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

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

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jul 15, 2022 2:15 pm

Sprachprofi wrote: I could never imagine reading "a page a day" of each language because that interrupts any narrative arc and makes reading a chore.

Exactly!!! It is disruptive, and it is imho one of the top reasons behind many intermediate learners giving up on reading. They hear the well meant "a little bit every day" advice, suffer into the "shock" phase of their brain getting used to facing a foreign text every day, but never give themselves enough time to get through it and really dive into a story.


So my reading is pretty wild and unsystematic. A lot of English because I need to read the latest books on politics/economics as soon as they come out. A lot of target language reading because it feels more productive - I can file that time under "reading time" AND "foreign language time".

YES!

The asap issue is a real one. But other than that, I often value the double filing more than reading in original. If I could get foreign translations of Czech fantasy authors, I would read those too probably :-D

jimmy wrote:these days, I read the books only from my desktop in .pdf forms. :) :)

I would love to read much more .epub books, especially with Readlang. But Geoblocking is a huge problem. What I want is often not findable on pirate sites, and I am not allowed to just buy it :-( Geoblocking should really be outlawed just like other forms of discrimination, for start at least within the EU.

But even though I crave digital books and readlang, I still get the most pleasure from paper. Yeah, I am too lazy to look up stuff, note it, put it to anki, from a paper book. But it is the medium that gets me the easily drawn into the content.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby jimmy » Fri Jul 15, 2022 3:30 pm

Yeah, I am too lazy to look up stuff

if you are happy (in fact ,like me) ,then the laziness is not probelem (probably at all) ,lets see why?

I have too much hardworking personality ...(in fact I am ambitious instead) but...I am still complaining ..
I have left my nice and sweet mother for a while these days to better work on arabic, but ..
I am complaining as stated. neck pains also arise to back (pains) and these really make everything like a good torture. (sometimes not leaving from the tabletop up to 24 hours a day ,interestingly I sometimes complain from the existing time amount in a day in hours There should not only 24 hours in a ady ,I need more. :) :) :)

maybe I should or need to go antarctica ? :) :) there are 6 month in a day exactly :)
I presume , everything has its specific dosage... unfortnately I cannot set it well or it seems so.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:13 pm

Cavesa wrote:
Sprachprofi wrote: I could never imagine reading "a page a day" of each language because that interrupts any narrative arc and makes reading a chore.

Exactly!!! It is disruptive, and it is imho one of the top reasons behind many intermediate learners giving up on reading. They hear the well meant "a little bit every day" advice, suffer into the "shock" phase of their brain getting used to facing a foreign text every day, but never give themselves enough time to get through it and really dive into a story.


So my reading is pretty wild and unsystematic. A lot of English because I need to read the latest books on politics/economics as soon as they come out. A lot of target language reading because it feels more productive - I can file that time under "reading time" AND "foreign language time".

YES!

Hmm. Currently a broken 3rd metacarpal on my right hand and accompanying brace prevents me, who introduced this notion, from defending it adequately, especially against two of this forum's most accomplished and respected language learners, let me just say a month or two ago I finished the Spanish translation La novela de Genji. It is approximately 1400 pages, and I read it for the most part one page a day. And yes it did take 4+ years to finish. The fascinating characters and events always get me going back for more.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby jimmy » Fri Jul 15, 2022 7:31 pm

Gosh!

I have to congratulate myself!
English is the third language and Arabic is the fourth and I can read more than 10 English pages in a day .
Arabic?
I think... just one page currently.

I think reading on computer may better work as you can easily reach a dictionary over the net.
Now, I understand my primary school maths teacher : she said : "the shortest way , the best it is"
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby rdearman » Fri Jul 15, 2022 10:47 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
Cavesa wrote:
Sprachprofi wrote: I could never imagine reading "a page a day" of each language because that interrupts any narrative arc and makes reading a chore.

Exactly!!! It is disruptive, and it is imho one of the top reasons behind many intermediate learners giving up on reading. They hear the well meant "a little bit every day" advice, suffer into the "shock" phase of their brain getting used to facing a foreign text every day, but never give themselves enough time to get through it and really dive into a story.


So my reading is pretty wild and unsystematic. A lot of English because I need to read the latest books on politics/economics as soon as they come out. A lot of target language reading because it feels more productive - I can file that time under "reading time" AND "foreign language time".

YES!

Hmm. Currently a broken 3rd metacarpal on my right hand and accompanying brace prevents me, who introduced this notion, from defending it adequately, especially against two of this forum's most accomplished and respected language learners, let me just say a month or two ago I finished the Spanish translation La novela de Genji. It is approximately 1400 pages, and I read it for the most part one page a day. And yes it did take 4+ years to finish. The fascinating characters and events always get me going back for more.

Better one page per day, than "none" page per day. We don't have to be perfect, just better than yesterday.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby jimmy » Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:18 pm

oh , it seem I had better remove my congratulations .
because it seems there are differences between implications.
I only implied the abilty (not the done action)
so, I do not read even one page of Arabic in this regard. (not sure for English)
because now I see "everyday act" is implied.(i.e. habit)
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby Le Baron » Fri Jul 15, 2022 11:22 pm

rdearman wrote:Better one page per day, than "none" page per day. We don't have to be perfect, just better than yesterday.

Better than nothing yes, but perhaps in some cases not really enough. Or rather not the best approach for enjoyable learning. At the start of a language even a page can be exhausting, but it's why I reject page counting because there's a tendency to project this as 5000 or whatever pages, but at a page a day... Slow steady could win the race (okay it's not a race), but you don't want to die of natural causes halfway.

There's also that thing of choosing enormous books. Baffling. When I sat at my dad's tailoring table learning to sew, he didn't start me off on a morning coat and say: 'let's see where this is in 5 years'! I made pockets, then trousers, then a waistcoat....

I seek out books at max 200 pages (and preferably 150 -175), slightly larger type, short chapters. That way you don't want to just read a page a day, you want more and you can manage more. I don't even want to read a 1000-page book in English. I have done and probably would again if I thought it was really worth the investment, but in a foreign language I'm actually learning? No thanks. When I started reading German it wasn't Hegel or Die Blechtrommel. I wanted to actually learn not die.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby einzelne » Sat Jul 16, 2022 3:21 am

Le Baron wrote:Better than nothing yes, but perhaps in some cases not really enough.


Definitely, this is not the scenario I had in mind when I asked my question. Although I can see how this approach might be valid when you study Ancient Greek. Or read something like Paradise Lost, as a non native speaker.

I think I should clarify my situation. When I start a language (I have dealt only with Romance and Germanic languages so far, i.e. I have no experience with more complex and demanding languages), I try to devote all of my free time in order to build a firm foundation as quick as possible. This phase doesn't take a lot of time, so I don't mind to devote all my free time to a language for several months.

The dilemma of time administration appears later when you start reading in you L2 extensively. Grammar is no longer an issue, it's thousands and thousands of words and expressions you need to master in order to read comfortably without a dictionary. It's a long process which take years. I don't know about others but for me in order to steadily grow you vocabulary you need to engage with a language over a long period of time. When you work on your first language, it's usually not a problem, and I could relatively easy combine two languages. With three things started to get complicated. With my forth language things really started to collapse — I love reading in Italian, there are tons of books I'm eager to read right now ), yet at the same time I'm also interested in expanding my vocabulary in German, French and even, although to a lesser degree, in English, since I'm nowhere near to the level I could comfortably read Grass level of complexity books in German and French.

Listening to podcasts or audiobooks works great for maintenance, but personally I can only expand my vocabulary via reading.

Anyways, thank y'all for your feedback! It's been really fascinating to read your stories!
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby BeaP » Sat Jul 16, 2022 8:56 am

To widen the circle, you could also ask how people manage to watch TV series in 3+ languages. It's basically the same, learning through input. I need 3-4 hours of daily input if I skip intensive learning with textbooks. (For me, reading 10 pages or watching 30 minutes is almost like doing nothing, I can't improve with so little.) With 3+ languages it would mean 12 hours a day at least. How could I organise this? A very disciplined learner (not me) could spend 1 hour of intensive, focused work with a textbook or a tutor on each language, and improve in all of them. Doing this through reading books? I don't think it's realistic. I'd say this type of approach is only possible if you learn each language up to a very high level before starting the next one. C1-C2 languages don't really require maintenance, especially if reading in them is your main goal.

After 20 years I can still read anything in English. By now I've achieved the same level in Spanish, so I could move on to the next one. If I wanted to read say Eco in Italian in the 'near' future (5 years), could I continue reading in Spanish or take up English again? No, I couldn't really, there would be no time for that. If Eco is my goal, I need to focus on Italian and work hard. A similar situation: you can't go to 3 universities at the same time, but you can get several degrees one after the other if you want. Also, even if you wanted to read these novels in Russian translation, you wouldn't be able to read everything at the same time. You'd be quicker, yes, but a lot of things would need to wait anyway. To some extent, this is a problem of patience. We can't have it all.

You can stop a textbook anytime, you can cut it up to pieces, but you can't really do this with a novel. I've realised that I missed a lot of important English novels during studying Spanish, and I started to read Against the Day, which is around 1200 pages. (I can hear Le Baron shouting.) There's no way I can finish this book, unless I dedicate most of my free time to reading. If I stop, I forget the details, I can't take it up again after 2 months, because I won't remember what happened. These books require your concentration, time and energy. (By the way, I don't know if I'll finish it, but so far it's very entertaining.) Long books are a different experience. They're like a museum, you sometimes stop in front of a painting, sit down, then go on, walk around, contemplate things.
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Re: How do you organize your reading if you happen to read in 3+ foreign languages?

Postby jimmy » Sat Jul 16, 2022 11:07 am

BeaP wrote:To widen the circle, you could also ask how people manage to watch TV series in 3+ languages. It's basically the same, learning through input. I need 3-4 hours of daily input if I skip intensive learning with textbooks. (For me, reading 10 pages or watching 30 minutes is almost like doing nothing, I can't improve with so little.) With 3+ languages it would mean 12 hours a day at least.
.


are you hardworking like me or ambitious,
oh, I am afraid ,I need to remind you that currently there are only 24 hours in a day. :) :)
(Plus : sleeping at least 7 hours (daily) + leaving a flexible time for eating / meals , and some other activities ...the equation potentially cannot be resolved in that way :))
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