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+--- Thread: Shall we have another thread about monodics? (/thread-4006.html)
Shall we have another thread about monodics? - igordesu - 2009-09-14
Hey guys
So, I’ve been using a monodic for about… a little over a month. –ish. In the beginning, I pretty much couldn’t understand any of the definitions, and now…I’m getting better.
My (mad)skill(z) increased dramatically during the first few weeks, mostly due to Khatz’ recommendation to look uber-simple words that you already know (I literally took his list of example simple words and looked them up; I was way better by the end of the list). I also started reading the first Harry Potter book (please don’t ridicule me, lol) sometime in mid-August.
Fast forward to today, and approximately 75% of all my lookups and defs are in the monodic. I can feel how my skill has increased up to this point, but I feel that I’ve sort of reached a plateau. I love monodic defs, and wish I could go completely monolingual, but… … …ugh.
This may be partly due to the fact that I pretty much completely ignore the even remotely uber-long definitions. You know? The ones where the word is only something simple like “influenza” but you don’t know that, so you get stuck reading 3 paragraphs of bogus that won’t get you anywhere in the end? Yeah, I ignore those and go to the bidic, but I feel guilty about it…And anyway, even if I understood those 3paragraphs, the problem would remain that I still don’t know that the word being defined really only means “influenza.”
Anyways, at this point, I’m getting better at reading. I’m about 3/4 finished with Fairy Potter----I mean, Harry Potter. (When I read, I just underline stuff that I think I might like to learn and move on, and then I come back later and pick the sentences. This way I’m able to separate my reading into “light reading” (for enjoyment / underlining) and “heavy reading” (monodicing and sentence picking)). I’d say I understand roughly 50-75% of the Potter book right now and have been able to easily follow the story along with a large majority of the “little details”
I guess what I’m asking is this: Do you think I should drop the bilingual dic completely at the expense of less time for normal reading and loooooots more angst and pain? (lol) Or should I just keep going the way I am right now and hope that one day I’ll be to just naturally, easily, and painlessly transition to full-blown monodicage? (lol) (Or perhaps I should do some more of that “looking up words you already know” stuff???...)
I eagerly await your response
Shall we have another thread about monodics? - igordesu - 2009-09-14
Nice. Thank you for the tips.
Actually, instead of doing the smartfm/KO deck thing, I actual just make sentences out of the recursively searched for definitions that I have on my sentence cards. That way...I sort get something that feels concrete out of using the monodic. But...maybe you're idea will be less of a hassle. I'll give it a try
Shall we have another thread about monodics? - mentat_kgs - 2009-09-14
Don't try to fix the right meaning in the first try. The meanings evolve over time.
Shall we have another thread about monodics? - igordesu - 2009-09-14
Yeah, but I'm not as dedicated as you'd think. My limit is about one or two recursive searches in before I resort to 英語.
I also do that other thing you said. When I don't understand every word in the definition but can understand the gist of it anyways, I just throw it in there and move on.