hasen wrote:That's a valid point, synchronising the English text with the French audio would be somewhat different to English subtitles, but I don't really see any use for either. That's also exactly why both text and audio should be in the target language because that way you can't "shut out" since otherwise you won't know what is going on.
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 which case you still run the danger of "shutting out" the speech, because your brain can already understand the text and doesn't need to put in additional effort to decipher the spoken language). The point of Listening to L2, Reading L1 is to train yourself to understand speech in your target language: first, you read the text in your native language (or any other language you know well), so you know what you're about to hear, then you listen to the same sentence in your target language and attach the meaning to what you hear. Listening to L2, Reading L2 has a different goal - getting used to the speech flow, training yourself to parse sounds, some words, etc.
The question "Isn't L-R the same thing as watching a movie with subtitles?" has been addressed multiple times, there's even a chapter for it in "L-R the most important passages". The differences can be summarized as follows:
- watching a movie with subtitles isn't usually a learning activity. Just passively hearing your target language speech while reading text in your native language won't magically make you understand it. L-R isn't a mechanical process and it requires conscious effort and active engagement.
- you barely pay any attention to the foreign speech in movies, most of your attention is divided between the action/plot/what's going on and reading the subtitles. The core step of L-R requires you to focus primarily on speech and trying to understand it and extract language structures from it. Reading the text in L1 is only there to help you with that process, it shouldn't be your main focus (being a fast reader is helpful).
- the subtitles for each line of the movie appear on the screen at the same time as the line is spoken. In L-R you're supposed to read the text slightly ahead of the audio, so that you already know the meaning of the phrase you're about to hear.
- language density in movies is usually much lower than in audiobooks (where the speech is basically all there is, barring occasional musical interludes). L-R emphasizes much higher language exposure.
There are also some secondary points, like difference between the language and audio quality/clearness in movies and in audiobooks. Speech in movies can be hard to discern due to background noise, muffled dialogue, it can be full of slang, etc. Audiobooks are usually read by professional narrators, the audio quality is (relatively) clean, the speech is well-articulated. Books contain not only the dialogues between characters, but also lots of descriptions (of actions, of environment). It can work both ways: the language of books is rich in vocabulary and structures, the language of movies can be more natural and closer to how people actually speak; it's easier to understand the narrator of an audiobook, but you will have to train yourself to understand less clear and less accurate (but more realistic) speech in the movies as well (and the transition between audiobooks and movies can be shocking; of course, there are different kinds of movies with different types of speech, like nature documentaries, for example). The subtitles in the movies/shows/anime are often quite different from what was actually said, although same can be said about literature. The translator can take some liberties with the text, which is bad for the learner. The learner should seek out high-quality translations that closely follow the original text. The author of the method even suggests interlinear word-for-word translation for the first couple of hours. The more experienced you are with the language the less dependent you are on the quality of translation, obviously.
Going back to the original point, since L-R is primarily a learning activity, you should help yourself with little (or important) things to improve your experience. If you can't keep up with the audio narration (even after you spend enough time doing step 2 - listening to and reading in the target language - and are accustomed to the fast native speech), you can always pause in between sentences. If you have a hard time comprehending the sentence, you can rewind and listen to it again, or loop and keep listening to it multiple times. You can use parallel texts and glance at the text in the target language to clear the gaps in understanding, you can use mouse-over pop-up dictionary, etc. As long as you understand the main principles of the methd you can do what you want to adapt it to your (changing) abilities and preferences.