Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby german2k01 » Wed Dec 15, 2021 9:33 pm

I’ve somehow just absorbed a passive understanding of the entire French grammar? I don’t know how, but it just works.


What you need to understand is that spelled out grammar rules are just a convenience. However the same information that they contain can be found in the language itself. A standard novel has like around 25,000 grammatical sentences for you to observe. The human brain is incredibly good at picking out language patterns

An excerpt is taken from this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/5jmm10/lr_and_10000_sentences_method_do_they_work/
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Dec 16, 2021 4:35 am

german2k01 wrote:
I’ve somehow just absorbed a passive understanding of the entire French grammar? I don’t know how, but it just works.


What you need to understand is that spelled out grammar rules are just a convenience. However the same information that they contain can be found in the language itself. A standard novel has like around 25,000 grammatical sentences for you to observe. The human brain is incredibly good at picking out language patterns

An excerpt is taken from this link: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/5jmm10/lr_and_10000_sentences_method_do_they_work/


I’ve also reviewed 19,000+ sentences on Clozemaster. I think it helped my passive grammar more than my passive vocabulary.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby BeaP » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:30 am

german2k01 wrote:However, where do you place books aimed at 8-12 years old?
Also, Posts/Answers on Quora? I always feel like reading posts in German there requires really high level of competence in the language.

Children's books are tricky. I' d say that books for 3-4 year-olds are A1-A2, and after that around school age there is a big jump to C1-C2 with little in between. If you're lucky (and interested in reading this type of books) you'll find one that fits your needs, but I wouldn't recommend children's book in general to any learner. A lot of people tend to forget when they talk about children in the context of language learning, that children go to school where they study their native language every day. After learning the letters they soon read and solve comprehension exercises and discuss extremely rare words, sometimes even new to me. The literature aimed at them also tends to have this educative goal, I guess. Children's books aimed at 7-8 year-olds are often full of archaic or dialectal words to widen children's scope of the language, and I'd say this can make them even C2. Also children's books can be full of non-existent, made-up words, partly to show children how to make fun with the language, partly to teach them the rules by which new elements can be created. For example, Hungarian is an agglutinative language, and made-up words teach the children the suffixes that make nouns from verbs. A language learner doesn't know whether or not a word truly exists, how widely it's used and what register it belongs to. But it's true that there are exceptions.

According to the CEFR informal, short texts are usually in the A1-A2 range. So although a Quora post can look difficult, it's usually short, so you have the possibility to look up the words in a dictionary. Moreover, they are grouped according to topics, which also helps, because there's a lot of recurring vocabulary. As we go up to the higher levels, texts usually become more formal and much longer. An A1-A2 text in a common course book is 4-5 sentences, not more. The first (abridged) article arrives at B1. Nevertheless, no-one is prohibited to write a long scientific article (B1-B2) or even a treatise (C1) on quora, so again, there are exceptions to the rule.

About reading without studying grammar: it's totally possible to read with little grammar study. It's very hard to speak in a proper, educated way without grammar. Moreover, popular fiction often has an extremely low level on language, and it has absolutely no educative goal contrary to children's books. It's designed to be an easy way to kill time for the masses, entertainment without effort. I really believe that a lot of popular fiction is B1, so can be read with a very basic grammar knowledge, especially if the language is relatively easy (not very distant and exotic) for the reader.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Thu Dec 16, 2021 4:03 pm

german2k01 wrote:Can you quantify it roughly in numbers? 5-7; 10-12; before you graduate?


I can't quantify it. Series have levels from A to D, from 1 to 6 and what not. If I (at all) choose easy readers as my first reading material, I go the the most basic level I can find and simply read "enough" from that level, before I go to the next one. Maybe I can't get books at every level. No problem. Easy readers is just one yardstick, and not always the best one. No person can give you a magic formula based on easy readers from level A to D.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:30 pm

I'd wager that the majority of young children learn a lot more about their native languages from talking with peers and teachers and television (in my day anyway) than they ever do from extensive reading, not that reading doesn't occur. I think this is amply demonstrated by the common gulf between the spoken and written language and that teachers in pretty much ever language have to trail behind cleaning-up pupils' grammar, which never ends for a lot of people even after leaving school.

I'm posting the rest of this rant on my log rather than litter this thread: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 68#p199968
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby einzelne » Thu Dec 16, 2021 5:42 pm

But how can I quantify it? It depends on the language you study and your background.

And, yes, I second the observations re children books and the importance of grammar for active skills.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby german2k01 » Thu Dec 16, 2021 7:20 pm

But how can I quantify it? It depends on the language you study and your background.


The Law of diminishing returns applies. I came across a post a long time ago someone bought like 50 easy readers of various publishers thinking that he would improve quicker in his target language all under the impression of comprehensible input. Then later he had realized that he got used to reading only easy readers not other books of different difficulties. He was having problems with understanding other books because reading 50 easy readers was not enough at all.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Thu Dec 16, 2021 8:16 pm

german2k01 wrote:
But how can I quantify it? It depends on the language you study and your background.


The Law of diminishing returns applies. I came across a post a long time ago someone bought like 50 easy readers of various publishers thinking that he would improve quicker in his target language all under the impression of comprehensible input. Then later he had realized that he got used to reading only easy readers not other books of different difficulties. He was having problems with understanding other books because reading 50 easy readers was not enough at all.


I have been recently been teaching my children to read, partially through the use of leveled readers in their native language. (Which aren’t exactly the same as leveled readers for non-native grownups, but they aren’t that different either.) Kids have a much, much larger active vocabulary than the vocabulary of a leveled reader. (In contrast, they do *not* understand all the vocabulary in children’s picture books.) A leveled reader will get you started but there is no way to avoid having to just jump into the soup at some point.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby einzelne » Thu Dec 16, 2021 9:04 pm

german2k01 wrote:The Law of diminishing returns applies. I came across a post a long time ago someone bought like 50 easy readers of various publishers thinking that he would improve quicker in his target language all under the impression of comprehensible input. Then later he had realized that he got used to reading only easy readers not other books of different difficulties. He was having problems with understanding other books because reading 50 easy readers was not enough at all.


I had in mind something else. For a native Italian speaker, a dozen of adapted books would be more than enough, if he happens to study Spanish. On the other hand, if a native English speaker happens to study Chinese, 50 easy readers makes total sense. So, how can you quantify without taking this into account.

Other than that, I agree that adapted books alone won't get you smoothly to C1.
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Re: Reading & Ambiguity Threshold in your TL?

Postby rdearman » Thu Dec 16, 2021 9:24 pm

german2k01 wrote:
But how can I quantify it? It depends on the language you study and your background.


The Law of diminishing returns applies. I came across a post a long time ago someone bought like 50 easy readers of various publishers thinking that he would improve quicker in his target language all under the impression of comprehensible input. Then later he had realized that he got used to reading only easy readers not other books of different difficulties. He was having problems with understanding other books because reading 50 easy readers was not enough at all.

Then is the counterargument that you should purchase 50 of the largest, most difficult books you can find?
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