Friday 15 June 2012

Similar Reading Methods

I came across this blog post about learning through reading novels that I think anyone interested in this type of approach should check out.

It is best to try a number of different approaches when it comes to using the likes of novels for input and find what fits best with you. The bulk of my blog will be about the particular methodology I use which will no doubt evolve the more I learn the language and hopefully I can eventually distill this into some sort of rough guide through beginning to more advanced stages of reading that could be of use for some people.

Considering I am emigrating to Norway in August, there is no way that I am not going to continue this until I am fluent. I will also post a little about other methods I try out as a supplement to this extensive exposure.

The most important thing I think though, is finding a way of getting immersed in native media in a way which is enjoyable, relaxing, and that you are constantly learning. I'm not going to say you should ditch courses or not use textbooks, they can certainly be useful but at some point as a language learner you will come in contact with native media. I am hoping that for some who find the idea of approaching native media intimidating, this blog will help give some ideas for tackling native media and hopefully enjoy the process.

If anyone has anything to add about different methods of input focused learning, please put in a comment with a link to an article, blog post etc. and I'll eventually make a post with links to a collection of resources. A collection of resources for learning to produce output would also be useful. I'll set about researching relevant resources but again, please leave a comment for any suggestions.

Thanks for reading.

2 comments:

  1. Do you know this blog/website : http://www.apronus.com/norsk/

    Quite interesting.....

    I am currently learning English and German on Lingq, and Norwegian is on my top list : give me some inspiration !!! ;-)

    Anyway... I wish you good luck in your studies !

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  2. Hi Julien,

    Yeah, I remember reading through that website a couple of years ago. It certainly is a very interesting approach though I wonder how effective it would be for most people. The person doing the experiment already knew English and German so that probably helped a lot in being able to decipher the Norwegian texts. I suppose that I am doing something similar, but cheating in a way as I keep an English version around of whatever I am reading in Norwegian.

    I quite like LingQ, I've used it in the past for learning French and a little bit with Norwegian but I prefer the relaxed approach of reading through a lot of content with a translation and not trying to look everything up. I think the more I learn through this method though, the more comfortable I will be in using LingQ to help learn specific vocabulary in context for more advanced material.

    If French is your native language, you might want to have a look at the Assimil "Le Norvégien sans peine" book and CDs. I've spoken to someone who used the course and they loved it, and Assimil tend to produce very good courses which can be used simply like bilingual books which also explain the grammar in context. I've been enjoying using the "New French With Ease" course by reading it like a bilingual book and after having gone through about half the lessons, I can understand quite a lot of written French. and have a basic understanding of newspaper articles . Assimil is the one textbook series I would personally recommend due to the specific bilingual approach they use.

    Thank you, and best of luck with your own studies too! I hope my blog will be helpful to you and inspire you to learn Norwegian! :)

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