How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

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einzelne
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How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby einzelne » Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:54 am

How do you organize your reading routine in your foreign languages? Especially if you happen to read in three or more L2.

Personally, I would love to engage with all my languages everyday but every time I try to build a system, I miserably fail. If I happen to start to read a book, I simply want to read it till the end.

For instance, I had been reading mostly in French for the last 2 years and I think I could have given more attention to my English and German. I read something time and then but, again, it was too sporadic. In the similar vein, I started to read in Italian this spring and in the course of 4 months I read about a dozen of books. Every time I wanted to add a book in French or, say, in German for maintenance purposes, I would quit it rather quickly. When finally, this July I made a firm decision to read in German 30 min every day and I end up forgetting Italian, French, and English (not to mention other languages I dabbled periodically) completely. To be fair, choosing a mystery novel for maintenance purposes wasn't the wisest decision although I know that for me eventually it really doesn't matter.

I gave up on the idea of being systematic with my languages but I wonder if other people managed to build some sort of a system.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby tractor » Thu Jul 14, 2022 5:29 am

No system.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby Nogon » Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:55 am

I don't have any system either; I just read whichever book and language catches my interest most.
But if I really wanted to read in several languages each day, I guess I'd try with short stories. Get a short story collection in each language and read a story from each of them each day. Someone else might try that with poems as well - I wouldn't as I hate poetry - and read one poem/day/language, and maybe (depending on time) have one novel as main book as well.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu Jul 14, 2022 7:57 am

I'm not quite reading in 3 foreign languages yet, but I am reading in 3 languages (Irish, French and English). What I do is just have different books going at the same time. I'm reading a book in each language, and I've found that that helps me keep them apart. The way I do this is resolve to read at least 10 pages a day in each of them. It's a small enough goal that it doesn't take too much time, and I often find myself reading more. But this gets me about 70 pages a week, so I can end up finishing three books in five weeks or so at average length. And, as said, it often ends up with me reading 20 pages or so in each one as opposed to just 10, so it goes quicker.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby Odair » Thu Jul 14, 2022 12:23 pm

Working one language at a time is all I can afford given my time constraints. In addition to reading I need to SRS new words, and do lots of listening to get enough repetition and reinforcement. My other languages only get some listening every once in a while. I hope to cycle to another language eventually, but it should take perhaps one or two years, as the language I am currently working on is the one I have most interest in levelling up.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby iguanamon » Thu Jul 14, 2022 1:13 pm

Reading books isn't the only way to keep up with reading in several languages. I use my own curated Twitter feed. I check it at some point everyday. I read in all my languages- tweets and their links, if I am interested enough. Having this saves me from just news sources. I chose the people and organizations to follow. There's always something to grab my attention- the culture of Catalunya, Brazil, Angola and Mozambique, Spain, Portugal, Sepharad, Haiti, St Lucia and Dominica. Thanks to my Twitter feed, I also read in Louisiana Creole and Aranés. I love trying to find cognates in Russian, deciphering French from time to time... and the occasional tweet in Italian.

With books, right now I am still reading books in Catalan but will be moving back into a rotation soon. I want to keep my momentum going in Catalan for now. I do find that reading a book does bring me a more focused time with a language than a long article does.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby BeaP » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:00 pm

I've tried several systems, none of them worked. I think it's important to see why someone reads in foreign languages. I mostly read for pleasure and out of curiosity / to know more about the world. I only read translations when the original is in a language that I don't know at all. My ultimate goal is to read good quality books in the original version.

In my experience reading novels improves my language skills very slowly, so textbook work and speaking or writing is much more beneficial even on higher levels. For example an hour of focused study with a Spanish textbook (that of course includes texts) is a better way to improve my Spanish than 5 hours of reading.

Nowadays I read whatever calls my attention, the language is not important. There are a lot of English books that I haven't read, just because I was concentrating on other languages. But I've realised that it's unnecessary to put pressure on myself and read things that I'm not interested in at the moment. I've also realised that I hate popular novels and poor language use, so I'm not forcing them on myself in my weaker languages anymore.

I mostly read e-books, and I have several books on my kindle at the same time. I'm trying not to read various books in parallel, because I want to concentrate on everything, I don't want to mix them up or forget about important details. I've also realised that I like to think about the meaning, the possible interpretations, which is an aspect that I neglected almost completely when language learning was my main goal.

To sum it up, I don't read to learn languages, I read because I have already learned some languages, and beside this I also learn languages. This makes any system unnecessary, systems are only important for those who view reading as a means. I'd like to enjoy what I've already achieved.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby Le Baron » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:09 pm

With books I'm not encumbered by the feeling of having to finish a book within any time contraint. So I can rotate relatively easily between books I'm reading. It doesn't bother me if I leave one unread for a few weeks or longer, I can pick it up again without much trouble.

If it could be a called a 'system' I read from one book in the morning (usually before or while eating breakfast); one in the afternoon when I take a break; one when I've finished eating in the evening; the last before or in bed.
In that way I can balance 4 languages, though means I have to let one lie fallow for a while. Usually it's English, French, Dutch/German interchangeably, then Spanish, the 'learning' L2.

Like Iguanamon I read the press too. Not every day without fail, but perusing it in a few languages just randomly. I read the Spanish press specifically for learning purposes; the others just normally which is a good way of exercising the language.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby Herodotean » Thu Jul 14, 2022 2:39 pm

I prioritize two languages: Greek and Latin, both of which I need to use regularly for professional reasons. At minimum, I read a few pages (5–10) per day in each of them, usually taking notes in English while consulting commentaries and other reference works. Needless to say, that slows me down. Recently I read through a complete work in Greek (300 pages), which took several months. Currently I’m reading a series of shorter works (5–20 pages each). Since my most intensive reading is in Greek, I gravitate towards lighter fare in Latin.

Theoretically, I could also be reading books in French, German, Spanish, and Italian. But since Greek and Latin take up most of my time for language work, in practice I end up reading a bit of German most days – not as much as I’d like – and listening to Spanish a few times per week. I read French and Italian when I need to for research purposes, but that’s about all the attention they get. (With the exception of this week, as I’ve started listening to some opera in Italian, but that of course isn’t really reading.)

So I suppose I have a kind of system, but it’s flexible: read Greek and Latin every day and read German almost every day (but unfortunately in low quantities). What I read in Greek, for now, is determined by what I need for research; what I read in Latin is largely up to me. In German, I rotate between scholarly works and short stories. Beyond that, I’m able to engage with other languages on a daily or semi-daily basis – like Spanish through listening – but I haven’t been able to add serious daily reading in a fourth foreign language. And I like to read in English too, but I don’t have much time left each day after Greek, Latin, and German.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:23 pm

I usually have two books going in parallel in two different languages, one fiction and one nonfiction. I read at minimum one or two books a year in each of my languages. And I try to read at least one article a week in each language.
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