hasen wrote:You said you need a 'decent' comprehension in the language. I would not say you'd need a decent level to understand a children's book in your target language.
You need the level of reading comprehension good enough for the target text (whatever the level of that target text is). You don't need that level to start L-Ring the same text.
hasen wrote:Simpler text will repeat simpler grammatical structures way more often while an advanced text will contain far more new vocabulary. Instead of getting used to the basics of grammar you'll be learning loads of obscure words. That's exactly why kids watch these kinds of things since they need to get used these simpler patterns and won't understand a wide range of words. You should look up 'spaced repetition'. Therefore it most certainly would be running before you walk.
What does spaced repetition have to do with any of this? Simpler patterns would repeat themselves quite often anyway (since they are the backbone of any written text), as well as the common vocabulary.
I'm not going to say that your reasoning doesn't make sense. Not everybody is in the position (like the author of the method) to immediately start with Nabokov's Lolita. Here's an example of some literary texts divided by levels from
the method's pageLEVELS
(English literature or translated into English)
0
Didactic texts: simplified readers: Oxford Bookworms, etc
If you're a good learner and a good L1 reader, you can skip this level.
1
Authentic texts: The Little Prince, Winnie-the-Pooh by Milne, Andersen, Dahl (for children), Alice in Wonderland, Harry Pottaa, Wilde – fairy tales
2
Crime stories – Christie, Sherlock Holmes
Fair stood the wind for France by Bates, The Pearl by Steinbeck, Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene, Animal Farm by Orwell
3
Some more difficult popular stuff (Ellis Peters)
Orwell 1984, Wilde, Kafka
4
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles Faithfully Presented By Thomas Hardy, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, Anna Karenia, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Proust, Ulysses by James Joyce
5
Poetry
Old literature – Fanny Hill, Milton, Willy-Nilly Shakespeare
If you're a beginner, though, even the "simple" children literature is already too advanced for you to read (and practically any native text is). That's why we have all these readers and adapted literature directed at the learners of the language (and ranked by level from A1 to C2).
But you can immediately start with the native texts (that are too difficult for a beginner by default) with the help of the L-R method. If you're an experienced learner (and the language is closely related) you can probably go for more difficult literature, otherwise you should choose some simpler, less "literary" genre.
So, in a sense, a certain consideration of the difficulty of the target material is still there, but it's on a completely different scale, so to speak.
hasen wrote:It was your own statement "You don't listen to two languages at once, you quickly skim through the text in L1 in order to grasp the meaning". Therefore you're reading it first and then listening to the audio...
Oh, I've misunderstood you then. Yes, you read first, then listen and comprehend. In the best-case scenario you should attentively listen to one sentence while at the same time reading the next sentence (so that you know the meaning of what comes up in the audio next). It's quite difficult and probably unfeasible for a beginner (that's why you need all the above-mentioned tricks to facilitate the process).
hasen wrote:Nothing shifted, the discussion just evolved into different aspects. The only difference given so far between movies with subtitles and audio with text is that you have to manually match the text with the audio. To which I stated that was valid but don't see any actual benefit to the exercise.
That's not the only difference, you've just dismissed all the other points by "evolving" discussion. You can turn watching movies (or TV shows) into a learning exercise, but that's would be a completely different matter.
hasen wrote:Worthy of note is that you'd probably only need about 20-30% understanding to actually do that. The rest would be relying on intonation, punctuation and any known words to keep up with where you are.
It's not going to be of much benefit, then, if you don't pay much attention to the language and just passively note some familiar words to check where you are. No more beneficial than background listening while you're concentrated on some other activity.
hasen wrote:I don't see what that description is missing, it's a basic description of the method. There's no need for anything simple to be missing from there like "it's a method designed for reading material way above your level". If that was indeed part of the original method it would be there.
That's why you can't fully rely on basic descriptions of anything, the method is obviously more complicated than that.
hasen wrote:If you're using a different method to the one on the wiki then fine, but if you could please explain what it is.
The links to more detailed explanations have been provided both by me and by the wiki itself.
hasen wrote:You also have to analyse a method to see if it will actually be beneficial. One of the biggest problems in language learning is believing you comprehend more of the content than you actually do. It seems if you're reading English and listening to the foreign language that would be most likely to happen - especially if the content is also way above your level to begin with.
It turned out to be quite beneficial for me. I personally regard it as a sort of energetic jumpstart into the language (and directly into native-level material).
It's not that easy to analyze something you don't understand the inner workings of and only regard from a theoretical, 'hands-off' point of view. You may not be looking at the method the same way the author looks at it (or the people who use it look at it) and miss the entire point. You certainly can't give proper analysis based only on some short and inadequate descriptions.
Using extreme examples à la "listening to Chinese radio on an uninhabited island with no internet" to justify your overall dismissal of the method are a little off the mark.