L-R vs Normal Reading

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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby lusan » Thu Sep 16, 2021 4:33 pm

luke wrote:.......... "bigger than your working memory"


A fascinating topic with useful applications that very few mention.

Sometimes I wonder about the maximum number of words in a sentence for a good Anki Sentence card.

I already know that 1 is not good, 2 is just so-so, 3-4 are barely useful, but 5-7 are pretty good.

Let' say.

"The house is white." N=4
versus
"The house is white with many types of trees around that hide us from people that want to steal our television." N= 20
or
"The tree surrounded house hides us from those wanting to steal the TV." N= 13

What is the optimal length. I think it might be no more than 7 -per some study I read in the past.
Something like
"The house hide us from others. N=6

Furthermore, I am with you the working memory per second! How to increase it? I feel that chunking is the way to go.

For example

"The house is white" + "many types of" + "from people" + "want to steal"
would reduce the N=20 to barely N=10.
A lot easier to deal with 10 than 20 chunk/seconds.

Of course we could to better. I just want to illustrate the point.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby german2k01 » Thu Sep 16, 2021 5:16 pm

Two N-6 sentences probably connected with a connector in between (not only..... but also, however, Additionally etc.)

But not longer than that in length; I would find that rather mentally taxing.

Technically speaking it is N = 13
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:44 pm

hasen wrote:As for audiobooks vs movies generally, well it's obvious that movies and tv shows would be better for learning to actually speak the language since they are 100% dialogue, whereas books are mainly descriptions and in the past tense. The slang you mention is also required for general speaking and understanding everyday speech. There are also ways to get around the density problem you mention. Personally I only watch the parts with dialogue the second time around.


100% dialogue, alright, but fewer words per spent minute. That has always been the reason why I've spent more time reading, listening to podcasts or audiobooks. More words per minute.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby luke » Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:17 pm

lusan wrote:
luke wrote:.......... "bigger than your working memory"

"The house is white with many types of trees around that hide us from people that want to steal our television." N= 20

That's a humorous tangent to a tangent:

It made me think:
"The trees want to steal our television". N=6

Anki is a little antithetical to L-R. Our fearless leader had this to say:
aYa wrote:If I were to use Heisig and SRS (Supermemo or its clones – Anki, Mnemozyne, etc), I'm sure I would rather kill myself.

I just searched for a couple words that are used 4 and 6 times in the Cien años de soledad parallel text. The words are given multiple translations:

Examples:
multitudinario: well-used, disastrous, many, long
patraña: tale, story, fable, myth, subterfuge

Interestingly, the translator never used "multitudinous", which would have fit the context where he chose "many" and "long".

https://www.spanishdict.com/translate/multitudinario

Eyeballing the translations of patraña, it does look like the translator found nice subtle distinctions for each use.

https://dle.rae.es/patra%C3%B1a?m=form

So back to Anki Sentences:
un grito multitudinario estremeció la noche=6
a multitudious scream shook the night=6

la patraña de la levitación=5
the tale of the levitation=5

I'm seeing how Anki could be used for some L-R vocabulary :)O=
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby hasen » Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:42 am

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
hasen wrote:As for audiobooks vs movies generally, well it's obvious that movies and tv shows would be better for learning to actually speak the language since they are 100% dialogue, whereas books are mainly descriptions and in the past tense. The slang you mention is also required for general speaking and understanding everyday speech. There are also ways to get around the density problem you mention. Personally I only watch the parts with dialogue the second time around.


100% dialogue, alright, but fewer words per spent minute. That has always been the reason why I've spent more time reading, listening to podcasts or audiobooks. More words per minute.


Like I said, there are ways around that problem. I only watch the parts with the dialogue, so no it's not fewer words per spent minute.

RyanSmallwood wrote:Of course there are other ways to learn, not sure the point of bringing them up here. Listening-Reading is just 1 activity people can use if they want to start learning from books that are above their level. Some people also are studying languages with the goal of reading as a big part of their motivation and not just to learn how to speak, and plenty of people like to discuss things they read or read more in depth on topics they like to talk about, so Listening-Reading is a good option for them.

I also don't know why you insist listening to L2 while reading L1 will confuse people, its a component of methods like Assimil that people have used for a long time and its something I've been doing for years to get into the books I like. So not sure how I'm supposed to take your guesses of what you think will happen.

You can prefer other things if it doesn't suit your goals or interests and be skeptical about other people's reports of its efficacy, but I'm not sure how far speculating about Listening-Reading without having tried it and mentioning other methods that don't substitute for what a L-R does is going to contribute to a discussion about it.


I'm not bringing up another method, the L2 audio with L2 reading is the second part of this method. I also didn't see anywhere the method suggests to specifically try to read content way above your level...C2 level for beginners according to rdearman. You also don't need to use this method to learn how to read either, you can learn in the target language only...like you know, the way people who actually speak the language natively did.

As for Assimil, there is an English translation which can be used however you like. You can use it as a reference if necessary, read it first or whatever. There's no need to try and absorb two languages at the same time. I personally want through Assimil for Chinese and French and never used the English at all. It's natural for us to 'home in' on one language only, which is why no-one ever learns anything from watching tv shows in their original language but with subtitles in their own language.

I'm just giving my opinion on the method which is just as valid as anyone saying it is a good method. The reason we have all these different and interesting methods to learn languages in the first place is fundamentally based on the fact we found the methods used traditionally in schools to be flawed. If we were not to apply criticism to our own methods as well we'd be somewhat hypocritical.

In any case, several people have already criticised for example, watching movies as being less than perfect due to the non dialogue parts which don't serve as language input.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby hasen » Fri Sep 17, 2021 6:53 am

Dragon27 wrote:
hasen wrote:Like I said to rdearman, you have some to learn about finding material appropriate for your level.

That's what L-R was designed for - being able to listen to material that is way above your level (when unassisted) and learn from it.


So you're doing it solely to shoot yourself in the foot and make this statement true:

"If both the text and the audio are in the target language you certainly won't know what's going on unless you already have a decent reading comprehension of the language."

In the introduction to the method on the learnanylanguage wiki it doesn't say that's what it's for anyway. I don't see the benefit of that either, it's literally learning to run before you can walk.

Dragon27 wrote:
hasen wrote:You don't listen to two languages at once, you quickly skim through the text in L1 in order to grasp the meaning (if you're able to read fast enough) and concentrate most of your attention on the listening part and attaching the meaning (you've extracted from text) to what you're hearing.


So you read it all first and then switch on the audio? Again that seems to contradict what it says on the wiki "listening while reading L1". You seem to have your own version of the method which you have not made clear.

As for your other response to me you seem to have just given a link to the text you quoted of me, I guess that was an error. In any case I don't have your responses to that. You seem to have done the same with your response to lusan.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby rdearman » Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:35 am

german2k01 wrote:Hello Guys,

In terms of language acquisition and overall understanding of a book, which method is more efficient?
Read along with a book while listening to it or simply reading a book?
Just for the sake of having an argument, yes, I know learners can do both. I am more interested to know from the perspective of language acquisition. What are the pros and cons of each method?

Thanks

Looping back to the original question. On the topic of using books either alone or with audio, then I think the option with audio will give the advantage of ensuring you are not mispronouncing the language in your head when reading. However, if you are reading alone without audio, then you are not required to read at the same pace as the narrator.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby Dragon27 » Fri Sep 17, 2021 8:11 am

hasen wrote:So you're doing it solely to shoot yourself in the foot and make this statement true:

"If both the text and the audio are in the target language you certainly won't know what's going on unless you already have a decent reading comprehension of the language."

Not sure what that means. The statement is true though, regardless. Except when you supplement the text in the target language with translation, in that case we're talking about parallel texts (which is what the beginner should use anyway).

hasen wrote:In the introduction to the method on the learnanylanguage wiki it doesn't say that's what it's for anyway. I don't see the benefit of that either, it's literally learning to run before you can walk.

Walking/running analogy doesn't necessarily apply (like any analogy). Books already contain the language of all the necessary stages, so you don't skip anything important (but it may be overwhelming for a beginner that only expects bite-sized primitive sentences). With adequate preparation it's perfectly doable, and the pay off is all the greater for the added challenge.

Dragon27 wrote:So you read it all first and then switch on the audio?

No, what are you talking about? There's only the audio in the target language and two sets of text - text in the target language and translation.

Dragon27 wrote:As for your other response to me you seem to have just given a link to the text you quoted of me, I guess that was an error. In any case I don't have your responses to that. You seem to have done the same with your response to lusan.

I quoted your question/claim, so that the original goalposts (which tend to shift in the discussion) could be clearly seen, and added lusan's post to that, to show how this kind of question seems to crop up from time. Other examples of this question being asked (and answered) could be found in the detailed web-page describing the method by the author (which I've also linked). My responses were made with that post of yours in mind and I think that I've addequately addressed the original thought: "people generally don't learn a language when they do this" (i.e. watch movies with subtitles in their own language), and how that common activity is fundamentally different from the L-R method.

I've also noticed that you seem to go off very limited description of how the method is supposed to work by referring to a short introduction on "the learnanylanguage wiki". If you're going to have a slightly more in-depth discussion of the benefits or the shortcomings of the method you should spend a little more time reading and digesting more accurate and detailed description (the wiki itself links to the web-page created by the author). Having inadequate sources can introduce unnecessary confusion in this already rather confusing conversation. Learnanylanguage wiki's purpose is not to provide exhaustive theoretical explanations, but to familiarize the readers with what there is (in the realm of language learning methods) and give the first impression (not necessairly the most fair one) of how it might work (and link to some additional sources of information).
Not to mention the already proposed suggestion by RyanSmallwood to try it out for yourself.

L-R method never touted itself as universal. If it's not for you, then it's not for you. L-R gives you the opportunity to directly engage with authentic books (written for natives by natives) with minimal preparation (in case of a closely related language - practically from zero), but it can be demanding (both time and effort-wise). You have to find out for yourself whether it can work for you or you rather prefer some other approach.
Last edited by Dragon27 on Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby sfuqua » Fri Sep 17, 2021 1:41 pm

L-R, listen L2 and read L1 works without question.
I have done this, and I am not always the sharpest tool in the shed. :o
Proving that it can't work "a priori" is futile because it works. This is an empirical fact. I bet it doesn't work for everybody all the time. I don't know. I'm not everybody and I haven't experienced all the time. :D

Now, there are many problems with it, problems that do not stop it from being effective from time to time for at least some learners.
Some of the problem for me have been:

1. Inappropriate reading material. If what you are reading will bore you to death before you reread it many times, you should make sure that it is easy enough that one read will be enough.
2. Finding appropriate audio. I often use tts voices, which are very convenient, but which are not optimal.
3. Finding a good translation. Even good, literary translations can be problematic if they shuffle around the information in the sentence too far from what the original L2 sentence order was, especially if the original sentence is long. I usually use google translate versions of the L2 to avoid this problem, but of course google translate can miss the point of a sentence completely. You have to mentally translate from "google translate L1" to meaning sometimes.
4. Finding a quiet place to work. I cannot do this at all if somebody is saying something to me every five minutes. I mean I'm mentally juggling with both hands and everythng will fall down if I have to answer "what's for dinner?".
5. Getting started. I usually have to really push myself for the first few minutes. Once the flow starts, I'm fine and the process is fun. Just as shadowing gives you the illusion that you can speak difficult material fluently, L-R L2/L1 gives the illusion that you can comprehend difficult material fluently.
6. Finding big chunks of time to do it. I have never done the "all day, several days" sessions that the original author of the method talks about, but I do find it more effective and enjoyable the longer I do it. I've never gone over 90 minutes.

I find the listen L2 read L2 stage effective useful too although not as "magical" as the listen L2 read L1 stage. :lol:
When I listen to L2 and read L2 at the same time, it stops me from mental digressions about words. It also stops me from making incorrect mental representations about how words are pronounced (French I'm talking about you). It may even improve comprehension of spoken L2, although I think this effect is limited... :D
Last edited by sfuqua on Fri Sep 17, 2021 3:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: L-R vs Normal Reading

Postby RyanSmallwood » Fri Sep 17, 2021 2:19 pm

hasen wrote:I'm not bringing up another method, the L2 audio with L2 reading is the second part of this method. I also didn't see anywhere the method suggests to specifically try to read content way above your level...C2 level for beginners according to rdearman. You also don't need to use this method to learn how to read either, you can learn in the target language only...like you know, the way people who actually speak the language natively did.

I mean its pretty clear in the original write-up of the method is using novels written for adult native speakers as a beginner, so again its going to be tricky for you to meaningfully contribute to the discussion if you don't understand what the method being discussed actually entails and we have to re-type stuff to explain to you what's been written down in guides. And yes of course you don't need to use this method to learn to read, but this thread is for people who are considering when/how much it could/should be used. If you have stuff you want to and are able to read without this method, then of course you don't need to use this method to help.

hasen wrote:As for Assimil, there is an English translation which can be used however you like. You can use it as a reference if necessary, read it first or whatever. There's no need to try and absorb two languages at the same time. I personally want through Assimil for Chinese and French and never used the English at all. It's natural for us to 'home in' on one language only, which is why no-one ever learns anything from watching tv shows in their original language but with subtitles in their own language.

Sure you can study whatever, however you want, I only brought up Assimil as an example of people who do learn from listening to L2 audio with L1 text. I'm not making the case that this is the best or only way people should learn, only that people do in fact do this. As for subtitles versus L-R this has been addressed earlier, so I'm not going to repeat stuff and keep the discussion going in circles.

hasen wrote:I'm just giving my opinion on the method which is just as valid as anyone saying it is a good method. The reason we have all these different and interesting methods to learn languages in the first place is fundamentally based on the fact we found the methods used traditionally in schools to be flawed. If we were not to apply criticism to our own methods as well we'd be somewhat hypocritical.
In any case, several people have already criticised for example, watching movies as being less than perfect due to the non dialogue parts which don't serve as language input.

Informed criticism is important and helpful, a good example is Alexander Argüelles who tried Listening-Reading and said it didn't work for him because he kept trying to read ahead of the audio. Personally I think he could've gotten it to work if he did more troubleshooting, but his negative experience is informative and useful, and it would be interesting to know if factor like reading speed cause more difficulty for some people to use the method.

People here are criticizing watching movies in-so-far as you brought it up here and it doesn't substitute for the things Listening-Reading is trying to do. If there was a thread about using phrasebooks versus learning basic conversation from a tutor before traveling to a country it would be weird if I went into the thread and said to everyone there "I've never used phrasebooks, but I don't think you learn phrases from them, also you should watch cooking shows instead because you want to learn recipes for food you can make in your target language", and then when people discussing phrasebooks point out that people have learned phrases from phrase books and cooking shows don't teach all the phrases people need to travel, I call them hypocritical for criticizing cooking shows. Its not that people can't have preferences of learning from phrasebooks versus watching cooking shows, its that I wouldn't be providing any meaningful information in a thread about what phrase books can do versus alternatives trying to do something similar.

You of course can prefer any learning methods you want and share any relevant experiences, positive or negative that you have. It just seems like you don't have any experience trying the method out, or an understanding of what the method is trying to do. So as someone who uses this method to learn, and is interested in discussing pros and cons of when and how much in relation to regular reading, I'm not sure what to make of you offering your imaginations of what you think will happen when people use the method, and sharing language learning activities that don't substitute for what Listening-Reading tries to do. Except to keep repeating, that if you tried it your experiences would be more informative to the discussion, and if you want to discuss alternatives you should discuss more relevant ones. There is maybe an interesting discussion to be had about efficacy of context learning versus translations more broadly, but I think that would be general enough for a different topic (and its a topic that comes up all the time on forums for language learning discussions, so its not really new).

Anyways apologies if this meta-discussion has taken us further afield from the actual discussion. I just feel like every time I discuss Listening-Reading anywhere there's always someone who wants to guess how it works without having tried it.
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