Listening-Reading (L-R) by chapter or by book

[Random Review]

it was too difficult for me with Chinese (I couldn't follow enough of the Chinese audio and couldn't use L2 text because of the characters)

Yeah, languages like Chinese/Japanese are very different, and you can't just tackle them head on, like you would a regular European language. The approach should take all these difficulties into account. Look at the way aYa approached Japanese:
http://users.bestweb.net/~siom/martian_ ... c346179174
Parallel texts in original Japanese (in kanji and in hiragana) + translations + line-by-line audio (cut with Audacity) organized in playlists to be able to listen to one sentence at a time on loop, and to the whole playlist of sentences at once. And she has already studied basics of grammar, kanas, kanji and radicals, phonetics. This is some preparation.

It goes something like this:
- listen to one sentence on loop, while trying to comprehend its structure (how many words?), grammar, meaning, sounds, pitch, intonation. Use text in kanji and spaced hiragana, translation and pop-up dictionary if necessary. After that, concentrate on kanji (while still listening), identify its components.
- do that with the next sentence. And the next one. After 20-30 sentences listen to the whole set of sentences (using the prepared m3u playlist) in a row, consulting the parallel texts, when necessary.
- continue like that until you reach the end. Then start from the beginning, this time only listening, and checking the text if you forget something.

That is very helpful, thank you!

[siouxchief]

I have come across the strategy to listen to L2 while reading L1 but that absolutely does not work for me. If I'm reading in L1 I do not pay attention to what I'm hearing if it doesn't match, so the audio is more of a distraction than anything else. To be honest, I'm kind of shocked that anyone can do this and actually pay attention to both things.

That's the key part of the method - you should pay most of your attention to the speech in L2, and just quickly skim trough the text in L1, using it as an aid in comprehending the audio (that's where step 1 is helpful - having read the text before, you should know the content of the book, so you can just remind yourself of what you've already read by quickly glancing at the text). The audio shouldn't be a distraction, it should be the main goal.
Not every one can do it easily. Especially if you haven't done this kind of activity before. The ability to read quickly is essential. Since I myself am not a fantastic reader, I make ample use of the pause button whenever I can't keep up with the narrator of the audiobook. At the beginning I just do it one sentence at a time: read a sentence, then play the audio and listen to it intently, then pause and read the next sentence, etc. As I slowly improve, I am able to listen to longer sequences of sentences (while glancing at the text) without pausing the audio.
Properly done L-R is no piece of cake, it's a pretty demanding task. You can't just passively listen, you should pay attention, quickly analyse what you hear, while at the same time reading the text and trying to attach the meaning of what you're reading to what you're hearing.

Oh, and another thing: the translation must be faithful to the original text. Especially if you're a beginner (in this case, it must be as literal as possible). Otherwise you can only rely on your already existing knowledge of L2 (and if you don't have it - you're screwed).

I do note, from Dragon27's post, what might be the actual key to aYa's undoubted success with language learning:

I worked ten to twelve hours a day.

Not many of us have that much free time to fully devote it to some intensive language-learning activity
And if you don't love what you're doing, don't get into the "flow" of the process, you won't be able hold on that much anyway.
L-R is still an intensive activity after all, and it quickly exhausts you. I try to plan it in advance (for my planned vacation), and prepare the necessary material (and my own self) so that I won't waste precious free time not knowing what I'm doing.
Once the stage of natural listening is reached, L-R is no longer necessary. You can work on you pronunciation, speaking and repeating after the recording, reading voraciously, writing and using the language, watching TV, etc.

Apologies for resurrecting an oldish thread but this technique seems to be what I use without even knowing it was some type of variation of the L+R method.

I use a great app named Beelinguapp which has stories with audio in L2 and the text in L1 and L2 next to it. You can click a sentence and loop it over and over until you understand it. I listen to L2 and see if I understand anything, then I read L2 where I'm stuck which also helps my reading and only if I'm super stuck will I refer to L1. This works for me.

I can now understand 30 mins of L2 audio without any text and my vocab is increasing. My question is how long would you do this for @Dragon27 and others?

I looked at the words and in that 30 mins there are 1,200 unique words although run, ran, running would be counted individually as well as j'adore, t'adore etc.

Anyhow I'm enjoying this listening approach so wondered what should I be aiming for, is it hitting 3K words or what would be your goal?

Thanks

[Dragon27]

Well, ideally, you do it until you reach the stage of what aYa called 'Natural Listening' - the ability to listen to new texts (at the level of difficulty about the same or slightly below the difficulty of texts you've been listening to while training your listening comprehension) without the help of translation or written text in L2 (using only your ears.. and brain).
The ultimate goal (after which L-R is no longer necessary) is the ability of Natural Listening to fairly difficult novels.

But what you actually do is for you to decide. We all have our own natural talents, interests, goals, etc.

[siouxchief]

Thanks for that. The one thing about the pure L+R method that confuses me is the reading in L1 first.

If I'm reading a story I feel like if I listen in L2 first and if I struggle understanding a sentence I can loop the audio and then I might retrieve from my brain 1 or 2 of the words which then helps me get the gist.

I can't help but feel listening first while reading L1 removes this seemingly useful brain retrieval bit. I feel retrieving the odd word firstly would make remembering the words in the long run more achievable but maybe I'm missing something.

Any opinions on this?

[Dragon27]

Thanks for that. The one thing about the pure L+R method that confuses me is the reading in L1 first.

You mean the first step: when you just read the text in L1, so you already know it well when you actually start listening-reading to audiobook?

If I'm reading a story I feel like if I listen in L2 first and if I struggle understanding a sentence I can loop the audio and then I might retrieve from my brain 1 or 2 of the words which then helps me get the gist.

I can't help but feel listening first while reading L1 removes this seemingly useful brain retrieval bit. I feel retrieving the odd word firstly would make remembering the words in the long run more achievable but maybe I'm missing something.

Any opinions on this?

If I understand you correctly, you feel like you'll achieve more if you just listen to the text in L2 without knowing it beforehand or helping yourself with translation and try to extract what you can (words, meaning), and look up "the answer" afterwards. To force your brain to work, instead of letting it become lazy by relying on translation.
Well, I don't know, sounds like you've already developed some listening comprehension skill. You're supposed to put more effort, attention to the audio, and only use written text when you actually struggle. On the other hand, reading translation first make the whole process faster and lets you work through more material in less time.
Try and see what you like more, I don't have the definite answer myself.

[siouxchief]

Yes you understood me perfectly in regards step 1. I listen to L2 and take a shot off listening to a paragraph of it to see if I can piece together some meaning.

Maybe because I'm doing children's stories and only a paragraph at a time I operate a bit differently to the pure LR way.

I then work on looping the paragraph until I can understand it without text then move onto the next paragraph until I finish the story and know it all via audio.

I guess you're right it would be slower than reading the L1 while listening but feels less like "cheating" but I do get the idea is to match the L1 to the L2 as it's being said.

Not sure I'm doing it the most efficiently but after 2 weeks and 30 mins of audio using Beelinguapp I can listen to it straight through without text. I think I'm happy with that.

[rdearman]

I don't believe that you're doing all the way that it was originally intended. You're supposed to be doing this not for a 30 minutes stand but for 12 hours a day. and the idea is that you overwhelm your brain with the language which you're listening to. The other thing is you're supposed to be listening and just using the text as a reference material rather than actually reading it. This isn't about intensive but extensive work.

I believe what you're doing it is called intensive listening.

[siouxchief]

Thanks a lot it is very interesting to hear what it is called. Do you think it is an efficient way to learn in comparison to the LR technique or is there some downsides I should be aware of before continuing further?

My plan was to build up to a few hours of audio and a few thousand words and hopefully get to a stage where I can listen to a lot without texts.

Thanks

[rdearman]

Thanks a lot it is very interesting to hear what it is called. Do you think it is an efficient way to learn in comparison to the LR technique or is there some downsides I should be aware of before continuing further?

My plan was to build up to a few hours of audio and a few thousand words and hopefully get to a stage where I can listen to a lot without texts.

Thanks

I don't think there is any downside. Just like Extensive vs Intensive reading they develop slightly different skills. For example if you're doing intensive reading you're looking up every word and increasing your vocabulary, you're looking at the grammatical structure and learning how sentences are formed. With extensive reading (just reading not looking up words unless you have too) you're learning to guess words in context and "hearing" the language in your head.

The only issue I can see is that you may struggle to understand native speakers. The problem with humans is they don't have rewind buttons. You have to understand what they say when they say it, and if you don't understand all of it you'll have to "fill in the blanks" as you go. This is the sort of thing extensive listening would help you to develop.

[siouxchief]

Appreciate the feedback, thanks