Reading 3.000.000 words in German

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slowmoon
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby slowmoon » Thu Feb 13, 2020 10:38 pm

tungemål wrote:How many words would you say you looked up, approximately?


Sorry, I can't even guess that number. It varies too much.

Frankly, I'm learning a lot of useless words. For example, there are a lot of animals mentioned in both Harry Potter and Animorphs. Not just bird, but Waldkauz, Fischadler, and Rotschwanzbussard. Literally 0 of the Leipzig and Dialang test words were animals. And, really, those words aren't terribly useful at the moment.

Today, I came across words like Schattenwolf, Streitroß, and Hain. These are words that won't help me on a B2 exam, but I need to recognize them passively to understand the particular book I'm reading because they appear on every other page.
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby Cenwalh » Fri Feb 14, 2020 8:40 am

slowmoon wrote:1.000.000 Words Read Update

Second Leipzig Test Result: 118/150 correct
Dialang Reading Test Result: B1

Notes:

1. Both tests indicate that my reading level is around B1. This seems about right.
2. 108/150 -> 118/150 was not much of an improvement. Maybe not significant at all.
3. Maybe I would've made more progress with graded readers and deliberate study with flashcards, but I just don't want to do that.
4. It seems unlikely that I will reach nine thousand word families by reading two million more words, but perhaps B2 is possible.
5. We continue.


I think whilst the increase seems small, you shouldn't discount it. Frequency lists are corpus dependent, and it's clear that your personal corpus is translated fictional and biographical books from English. That you haven't made much of a gain in this small sample doesn't mean that you won't have made a significant gain in a corpus specific frequency list. To illustrate my point, here's a sample from around the 5000 most frequent words made by wordfrequency.info showing the frequency a word showed up in their COCA+ corpus depending on media type. As you can see many words vary a lot between media and some are 10x or more likely to show up in one medium than another. This point is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that you're reading mostly in translation, and translators often try to use words that convey a direct meaning, even if they're not as common in the language they're being translated into.
Dispersion of frequency across media.PNG


It's clear you've made significant progress both with speed and comprehension, so I wouldn't sweat it that you haven't increased the number of words known in this small sample as you don't know their methodology for sure (although it seems to be based on the Routledge dictionary which gives equal waiting to spoken, literature, newspapers and academic writing, and the spoken part is very academically waited), and you might have got unlucky with the sample.

Good luck for 3 million!
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slowmoon
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby slowmoon » Fri Feb 14, 2020 11:32 am

Cenwalh wrote:Frequency lists are corpus dependent, and it's clear that your personal corpus is translated fictional and biographical books from English. That you haven't made much of a gain in this small sample doesn't mean that you won't have made a significant gain in a corpus specific frequency list.


I agree. My personal corpus isn't diverse or representative. If I wanted to fill in the gaps in my core vocabulary, it looks like material from the Academic corpus would be a good supplement.
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reineke
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby reineke » Sat Feb 15, 2020 5:12 am

The Leipzig test is based on a corpus of contemporary German. It tests the 5000 most frequent words in German. My German is 95% TV German and I passed both Leipzig and Dialang. A 10% increase on the first test looks like a significant improvement to me. You can try arealme test. I find it to be a good litmus test for finer changes in vocabulary proficiency. I would disregard the final estimate.

You need to double check your sources and estimates. Assuming a target of 12 reps a reader who has assimilated most of the words in the 8000-family level would need to cover 3 000 000 words to have the opportunity to learn the words in the 9000- family level. In order to reach the 4000-family level from the 3000-family level the reader would need to cover 500,000 words. The reader needs to cover 1000 000 words to move from the 4000 to the 5000- family level assuming 12 reps are sufficient for his or her learning needs. This is sort of roughly reflected in your result. It's impossible to be precise here and your speed reading may not be doing you favors.

Looking from a starting point in the 5000-family level and assuming 12 repetitions you could be looking at a target of 9 000 000 words of pleasurable reading in order to achieve a high proficiency target in the 9000-family level. Pleasurable reading and adequate comprehension may be achieved with 95% coverage.

Nation (2014) estimated that readers can move from elementary levels of vocabulary in a second language (of 2000 word families)to a "very high level"(of 9000 word families)after a total 1,223 hours of reading [150 wpm]. Source: Krashen and Mason (2017) .

According to Krashen and Mason (2017), a reader whose native language is far removed from English can move "from the bottom of the "Elementary Proficiency" level to the threshold of the "International Proficiency" in three years of relaxed, self-selected pleasure reading, assuming .6 points gained per hour [TOEIC] and about an hour of reading per day(total 1095 hours)". The readers used a combination of adapted readers and young adult literature. The most advanced reader used popular literature. You're definitely at that level.
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Feb 15, 2020 12:36 pm

Re: increase in vocabulary size.

The "test your [english] vocab" website did some analysis of their results.

Adult native test-takers learn almost 1 new word a day until middle age

Foreign test-takers learn 2.5 new words a day while living in an English-speaking country

Native test-taker children who read "lots" learn 4 new words a day
Native test-taker children who read "somewhat" learn 2.5 new words a day
Native test-taker children who read "not much" learn 1.5 new words a day

https://web.archive.org/web/20190309122 ... .com/blog/
Last edited by DaveAgain on Sun Jul 17, 2022 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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slowmoon
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby slowmoon » Sat Feb 15, 2020 6:35 pm

reineke wrote:You can try arealme test. I find it to be a good litmus test for finer changes in vocabulary proficiency. I would disregard the final estimate.


arealme's German test:

21634 Top 7.28%. Your vocabulary is at the level of professional white-collars in Germany!


Dialang

Feedback: Wortschatztest
Ihr Ergebnis:682

Auf dieser Niveaustufe verfügt man bereits über einen umfangreichen Wortschatz. Man kann alle Situationen sprachlich bewältigen und hat nur geringe Schwierigkeiten, Texte in der Fremdsprache zu lesen. Allerdings kann es noch Probleme geben, gesprochene Sprache zu verstehen.


https://wortschatz.tk/

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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby reineke » Sun Feb 16, 2020 1:05 pm

Thank you for taking the tests.

Dialang
400 - 600 Good basic vocabulary
600-900 advanced learners with a substantial vocabulary

Typically only advanced learners will have enough left over after a 10-year break to be able to zoom through native materials. Your intro is misleading and while thanks to Lawyer&Mom's ("Mom") intervention we have learned that you studied some German 10 years ago the reader may still easily conclude that you' re a "false beginner".

While I partially agree with Mom's optimistic view of cognate languages we do have native English speakers stuck in the German A2 rut even after a considerable learning effort. Without a good before/after overview and performance checks this experiment may prove to be another meaningless ode to extensive reading and one that' s also misleading and demotivating to other learners.
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slowmoon
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby slowmoon » Sun Feb 16, 2020 11:47 pm

Week 5 Update

Dinge von großer Bedeutung sollten gelassen angegangen werden.

- Fürst Naoshige


Reading

Frank Herbert: Der Wüstenplanet, pages 262-280
Gary Paulsen: Allein in der Wildnis, 1-185
Joanne Rowling: Harry Potter und der Feuerkelch, pages 220-260
Tsunetomo Yamamoto: Hagakure, pages 1-73
Robert Lawrence Stine: Ausgelöscht, pages 1-150
Robert Lawrence Stine: Tödliche Liebschaften, 1-30
Robert Lawrence Stine: Endstation Gruseln 1-20
George Raymond Richard Martin: Das Lied von Eis und Feuer, 1-35

552 pages or ~138.000 words.

Starting now, I will update once every two weeks. Finding content that I want to read is becoming difficult. Familiar stuff translated from English is comprehensible but boring. Original, unfamiliar German literature is incomprehensible, but potentially interesting. It seems I have no choice but to slow down and try to read more difficult books more intensively.
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slowmoon
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby slowmoon » Mon Mar 02, 2020 3:27 am

Weeks 6-7 Update

Der Schurke blendete mit höchster Könnerschaft, verwirrte den Geruchssinn mit perfekter Harmonie, ein Wolf im Schafspelz klassischer Geruchskunst war dieser Mensch, mit einem Wort: ein Scheusal mit Talent. Und das war schlimmer als ein Pfuscher mit dem rechten Glauben.

- Giuseppe Bardini


Reading

Patrick Süskind: Das Parfum, pages 1-308
Frank Schätzing: Der Schwarm, pages 4-97
Thilo Sarrazin: Deutschland schafft sich ab, pages 1-183
Joanne Rowling: Harry Potter und der Feuerkelch 261-699

1024 pages or ~256.000 words.

Notes

1. I mispronounced the word "Parfum" in my head (subvocalization) about 100 times while reading Das Parfum. Only after finishing did I discover the correct pronunciation. Will this influence my pronunciation? We'll see.

2. Das Parfum is a very, very good book, although it was too difficult for me to read extensively. I probably looked up 15-20 words per page. But it turned out to be one of my all-time favorite books.

3. I'm now mixing intensive reading with extensive reading. Mainly because the young adult stuff gets boring. I also want to read more non-fiction to get used to that style of writing.
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Re: Reading 3.000.000 words in German

Postby Sparverius » Mon Mar 02, 2020 4:29 am

Are these all hard copies that you're finding in real life or are you reading digitally? My problem is that I only have access to so much engaging material before I have to start reading from a computer and that's much less engaging for a long period of time.
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