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+--- Thread: For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog (/thread-5965.html)
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - yudantaiteki - 2010-07-21
Some of the resistance to this idea comes because it seems like this is being proposed as a magic bullet, complete language learning method, rather than just one activity among many.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - pm215 - 2010-07-21
nadiatims Wrote:On the other hand because English and Japanese aren't very close there aren't very many L1 cognates, and I suspect that if L-R works less well for Japanese than French it will be because there are fewer matches and near-matches in vocab to pick up on.yudantaikteki Wrote:It seems to me this would produce better results in a language that is close to your native language (like learning another European language) because you can pick up on the grammar patterns much more easily.I think you're misunderstanding the mechanism by which L-R should work. It's not about matching up the grammar of the L2 and L1 so differences in grammar shouldn't really be an issue. The idea is to read the L1 text, and have the meaning firmly in mind while listening to the L2. At first you are just keeping pace by picking up on character names and L1 cognates, then slowly guessing the meaning of other words as they are repeated and gradually internalizing the patterns for placement of different parts of speech, etc.
So I think yudantaiteki may be right but for the wrong reasons :-)
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - yudantaiteki - 2010-07-21
Well, look at the first few sentences of Harry Potter in English and Japanese:
Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.
プリベット通り四番地の住人ダーズリー夫妻は、「おかげさまで、私どもはどこからみてもまともな人間です」と言うのが自慢だった。不思議とか神秘とかそんな非常識はまるっきり認めない人種で、まか不思議な出来事が彼らの周辺で起こるなんて、とうてい考えられなかった。
I don't see how you can get the Japanese sentence patterns just from the English translation. The original post mentions that literal translations are better, but you can't get those for many literature works. Of course if you listen to these sentences over and over again you will eventually be able to "hear" the sentences and understand what they mean, in the sense that you can remember the English as you hear the Japanese. But does that really allow you to understand these words and patterns when you see them again in other contexts?
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
@yudantaiteki, there is far too much audio to memorize and fool oneself that they have learned what each sentence in the book means. What happens for me is that every pass I pick up more and more vocabulary until whole sentences (on their own) begin to make sense. The translation serves as an anchor. I can tell when I know and understand a sentence in L2.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - Groot - 2010-07-21
Hmm, I asked earlier in the thread where I might find the Harry Potter audiobook, but no one has replied. Is Amazon.jp the only option?
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
Quick question for those who may know... Are there any audiobooks recorded in Japanese of works by Nietzsche? I'd love to experiment with German-Japanese L-R as well.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
Sorry Groot, I am easily distracted and didn't mean to ignore you. I'll get you a link as soon as I can.
Try googling: オーディオブック 第一巻 ハリー・ポッターと賢者の石 You should find some stores that can ship to you
Here's one store: http://www.jbook.co.jp/p/p.aspx/2351392/s/
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - Lyulf - 2010-07-21
I meant to ask this question yesterday but I forgot. Digitlhand is it better to just read L1 listen to L2 for a couple of hours at a time or should I split it up? What I mean is that would it be better to just read and listen for 4 hours or read and listen for half an hour take a break and then read for another half an hour.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
According to the original author of the method, longer chunks are better. I don't have the time to do long chunks of L1 reading L2 listening, so I do it when I can and listen to L2 as much as I can the rest of the day.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - oregum - 2010-07-21
@Lyulf. I just started using the method 8 days ago. Before I settled on what I'm currently doing I tried a bunch or variations using several different texts/audio.
Sentences at a times & paragraph at a time - I found both to be annoying. Switching between texts was too much of a hassle, and pausing the audio all the time was interruptive.
Parallel Texts - Just as annoying, since the translation was always there, it was distracting.
Page at a time - Not too bad, but pages don't usually line up, so this was also too much hassle to use.
Chapter at a time - I like this the most. Chapters are long enough to not false memorize lines (thinking I understand something), but short enough to remember most of the details.
I spend two days on each chapter. On day two, I feel like I'm picking up words and expressions.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
@oregum, did you get a chance to try passive listening later the same day? How did that go if you did?
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - oregum - 2010-07-21
I've experimented extensively with pasive listening in the past. However, I have not tried it with the LR materials. Based on my experience, there is no reason to believe it's not effective.
Sometime ago I went through Jpod intermediate s1 using passive listening exclusively. At the end I pretty much knew everything covered by each lesson. I realize that it is not the same, because Jpod is language-lesson based, but I think parallels can be made.
Intermediate S1 is about 30 dialogue based lessons that follow reoccurring characters in an ongoing story. (much like in a book) The lessons are structured like this: dialoge, dialogue w/ translations, commentary (reading in L1 of the LR method is comparable to dialogue w. translations sections).
I listened to the lessons a couple at a time at first, then just played the whole season on replay. I didn't use the transcripts, I didn't bother focusing, I didn't even pay attention most of the time. But, at the end of the experiment I could understand virtually everything.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
Interesting @oregum. I realize that it is a personal question but if you'd like to share, how would you rate your comprehension ability in Japanese?
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - bladethecoder - 2010-07-21
Aijin Wrote:In terms of efficiency, my opinion and personal experiences is that a student gains maximum efficiency by working with material which is both at their level in terms of comprehension, and gradually pushes them so that there is the constant ascent in terms of skill. A beginner student who works with beginner material they are comfortable with, then gradually moves up the ladder of difficulty, progressing into intermediate, then advanced, practically always gains more skill–and more quickly–than a beginner student who overreaches themselves and drowns trying to swim in material with too much grammar and vocabulary that they can't comprehend.I wasn't L-R-ing at the time, but in French I found that referring to a translation helped me understand texts that would otherwise have been far above my level.
I suppose what I don't understand about this method is how the listening comprehension skills gained are different from what you'd gained just by doing normal listening comprehension. I think it might be more efficient and better for rounding all the different listening skills by just doing normal listening comprehension: conversations, dialogues, music, movies, shows, etc. Audio books are also a wonderful form of media for training listening comprehension, but I just don't really comprehend how using translations etc. whilst listening to them would improve a student's listening comprehension more than listening to hundreds of short recorded dialogues and media clips designed for learners, for example.
Audio books have some major advantages. They tend to be a lot more interesting than "beginner material". They provide very dense input from constant speech. And they are longer; see the next point.
Regarding balance or variety of input, I believe it may be more efficient to focus on a large quantity of one type and then branch out later. Even several books by the same author. While a work may seem very complicated at first sight, each author has their favourite vocab and grammar patterns that repeat often. This article may be of interest:
http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/narrow/all.html
iSoron Wrote:Quite true. But one type of input helps with the others, so they are easier than they would have been. In French again, focussing on literature for a while significantly improved my comprehension of internet chatspeak.Blahah Wrote:2. Using any one fiction book would be silly, or only books by a single author, but using a few would with different styles would get you to a level where you could start to consume other media easily. This would give balance to the style bias of your learning.Good luck trying to understand live TV shows or the news after getting used to literary audio books [or any other single media]. You can only consume easily what you consume regularly.
It's also not true that after a couple literary books you'll be able to read other literary books easily. Every time I read a new author, there are lots of vocab and grammar patterns I'm not familiar with; the first few pages are always somewhat hard to read; and I have already read [and understand] quite a few books, from different authors.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
Thanks for the article @bladethecoder. Krashen seems to hit all points I found experimenting with L-R. I wish I could get Lord of The Rings in Japanese. I could listen to that for a year over and over.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - Lyulf - 2010-07-21
oregum Wrote:@Lyulf. I just started using the method 8 days ago. Before I settled on what I'm currently doing I tried a bunch or variations using several different texts/audio.I'm going to go through the book once before I start breaking the book down into chapters. So far I'm on chapter 6. I have learned a few words though so it's not that bad. Going to wait a few hours before I start reading again. Just waiting for the night to come which will hopefully make my room cooler.
Sentences at a times & paragraph at a time - I found both to be annoying. Switching between texts was too much of a hassle, and pausing the audio all the time was interruptive.
Parallel Texts - Just as annoying, since the translation was always there, it was distracting.
Page at a time - Not too bad, but pages don't usually line up, so this was also too much hassle to use.
Chapter at a time - I like this the most. Chapters are long enough to not false memorize lines (thinking I understand something), but short enough to remember most of the details.
I spend two days on each chapter. On day two, I feel like I'm picking up words and expressions.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - socrat - 2010-07-21
I've started playing with the method, but to me it's just reading and listening which is what I do anyway. So as long as it's Japanese it sounds good.
Listening is also my weak pt. Feel like I can read a lot of stuff, but can't make out a simple podcast.I don't believe anything in Japanese is too hard for beginners. In other words there are no "levels". There just words you know and words you don't. If you find a word interesting then learn it. Works for me.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - oregum - 2010-07-21
digitlhand Wrote:Interesting @oregum. I realize that it is a personal question but if you'd like to share, how would you rate your comprehension ability in Japanese?It kind of difficult to gauge because we both need the same reference point to approximate levels. However, since I used Jpod in my previous example, you can say that I am at their Upper Intermediate level.
I should also mention that I haven't studied Japanese during the past year. After completing the Jpod intermediate (s1 & half of s2) last summer, I did nothing with my Japanese until mid May of this year.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - Aijin - 2010-07-21
While difficulty is subjective, it is a reality that is hard to ignore. For comprehension words are not more innately more difficult by their phonetic construction, nor the complexity of the characters they're written with, but the application of their meaning and how commonly they are heard. 私 is ranked as a common word because the student will have constant exposure to it, which acts in turn as constant reinforcement to the word. More complex and uncommon words, 手持無沙汰 for example, will be seldom heard in one's lifetime, and thus require for second language learners constant self-enforced-exposure in order to keep it in memory.
In the works of some 20th century authors for example, one may find not only hundreds of rare words that only very comprehensive dictionaries would even have, but also archaic kanji usage that they will not encounter often in their exposure, due to it being either the writing style of the specific author, or singular in its time period so as to be no longer used.
As for difficulty of grammar, while many grammatical aspects aren't necessarily 'harder' than other ones, many require previous knowledge to be able to use. Causative-passive form is considered more complex than causative form in that it requires both the knowledge of causative form, as well as the additional knowledge of passive form, for example.
But there are certainly techniques that take a lot of training for second language learners years to develop well. Processing Japanese sentences, for example is something that can be incredibly difficult for students, as a sentence in Japanese can last entire pages, composing the material of an entire paragraph in English. To be able to mentally process such long sentences, and understand all their constant, the relationships between modifiers, and all other elements, is something that is quite advanced. There is no comparison between written material that requires those types of skills, compared to a children's book with only simple sentences, for example.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-21
Quote:Processing Japanese sentences, for example is something that can be incredibly difficult for students, as a sentence in Japanese can last entire pages, composing the material of an entire paragraph in English.I remember sentences like this in German, they seemed very daunting at first. After L-R though they weren't as impossible as they looked. It may have to do with the fact that once natural listening is achieved, one doesn't (at least not I) translate from one language to the other, one simply reads the sentence in the native language and understands it in their mind. I may be wrong with Japanese but I expect similar results. I don't expect to see these types of sentences until I've read many novels I like in English and German that I'd like to reread in Japanese.
Out of curiosity what does 手持無沙汰 mean?
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - Thora - 2010-07-21
digitlhand, I'm back. aarrrr ;-) How about including in your blog a description of your LR method (and how it might deviate from the original method)? The method creator was not particularly clear or consistent and folks seem to have devised their own versions. Interested people would be happy not to have to wade through all that stuff.
Some observations that might interest people starting the method:
Text format: The method creator initially said parallel texts for Japanese should have 3 columns: regular Japanese, kana with spaces, and English. More recently, however, she explained that she had instead used regular Japanese with a pop up dictionary (essential item #1). By looking up each new word, she was able to understand fragments. This surprised me. It's very different from acquiring vocab through pure massive exposure.
Grammar: She also explains that a good grammar reference is essential item #2. Again, not acquisition of grammar purely through massive exposure.
Shadowing: The advice is to defer shadowing until after "natural listening" is achieved and various pronunciation drills are completed. (A pronunciation guide is essential item #3.) But the when and what are fuzzy.
"Natural listening stage": lots of confusion even though it's a critical turning point in the method. The method creator describes it as being
Quote:able to understand NEW recorded texts, usually simpler than the ones you have „listened-read”, relying only on your "ears", that is not using any written texts, neither the original nor the translation.Based on her experience with "hundreds of people", this takes 20-30 hrs of new texts, but sometimes can be achieved in as little as 10 hours. This doesn't appear to be what people are experiencing. (btw, 40-80 hrs was also mentioned.)
Reading: Reading alone is considered harmful (unless one's pronunciation is near perfect.) hmm. Harry Potter should be a last resort, according to the creator, b/c it's poorly translated and not "real literature". (we can only learn from hi-brow stuff?) :-) Also, as briano mentioned, RTK actually seems like a perfect compliment to LR.
Time: Like digitlhand, most folks seem to be opting for 2-6 hours rather than 10-12 hours per day. Even the method creator points out there's no need to maintain 10-hr days once the "natural listening stage" is reached.
So there appears to be some confusion regarding the method's process and justifications. [ie I'd encourage those starting out to feel comfortable using a mix of techniques rather than aiming for some pure RL method at this point.]
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - oregum - 2010-07-22
digitlhand Wrote:Out of curiosity what does 手持無沙汰 mean?手持ち - (something) on hand
無沙汰 - not contacting in a while
手持ち無沙汰 - bored (I picture idle hands)
@Thora. I'm not convinced that the guidelines for the original method should be followed for Japanese. I'd like to know digitlhand's experience after a month or two.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-22
Quote:Text format: The method creator initially said parallel texts for Japanese should have 3 columns: regular Japanese, kana with spaces, and English. More recently, however, she explained that she had instead used regular Japanese with a pop up dictionary (essential item #1). By looking up each new word, she was able to understand fragments. This surprised me. It's very different from acquiring vocab through pure massive exposure.First I can say that she may have written one thing and then written something different somewhere else because it is really easy to forget what one does week to week, especially if one changes the way they use L-R until they find what works for them.
Personally speaking, I don't think I'll be doing the electronic method of quickly finding out what a word means. I like to, if possible, let the word keep coming up on its own until I figure out its meaning or can look it up in a monolingual dictionary. I spend most of my time listening throughout the day, so it would be hard to work on the text until I've gotten to natural listening.
Quote:Grammar: She also explains that a good grammar reference is essential item #2. Again, not acquisition of grammar purely through massive exposure.I think most people would agree, here at least, that Tae Kim's grammar guide would be the one to use. I won't be using it until I've L-R'd for at 3 to 6 months. I find that grammar sticks better when I can understand the example sentences and without the vocabulary to back the sentences up, I find that I forget them easily.
Quote:Shadowing: The advice is to defer shadowing until after "natural listening" is achieved and various pronunciation drills are completed. (A pronunciation guide is essential item #3.) But the when and what are fuzzy.I can see the point of doing pronunciation drills for certain languages, I know that it would help many monolinguals "open" their ears to new sounds that the mouth can make. I find that friends who can impersonate actors and foreigners pay attention to the way the sounds come out of someone's mouth, so for those types it may not be that beneficial. Regardless, I don't see a reason to avoid Shadowing, especially after 20 hours of pure listening. If one uses in-ear headphones, one can tell when the sound wasn't mimicked properly and adjust.
Quote:"Natural listening stage": lots of confusion even though it's a critical turning point in the method. The method creator describes it as being able to understand NEW recorded texts, usually simpler than the ones you have „listened-read”, relying only on your "ears", that is not using any written texts, neither the original nor the translation.I would have said that the original author was wrong on how long it takes to achieve natural listening, because with German and Swedish it took me around 200 hours to finally achieve it; however, sticking closer to the method with French, I find that I am so close to achieving natural listening with a quarter of that time spent L-R. It can be that depending on the language it varies person to person. For Japanese I hope to achieve natural listening around 200-300 hours. Essentially what happens then is that your "listening-mind" sort of shifts into the other language and one stops really translating in their head. New words are much easier to remember, sort of like when my daughters learn a new word.
Based on her experience with "hundreds of people", this takes 20-30 hrs of new texts, but sometimes can be achieved in as little as 10 hours. This doesn't appear to be what people are experiencing. (btw, 40-80 hrs was also mentioned.)
Quote:Reading: Reading alone is considered harmful (unless one's pronunciation is near perfect.) hmm.I agree 100 percent with this point... I don't want the little voice in my head to be reading for me until I've gotten to the point of natural listening.
Quote:Harry Potter should be a last resort, according to the creator, b/c it's poorly translated and not "real literature". (we can only learn from hi-brow stuff?) :-)Maybe... translation seems fine to me. I'm not a well read person, so the literature isn't out of my realm of reading anyway.
Quote:Also, as briano mentioned, RTK actually seems like a perfect compliment to LR.I love Heisig, he's got a German last name and his method totally kicks ass. I wish I had done it properly the first time, live and learn. I recommend RTK and RTH and RTKatakana for anyone that can do it during the day. I'm experimenting to see if I can learn Kanji through L-R right now so I will wait 6 months.
Quote:Like digitlhand, most folks seem to be opting for 2-6 hours rather than 10-12 hours per day. Even the method creator points out there's no need to maintain 10-hr days once the "natural listening stage" is reached.The longer the better, it's what I feel is right and what others who have done the method successfully have recommended. I think that passive listening counts a lot too. So if one can't actively do it, leave the headphones on and enjoy. I fit in around 2 of active L-R and around 4 to 5 hours of passive listening per day.
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - digitlhand - 2010-07-22
I realized that I was continuing whether or not the method can work.. I've edited it out, as I don't want to argue about ifs... only results. sorry and thank you. -=[ ( .)_(. ) ]=-
For those interested in a Listening-Reading Blog - yudantaiteki - 2010-07-22
I think thrash metal was being used as an example of something complicated (and as different from classical guitar as possible), not something bad. It's still a pretty extreme analogy but I don't think any insult towards thrash metal was meant.