Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

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german2k01
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Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby german2k01 » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:04 pm

Hello Guys,

I have a question. To read "Crime and Punishment" extensively in English without using a dictionary. Assuming you have no other social activity apart from reading it. How long will it take you to finish reading the book this way?

To read "Crime & Punishment" extensively in English-TL bilingually. Corresponding translation in your TL is given side by side. However, the purpose here is to learn your target language as well.
Assuming you have no other social activity apart from reading it. How long will it take you to finish reading the book this way?

Is there a way to calculate the approximate time for you to finish reading it in both ways? 1-2 days? Of course, it depends on your reading speed as well. I am just looking for a rough estimate.

Thanks
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:19 pm

Crime and Punishment has ~208k words in English. You should measure your reading speed and divide 208000 by your reading speed in WPM (words per minute) to get an estimate of how many minutes it will take. To measure reading speed, just see how many words you can read in a minute while reading normally. I think Paul Nation typically uses a conservative 250 WPM in many of his calculations and assumptions for learners at a decent level.

The same reading speed calculation should work in your TL, but hopefully that will increase, so it may be helpful to measure at a few places as you progress throughout the book (I find the same thing is helpful when marking unknown words to see my vocabulary coverage). A couple of ways Paul Nation suggests to increase reading speed is to read material that is very easy for the learner's level and also re-reading previously read books. He categorizes this a type of fluency practice.
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby einzelne » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:25 pm

german2k01 wrote:To read "Crime and Punishment" extensively in English without using a dictionary. Assuming you have no other social activity apart from reading it. How long will it take you to finish reading the book this way?

To read "Crime & Punishment" extensively in English-TL bilingually. Corresponding translation in your TL is given side by side. However, the purpose here is to learn your target language as well.
Assuming you have no other social activity apart from reading it. How long will it take you to finish reading the book this way?

Is there a way to calculate the approximate time for you to finish reading it in both ways? 1-2 days? Of course, it depends on your reading speed as well. I am just looking for a rough estimate.

Thanks


Too many factors, it's hard to tell.

As for reading a book in English, you can check Audible and see the length of the audiobook. If you are a native speaker, you will definitely read it faster than listening to the audio version. (For a non-native speaker — again, hard to tell.)

Alternatively, you can read a book for one hour, calculate the amount of words your read and make your own calculations for the rest of the book (I don't recommend to make your calculations on the basis of small intervals, like 5-10 minutes).
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby german2k01 » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:31 pm

A couple of ways Paul Nation suggests to increase reading speed is to read material that is very easy for the learner's level and also re-reading previously read books. He categorizes this a type of fluency practice.


I have another question. Assuming if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in full-fledged German. Extensively, not using a dictionary at all. Also, if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in German-English mode, reading side by side.

How would you approach these two distinct reading activities to derive more mileage for both learning the language and for fluency practice?

To put it simply, which form of reading will you do first?
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:52 pm

german2k01 wrote:
A couple of ways Paul Nation suggests to increase reading speed is to read material that is very easy for the learner's level and also re-reading previously read books. He categorizes this a type of fluency practice.


I have another question. Assuming if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in full-fledged German. Extensively, not using a dictionary at all. Also, if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in German-English mode, reading side by side.

How would you approach these two distinct reading activities to derive more mileage for both learning the language and for fluency practice?

To put it simply, which form of reading will you do first?

Alexander Arguelles suggests reading the English L1, then reading the L2. At first you can only do a sentence or a sentence fragment at a time (bilingual texts are ideal to start off with since the translation is more literal). Then you can move onto several sentences, paragraphs, several pages, etc. Eventually you want to be able to read one entire book in L1 then read the same book in L2. You also want to have more and more time separating the L1 and L2 readings as you continue to work through books.

At some point, you will just not feel like reading the L1 anymore, which he thinks is a good time to try to read solely in the L2. So at this point, you can reverse the process (L2 then L1). I personally have found that going from L2 to L1 is enjoyable at an advanced level. Since my only goal is to read the L2, I can judge whether it's even necessary. Also, at that point, I can understand the book fully and follow 100% of the plot, but I like to "check" the English to see if my guesses were right. I should mention that both Arguelles and Nation have found 98% vocabulary coverage of graded content to be ideal for this method (1 unknown word out of 50).

Watch starting @ 33:22 below for your specific question (the whole lecture is worth a watch though):
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby luke » Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:55 pm

german2k01 wrote:I have another question. Assuming if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in full-fledged German. Extensively, not using a dictionary at all. Also, if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in German-English mode, reading side by side.

To put it simply, which form of reading will you do first?

Here's a third option. Your English and German are both very good. There are 4 versions of Crime and Punishment in English on Librivox, and hopefully you can find a version you enjoy. They run 22-24 hours. If you listen in English while reading in German, it should help your comprehension.

Then on your "how long does it take?" question... Figure out if where you're most comfortable with the audio speed of your preferred narrator(s). Maybe that's 100%, maybe 140%. That will give you an idea of how long it will take.

AllSubNoDub wrote:


At 43:30, Professor Arguelles talks about the technique above.
Last edited by luke on Thu Nov 11, 2021 9:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Thu Nov 11, 2021 9:02 pm

luke wrote:
german2k01 wrote:I have another question. Assuming if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in full-fledged German. Extensively, not using a dictionary at all. Also, if you are reading "Crime and Punishment" in German-English mode, reading side by side.

To put it simply, which form of reading will you do first?

Here's a third option. Your English and German are both very good. There are 4 versions of Crime and Punishment in English on Librivox, and hopefully you can find a version you enjoy. They run 22-24 hours. If you listen in English while reading in German, it should help your comprehension.

Actually, I can almost swear this is covered somewhere in the lecture too. I have tried this before and it is veeery hard (for me). I might try it again at some point, but I would assume it would take 1/2 an hour minimum to get your brain and ears used to it. Straight L-Ring is hard too, but definitely easier. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me, I have watched L1 shows with L2 subtitles before and I actually find that helpful and enjoyable.


Edit: I have not tried this in languages where I have a low comprehension, only in languages where my comprehension is already very advanced. I tend to tune the English out. Maybe it's better a better technique for beginners?

Edit 2: @Luke I saw your additional edit. Thanks for confirming he talks about this in the video. Probably worth another watch for me.
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby luke » Thu Nov 11, 2021 9:09 pm

AllSubNoDub wrote:
luke wrote:Here's a third option. Your English and German are both very good. There are 4 versions of Crime and Punishment in English on Librivox, and hopefully you can find a version you enjoy. They run 22-24 hours. If you listen in English while reading in German, it should help your comprehension.

Actually, I can almost swear this is covered somewhere in the lecture too.

I saw you're post and edited my previous to add the location :)

AllSubNoDub wrote:Straight L-Ring is hard too, but definitely easier. I'm not sure why it's so hard for me, I have watched L1 shows with L2 subtitles before and I actually find that helpful and enjoyable.

Maybe it's just practice. Also, there's getting the pace right. Varying the speed of the audio can help with that. Then there's also the issue of how literal the translation is. More is better :) Finally, there's the "how familiar is what I'm L-Ring"?

german2k01 has the nice benefit of using two TLs at the same time if he goes this route. :) (which won't make it easier) :(
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby AllSubNoDub » Thu Nov 11, 2021 9:16 pm

luke wrote:I saw you're post and edited my previous to add the location :)

I edited my edit to address your edit. :P

luke wrote:german2k01 has the nice benefit of using two TLs at the same time if he goes this route. :) (which won't make it easier) :(

Urdu in left ear, English in right, text in German. Woah!
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Re: Reading "Crime & Punishment" in bilingual format or without it? How long does it take?

Postby german2k01 » Thu Nov 11, 2021 9:17 pm

Alexander Arguelles suggests reading the English L1, then reading the L2. At first you can only do a sentence or a sentence fragment at a time (bilingual texts are ideal to start off with since the translation is more literal). Then you can move onto several sentences, paragraphs, several pages, etc. Eventually you want to be able to read one entire book in L1 then read the same book in L2. You also want to have more and more time separating the L1 and L2 readings as you continue to work through books.

At some point, you will just not feel like reading the L1 anymore, which he thinks is a good time to try to read solely in the L2.


Thanks. That really answers my query. Let me watch the lecture and see what he has to say in regards to this.
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