only translations available were Spanish and German. I think one of his books was now finally translated into English, but most of his work still remains "unaccessible" to all the monolinguals. The French usually have huge pride in their language and rarely ever write in English first unless they work in science in an English speaking country. Most never bother to have anything translated at all. They have enough of an audience in the French speaking world and who cares about those who don't speak French anyway? :lol: And usually within 10 years those ideas will become popular in the rest of the world too - Germany first usually, then the English speaking countries. So, if you want to be ahead of your peers in the humanities, read French stuff!
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jul 05, 2017 6:26 pm

blaurebell wrote:Actually there is lots of French stuff in the humanities that never even gets translated into English. My husband was trying to find the works of a French philosopher in English a couple of years ago to cite them and turns out that the only translations available were Spanish and German. I think one of his books was now finally translated into English, but most of his work still remains "unaccessible" to all the monolinguals. The French usually have huge pride in their language and rarely ever write in English first unless they work in science in an English speaking country. Most never bother to have anything translated at all. They have enough of an audience in the French speaking world and who cares about those who don't speak French anyway? :lol: And usually within 10 years those ideas will become popular in the rest of the world too - Germany first usually, then the English speaking countries. So, if you want to be ahead of your peers in the humanities, read French stuff!


A great example, thanks.

It is not just the French. The Japanese like to keep technology on their own market for a few years first too. Even a simple touristy visit like mine (years ago) discovered everyday consummer technology that would be spread in Europe 3-5 years later. Why shouldn't they do the same with their intellectual riches. I've read an interesting article by a sinologue, who pointed out the Chinese science was using the language barrier as a way to get an edge over the rest of the world on purpose. The anglophone or in English publishing science is sometimes simply too arrogant to consider that something worth the attention may be happening elsewhere. They are too used to having everything served on a silver platter.

From my modest experience, even non anglophone medical research (and medicine is an example of an extremely "anglophonized" field) may be great in quality, earlier in publication, and cheaper to obtain. It may provide different points of view, based on different samples and different parts of a problem, or different cultural or legislative context. I am definitely not saying a medical scientist should rely only on French or German and not understand English, not at all. I am just saying that the current tendency to overlook everything not in English is not wise and it should again be a standard part of higher education to be really good in more than one foreign language. And if that is true about medicine in general, it must be even more so in areas where other nations are traditionally strong. The French have a huge tradition in microbiology, infections, and tropical diseases, that is a common example. I imagine there could be similar examples in archeology, nuclear energy, philosophy, or airplane engineering. In humanities, the differences are likely to be huge. After all, we don't expect the history textbooks in the UK, in Russia, and in Germany to depict the World Wars the same way.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Wed Jul 05, 2017 9:14 pm

Cavesa wrote:P.S. 50 books this year?!!!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is awesome!!! I feel ashamed as I am only somewhere around 20. :-)


There are 72 books on my list so far - but a little more than ten are children's books which you can skim in a few minutes. That's still more than 50, though.
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