So my strategy while reading is to read the entire chapter and just quickly write down the words I don’t know. Then after I’ve read the chapter, I go and look up the definition and write it down. Then I reread the chapter with better understanding.

@hcm9999

2 жыл бұрын

But then it takes too long to read a book. I read the entire book once as quickly as possible without using the dictionary. Then I read the book again, this time using the dictionary, and looking for every word I don't know. Usually I can understand most of the book in the first reading, it is not necessary to know every single word to get the main plot of the book. The percentage of the words necessary to understand a book could be as low as 50%, depending on the book. Then I read the book again. The second reading is just to improve my vocabulary. Because the second reading is much slower than the first, I usually stop after a few pages, and then return the book to the library. There is no need to finish the book since I already read it and know how it ends.

@entertainmentchannel7180

Ай бұрын

When I read a book I usually underline with pencil the unknown word and if met the word a few times already I look for definition of the word.

@Ellen_Seokjin

Ай бұрын

I do this, but I only look up one unknown word per page. As a lazy person that is enough

The problem with “reading at your level” is that sometimes I know every word in a paragraph but then sometimes I don’t know half of the words in a sentence. It’s hard to not look up words when suddenly you hit with a wall of words.

@yassin8357

2 жыл бұрын

I have the same probleme How many language do you learn

@jefferson6302

Жыл бұрын

Me too yesterday i skip an intire paragraph just cuz had a lot of words that i don't know

I have a different strategy: When i am new to a language and i start reading a novel, for the first 20 pages i look up every word to understand the setting in which the story takes place. After that it becomes less and less necessary to look up every word. Don't try to be too sophisticated. I learned english and italian with science fiction novels and spanish with a zombie book.

@rafalkaminski6389

8 ай бұрын

That's interesting. I'm going to check it out with latvian. 😅

When I moved to Japan, 13 years ago, all my foreign friends carried electronic dictionaries. I refused to get one. Two main reasons. First, if I don’t have a dictionary, I have to find a way to communicate with words I know... a super useful skill when you don’t have a lot of vocabulary. Secondly, from a cognitive perspective, if you solve a problem easily or quickly, your brain tends to let go of it. So, if you hear a new word and don’t look it up, kind of guess what it means and check it hours later, that word bounced around your head for a while, and it may be easier to hang onto it. For reading and dictionaries, I like to read at least the whole chapter and then maybe look up words. I think not interrupting the flow is best for your brain to figure things out.

If the word keeps popping up in the book and I can't context it out I will prob look it up. For instance, I just could not figure out what "amanecer" translated to in English. I could tell it was maybe a time of day. Maybe an event!? It drove me crazy for two hundred pages. I created a super incorrect definition for it. Something like "a beautiful beginning to a day." It was so poetic in my mind. Then I looked it up and realized that it translates to "sunrise." I will now never forget that word.

@brendon2462

2 жыл бұрын

Confused isn't a sunrise a beautiful beginning to a day? What did you mean by incorrect definition genuinely curious?

@jahipalmer8782

2 жыл бұрын

@@brendon2462 i was adding more to the definition than was inherent to it.

@brendon2462

2 жыл бұрын

@@jahipalmer8782 True wasn't the literal meaning of the word. But in the context of nature you were right in a general sense.

@gerlautamr.656

2 жыл бұрын

It also means "dawn", "daybreak" or "breakk of dawn".And it is a verb too, meaning "to dawn".

@jahipalmer8782

2 жыл бұрын

@@gerlautamr.656 Ah, gracias.

Looking up new words is my favorite part of reading. I check various meanings, collocations, cognate words, synonyms and compare frequency of their usage.

When I first started learning German back in 1972, I was living in Germany, and acquired a rather erudite book that I had read in English before. I started out reading it in German, and when I found a word I didn't recognize, I would look it up. I would also mark it in yellow highlighter. As I read through the first chapter, yellow-marked words became more and more sparse, until I no longer needed to look words up -- mainly because unfamiliar words were clear in their meaning because of their context. Thus, looking up those words as I read them did help me.

I think reading and listening is more powerful. I often merge the audio and written version of your stories. Part of why I like Lingq so much is it helps me do this and keeps track of words I have seen before.

Olly can you make some more Brazilian português books? There are hardly any sources to learn this language and your books are great quality

Resisting looking up words is a big struggle but at the end it is so beneficial. To the point of being scary. I'm reading Japanese short stories where I know 80-90% of the content. Easy? Well, I'm also getting myself into the rhythm of how things are spoken or assembled. In other words I'm not focusing just on the vocab. Anyway, I remember at numerous points where I just didn't know one word and it came up fairly often but I forced myself not to look it up only after the second reading. Though by the second reading my brain automatically, seriously kinda scary, gave me a guess that made 98% sense. Every time I would run into it I would wonder what it was and more and more the urge to use a dictionary (really hard since I can simply hold my finger on the word and get the translation cuz I'm using a kindle) grew! But after a bit further into the second reading, BAM. I think it really had to be because of all the content surrounding the word that it finally cracked it. Not only that but, like you say, our understanding of the world we already know. Doesn't always happens, but when it does it's a real motivator.

I treat Olly's Short Stories akin to Lingq's stories. I simultaneously listen and read, repeat, repeat, repeat. I will look up words but no more than 5 per chapter. I will understand the story the first or second time through, but in the end I'm not going to leave all that new vocabulary sitting on the sideline.

My Spanish teacher says the same and I’ve learned to use context to figure out a lot of unknown words. BUT, when I do loom up a word, I use an in-language dictionary. In other words, a Spanish dictionary instead of a Spanish-English one. It’s a challenge sometimes but it keeps me in the language.

Well, it seems that it depends on your learning objectives. Even when reading books in your native language you encounter words you don't quite understand. Checking them up, and trying to use them with the next opportunity will surely expend your active vocabulary. Checking the origin of words can be a fascinating activity. BTW, I love your T-shirt.

I was reading this grammar book since I wanted to start learning my third language at my own phase. There’s this great advice that I read regarding this matter: “Only use dictionary if you are angry.” Let me put this in a short explanation, by angry it means that if you happen to encounter a familiar word, and you still don’t know the meaning-you will feel furious since you still don’t know its meaning despite the familiarity. With this strategy, you’ll be able to comprehend more context clues given in a sentence.

I have started to adjust your method a bit to suit my learning style. I find that I need to actually use what I learn in order to cement it in my brain. So I read like you say, without looking up words, then once I have read a short passage of text I will try and write something in my own words using the words and grammar that I saw in that passage to make sure that I understood it properly.

@yaketythack

2 жыл бұрын

My channel has a few uploads discussing what you talk about. I call it "accordionING" perhaps you might be interested. Keep talking !!

@michaelshort2388

2 жыл бұрын

@@yaketythack I will check your channel out :)

I find it fascinating that I don't really care much about reading in my mother tongue, but I actually like reading in my target language. I've picked up one of your books for my target language of German, and so far, it's helped improve my vocabulary. I oftentimes will be doing something else and vocabulary from your book gets stuck in my head and I go over it for the rest of the day.

I wish there was something equivalent to Lingua Latina per se Illustrata (Hans Øberg) for Italian (and every language I want to learn). It is the very best learning story book every written for learning a new language.

@elieltonoliveira7862

2 жыл бұрын

For Italian there is a similar book.

@pepelexa5950

4 күн бұрын

blog.nina.coffee/2018/08/27/all_nature_method_books.html

Thank you for these great tips!

I also read dialogues in my target languages. Great video!! (very relevant to me now)

Thanks so much for your story about reading books. This just revolutionized how I read books now. My progress has exploded. Please more videos! 😊

Thanks for sharing your wise experience.

Before I got into serious language learning, I read "A Clockwork Orange." For the first few chapters, I had to refer to the glossary several times per sentence. It was slow going. But a few chapters into the book, I had learned Nadsat. By the time I ended the book, a trip to the glossary was rare. I think something is to be said for doing lookup.

Thank you, your experience with the Spanish book is an invaluable lesson. Also, I want to add that you will learn even chunks of words unconsciously, and after a while you will know a new word from seemingly thin air. We have an automatic language learning machine in our heads that eats input and produces acquired language and even the experts do not have a wide grasp on it yet, they just teach us that it exists by results.

I'm fortunate enough to own a book in french that was designed to teach you french with stories. it's called visages de France and it was made in the 60s

An Argentinian here, mother tongue Spanish. When I used to read books in my mother tongue (bc now a days it's all Eng lol), I even ended downloading a Spanish dictionary app on my phone! Don't be afraid for look up some words right away ;)

Wow, thank you Olly. For a brief moment I was feeling that I'm pushing my luck guessing lots of words when I was reading

very interesting points Olly

Yes, I can support your point of view! There is only one catch: Languages do not suit alike to that method. Best are languages, where the script conveys pronunciation, and you are somehow acquainted with the grammatical structure. For a German speaking guy: Spanish, Italian work well; Greek, French are still OK; Russian (accentuation!), Turkish (grammar!), Danish, and English tend to be difficult; Georgian (grammar!), Arabic, Urdu, Persian are rather difficult. Chinese is an intellectual challenge, while Japanese is simply horrible. If you already now a considerable amount of Chinese characters, deciphering of unknown words even is fun. Pronunciation, and meaning can often be predicted. But, this only comes after investing tons of hours. A quite similar method consists in using a translation in parallel. I use to mark unknown words in the original, and try to find correspondent words in the translation. This normally is easy, but often you are confronted with different ways of expression in the translation, so that this method reveals structural, semantic, or even cultural differences between the languages in question, so from time to time you need a good dictionary, too. If I liked the text, I read it again, this time mostly without help of the translation: So to say, using your method based on direct reading of the original text.

I vary how much I look up words depending on the difficulty level of what I'm reading. For anything that's around or not too much over my level, I try to limit myself to the vocab already in the book (if it has it) and I only look up words outside of that if they keep showing up. For more difficult books though, that are too above my level, I go through all the vocab in a sort of pre reading session, write all the vocab and translations down in my little notebook and then read several times later. That way if I'm stuck somewhere I can always look at my vocab, but since I read it several times and progressively study some of the most important vocab in flashcards, I need to look at my notes less and less. I also only do this for book clubs, since they give me that extra motivation, and going over everything with other people really helps as well, and I can see which parts I misunderstood.

Parallel text is awesome.

I started reading the Harry Potter series in Danish recently. Having read some books in Spanish, some in English and some in both languages i don't have to worry about missing anything important. I read the first 3 books without looking too much in the dictionary, but now I'm number 4 and I'm constantly writing translations down to later turn into flashcards. I agree this is slower, but I can feel I've gained a lot of vocabulary this way. So I'm kind of torn between the two approaches.

When i was learning English if there was a word i didn't understand while reading. I would look for its meaning and then write the new word 25 times. I learned a lot of vocabulary in that manner.

Hi Olly, I purchase your books and read them on my Kindle because the Kindle has light, and because I don't have to hold the book open all the time, which I find can be annoying after a while. However, I love the smell and feel of a new book. Always have, even when I was in school.

Thanks

quick question. I have been studying Japanese for 3 years. I am somewhat conversation. I am not really sure where I am on a N1-N5 scale but I am trying to find a more casual way to learn vocabulary that would help me on my day-to-day in Japan. I want to be able to read Harry Potter in Japanese. But on the first page I didn't know 16 words (not including some grammar I didn't know). Should I give up on this book for a while or simple do my best because its a book I WANT to read? (It is so hard to find something at my level. It seems like it is either too easy or to hard.)

When I was learning German, we had this break from language in the class where we had a computer class (basics, because there were older people there or people who just didn’t know their way around computers). Anyway, since I do, I was allowed to just do whatever (they had internet), so I would go to wikipedia and read articles about things I wanted to know, but in German instead of English. Like, I would look for the article in English and view that, then go to the laguage thing and pick the article in German, in this case. And I would just read about stuff I was interested in in my target language. (Oh, I was learning German here IN Germany. It was a B1-B2 language class for foreigners. “Deutsch als Fremdsprache”, or something to that extent.) The only issue was that I already spoke basic German, so I didn’t have TONS of trouble with the articcles. I have tried to do the same in French (my current target language), but I always thought that I needed to have the basics first, because the articles were so hard to read. So, I never kept up with that idea. I was taking a beginner’s class in French, but had SO much trouble with it (then Covid-19 happened and the class was cancelled). I even stopped trying to read articles because I feared it would mess up with what I was actually supposed to be learning. Anyway, after stumbling across your channel recently, and now watching things, it’s very helpful, I think. I will resume just reading articles about things that interest me, even though it’s going to be hard right now. It’s just good to hear that, yes, you can do it this way without having the basics down. So… thank you for that!

Don't. It's more fun to underline them in pencil and look them up afterwards. Once I've looked-up the words, I usually remember them. This is more effective for L2, I don't know why.

I used to analyse the hell out of the first page of new book, looking everything up and making sure I was clear about the context. I then found I could read the rest of the book without the feeling that I was missing something. The first book I did this with was Markurells i Wadköping (Swedish).

At first it frustrated me to not know every word for sure, so I wrote every word down and lokked them up at the end of the chapter. Most of the time, I actually guessed right by context, so I continued writing the words down, but I only looked up the words if they showed up on my list repeatedly. Now, I just read and look up the hard words as I go, maybe 1 or 2 per page. There's more than that that I don't know immediately, but I'm more relaxed now.

Lucky you were wearing pants! 🤣🤣🤣

@GirlFriday68

2 жыл бұрын

Lol I was thinking the same thing, the look on his face when he realizes he’s live!

@ShrubScotland

2 жыл бұрын

*trousers

Olly, how do you recommend adjusting this extensive reading method as your level increases? Do you change your approach at an intermediate, higher intermediate, and an advanced level?

I know my dad does it, even on our first language Spanish, as most books are in Spanish from Spain and there is always still new words, most can be understood by context, yet he still pauses and searches for it, I guess he is used to it from studying medicine and looking up weird words, but it gets distracting when we are reading a novel together

Hi Olly, do you think it is a valid concern that one might learn too much of a formal or 'stilted' way of speaking if reading is the main practice of the language they do? Thanks

22:40 IIRC Alexander Argüelles sets the bar even higher. Something like 98% for extensive reading. Though tbh, I can't say that I've ever tried to figure out those percentages when I'm actually reading. I basically just go with: "do I understand what's going on?" ^^

To push my Spanish forward and hopefully to leave one day the intermediate level I read Spanish books with topics which I am interesting in. The main goal is to learn the content through the language. So, I am looking up words the whole time for different reasons. There are words which don't even know in my native language. (for example , I am reading now a book in Spanish about the conquest of America. Of course there are a lot of words of things from the past which nowadays are unkown). But I search for explanations in Spanish and I only use dictionaries if there is nothing else. If I can't follow the plot, because I am doing more research than reading, I repeat some sentences until I am back on the track. After finishing a book I want a book with a different topic, sometime a different type of book which leads to a lot of new words or expressions. I am curious, so I keep looking up these words as well. But the five time rule is interesting because I only put the new words in Anki when I think that these words are worth it.

okay, I understood your main point. It's better to 'trust the process' when you read than look up every word, which I usually do. But what do you think about writing? same?

Thanks for this video, there's so many valuable information. I have a doubt in 16:54 Paul Nation said that we have to understand 98% of the words we read, what do you think about it?

I can see this working well with a language that has an alphabet, but I’ve discovered it’s very hard with languages like Chinese that use characters to represent words. There’s no way to know what a character sounds like just by looking at the character. Sure, you might be able to figure out the meaning based on radicals and such, and you might get lucky with characters that look very similar to ones you know. But you probably won’t be able to figure out the tone. I would love to be able to read Chinese without looking things up, but I just can’t think of a reasonable way for this to happen

I read the first two chapters. Then I go back to the begining and then learn 3, then return to the begining again and take in chapter 4,maybe5 as well....then back again. You get the idea. The book I'm reading has a " recapture " page after each chapter so you can get the gist of the story as you move through the book.

Rachel, I am hard of hearing and focus more on the reading side of things. I speak fluent German, and am learning Portuguese and Arabic. I think you can manage with whatever works for you. Every time I watch a series I use subtitles. Many of the KZreadrs will say it's not ideal, and maybe that's true, but you can definitely brute force your way through it. I just got married in German.

@gabrielstroup

2 жыл бұрын

Subtitles have been super helpful for me (also hard of hearing!) Even in my native English, I distinctly remembering learning the most about the language by seeing how the language is organized in writing, and associating the sounds of the language with every word. That’s how my brain could learn a lot of things all at once by reading subtitles with the spoken language. Deutsch war der zweit Sprach ich lernten!

Hi Ollie, love your videos, thank you. Ive been learning Spanish on and off for many years. I have lived in Sevilla and have many friends in the rest of Spain, but I now just go to very Catalan part of Barcelona. They dont mind me speaking Castellan but sometimes I feel as if Im not giving them enough respect by doing this. What do you think? Thanks and best regards....Dave

As an English user learning French, I can usually guess what things mean (when reading at my level). But I feel I need to find out and memorise exactly what everything means.

I have a month before I go in foreign exchange to Germany for 10 months, and I don’t know any German. With a month time, what do you suggest I do? Just learn like anyone else? Just memorize vocab? What’s the most effective thing when you have a month before being thrown in the deep end

I started to learn french 2 (by acquisition - so I didn't actually "learn") months ago and I already jumped into books. I obviously don't know 90 % of the words, but I look up all of them and I still find the process enjoyable. Mostly because the book I'm reading is really great, and French is so similar to English that I can follow the plot easily. I started with reading books for children which were much easier, but I fould them boring so I then switched to "real" adult literature. and I actually like it more.

@WanderwithJon

2 жыл бұрын

That is really interesting! How did you find reading literature that are more targeted towards adult? I can see your point with children's book. After a while it does become boring. I'm also doing this trying to learn French and I kinda wanted to try more classical reading it just feels like the word choices would be too complicated for digestion.

@jeremydevita4932

2 жыл бұрын

What books are you reading ? (in french)

@jeremydevita4932

2 жыл бұрын

@@WanderwithJon you should read Barjavel

@quirelll

2 жыл бұрын

Well, it doesn’t really matter what you read. What matters is if you enjoy what you’re reading. At the beginning I was reading bilingual children’s books from the kindle store, and now I’m reading “gagner la guerre” which has a lot of old and naval vocab which I will never use, but the book is very funny and I’m enjoying it thoroughly. I do need to check a lot of words, but I never actually write them down and revise them, because the book is so long that by the time I finish they’re bound to repeat quite a few times. I thought that it would be annoying to need to check 70% of words, but somehow I can still enjoy it. Good luck guys!

@WanderwithJon

2 жыл бұрын

@@jeremydevita4932 I'll give that a try. Thank you! I'm planning to pick up La Petit Nicolas and L'etranger sometime this year.

I'd love to speak English as you do. Not exactly like you obviously, I am not native (reaching fluency) so I'll never sound like a native. But I'd to pick up your accent.

I do like looking up all of the words. I run into things in Spanish where the words appear mean different things that the words separately. Pasar a llamarse for example in my brain doesn’t mean to be renamed or to change one’s name. Without the context of the whole fragment or even within the sentence, I’d struggle with things like that.

Precentage of reading, listening and talking ? Bc you recommended just reading solely. Then listening separate . How often to book a session in target language?

it depends, on your level, the purpose of the reading (more focused on enjoyment or on learning) and how lazy or annoyed by not knowing the exact meaning you are. very often I am very ignorant andlazy and don't look up words, sometimes I am really annoyed. as a beginner I very often don't check the meaning and as an advanced alsonit, but in the medium levels I really want to know normally. I agree on pen and paper, I love reading but for the last 10 or mire years I hated reading novels, stories ... I preferr wikipedia articles, scientific papers and that is what I try in my target language, even as a beginner. comprehension less than 50% is no problem for me, I still like what I am doing :-)

If I'm reading and looking up definitions of words in my native language, am I memorizing the words in the right section of my brain? I've been trying the method where I just watch video content in the target language, with subtitles in the target language and trying to get my brain to learn via context and clues like a child does; however I'm not entirely sure that's working. I did pick up some words just via watching movies in the target language, but is that really the most efficient method?

Interesting how you recommend to know about 90% of the words to read a book. I bought one in spanish, one that I have already read in english, I know the story, I know whats happening, but Im not even close to knowing 50% of the words. What do you think about this?

I have a book and it shows you all the vocabulary after you finish the chapter. Should I look at that. Or shall I just ignore it and just keep reading

Hi Olly, thanks again for the nice videos. Please please can you suggest a few books in French for me? I speak Spanish already so I know a fair amount of vocab, please. I know you're too busy to answer but please, I would be very grateful, thanks, pete

Do you think this, reading and not fully understanding thing can work for physics?

Olly Richards please, please make short stories book in mandarin with pinyin

Are there any short Latin stories or any books with stories?

The rule of five makes a lot of sense; thank you.

what level do you think i am if i understand what you are saying in the video? how many times do you recomend to read the short stories that you wrote?

As a beginner that only speaks English and knows maybe 10 words in Italian (common greetings) how do you start reading stories? Do you read the words and listen along in Italian without understanding anything? You do this for a month? How do you start to understand if you don’t know what the words mean? I want to try , but I tried with my fist story and after the first few pages and not even understanding 3 words that I already knew I can’t imagine how this could work. How can you focus on a plot and enjoy when you have no idea what you’re looking at and hearing. I’m really trying to understand. Right now I have three kids in college at the same time and am really trying to do this in my own on a non existent budget. I can’t afford expensive programs and tutors

@storylearning

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Debbie. The key is to have material that's written for beginners. I cover this here: kzread.info/dash/bejne/ka2IzbStfLfIqrQ.html

How do I get to the point where I understand most definitions from dictionaries?

This is what happened while I've been reading Harry Potter in Finnish. I've come across words that have popped up every now and then. Usually I won't look up the word, but eventually I decide to do so. Then it sticks in your mind. For example, the word näkymättömyysviitta = invisibility cloak. I always thought, what is this crazy long word? Now I know it by heart because I've come across it multiple times.

I don't think it matters. You can look them up at the beginning of learning the language. But you will forget and have to keep reviewing with repetition. To refresh your memory until they stick. Even if you don't look them up right away. You will still learn the words. Later you can look up the meaning. Once the words are internalized in your long term memory. You just won't know what they mean at first. Eventually you have to get the meaning somehow. But you can read without understanding much at all. That's what kids do growing up. They don't look up every word.

I'm trying to learn french. I still have problem with french pronunciation which is weird. So how can one even attempt to read?

Is the rule of 5 words also because of common words? Because I've heard that apparently in conversation, we use 10% of our vocabulary. So i'm guessing if we read/hear the vocabulary 5 times, it's a common word?

I've studied around a 1000 of the most gommon Finnish words and sentences but when I read sometjing, even books for children, I only understand 3 words. It's so bizarre! What should I do?!

Te pido que hables en idioma español, amigo. Quiero ver qué tan bien lo haces. Como decimos en México, a ver si de veras Petra, o a ver si de veras eres muy salsa.

I can't agree completely, I feel it's important to look up words even if they appeared only once, online reading is good in this aspect, like double click and the meaning appears :)

@fishbone9159

2 жыл бұрын

Which add on do you use for this? Mine (linguee) doesn't really work

@YuserAlhaj

2 жыл бұрын

@@fishbone9159 I read books on (play book) on my phon and on (iBook) in my Mac, long click or double click can show the translation, olso adding the feature of google translate so when I can select some word I can translate it directly is really helpful!

Hello Olly :) If you know a podcast like English with Stephen but for Spanish, let me know! I love knowing the etymology of words!

interlinear books could help

When I really have a temptation to look up a word I allow myself to do it, but instead of translation I look for definition of the word in the same language I am reading.

So what do you do when you only know one word of the 10 in that sentence. No matter what I read I don't know what the plot it let alone context. So what do you do then?

When I'm reading ebooks on my reading app it's no problem to check up words in dictionary.

With Japanese it’s a bit more complicated because if you don’t know the kanji and there’s no furigana you’re completely SOL; however something I’ve started doing is to look up words I don’t know in a dictionary designed for Japanese children. It breaks words down into things I can better understand and almost always has furigana, and I’m still reading Japanese as I work.

@il856

Жыл бұрын

Two methods I frequently use is searching the kanji by the radicals or I take the kanji from a word I already know. ex: let's suppose I don't know what 避難 means and neither the first kanji of the word; but I know the second kanji 難　because of the word 難しい. So with that information I search ?難 ('?' here represents the unknown kanji where the dictionary will replace and show the valids words) on jisho and I get the meaning and reading 避難(ひなん) = Taking refuge

Focus on the plot. That is the correct way. ✔️

What about reading in Japanese, where you may not even be able to read the word at all, even without knowing the meaning, because you can’t read the kanji. How would you then become able to acquire that word?

@wavynomad

2 жыл бұрын

@Real Aiglon there is a tremendous number of Kanji to learn. How do you learn it without looking the word up? Same rule about if it appears 5 times then look it up?

Another example of "resist looking it up and you'll be better off on the long run": the typewriters in my highschool typing class had unmarked keys so it didn't matter if you looked...there was nothing to see. Typists know you'll learn faster & ultimately type faster if you don't look. Ever.

What was the book that you read that night? Do you remember it?

@bkwrmgl

2 жыл бұрын

'Crónica de una muerte anunciada' by GGM

Another informative video Olly, except!...how can anyone "not like Bruce Willis."

it wasn't the elevation; you had a panic attack.

I would agree except I think I would need to know about 5 words to use as a clue, then maybe I could win the struggle of trying to learn from just reading what looks like jibberish to me.

You live in the attic !

I'm very much a beginner, but really don't understand how we can ever learn meaning of words of we never look them up.

@kevinscales

2 жыл бұрын

How many words in your native language have you ever looked up?

@88marome

2 жыл бұрын

@Kevin Scales I've looked up a lot of words in my native language. Some complicated words but lots and lots of common words that I already knew. It's interesting to see what the dictionary says about them because sometimes I do not agree with it or think they explain things weird.

Phrase of the day "Take everything I say with a HUGE ROCK OF SALT"

This is happening to me in Japanese - sounds and words just pop-up in my head - and then I look them up to know what they mean. I told this to my parents and they called me crazy. Nonetheless, my brain learned the words without previous knowing their meaning. And if this happened in such a difficult language to learn as Japanese is, then, idk

Can I survive on extensive reading alone without srs?

@Gigusx

2 жыл бұрын

Many people do that, and Olly mentioned himself that you don't *need* to use Anki. Just make sure you're experimenting and refining your methods to get enough input. Studying compliments reading pretty well too.

I don’t agree. I hate reading and not understanding a bunch of words and expressions. It’s not in the least bit fun for me. On the other hand with smartphones, looking up words is very efficient. Olly, I have heard you recommend that you learn to tolerate not fully understanding, that you re-read multiple times to try to guess at the meaning without looking anything up and that the struggle to try to understand without looking up is in itself very valuable. Really? Is there any proof of this? I’ve never been able to get myself to do this. It goes totally against the grain. Instead, I read books that are reasonable for my current level in one of my four foreign languages and I always look up the unknown words and expressions I come across as I go. It doesn’t slow me in a problematic way, and it’s relaxing and totally natural for me. My opinion anyway!!!

Okay, admittedly, I didn't watch the video, but I feel I have to look up words. This is especially because I'm learning Japanese. Because of the nature of Kanji, I don't think it's possible for a beginner to just carry on reading without looking up a few of the words. Also, I'm watching anime with Japanese subtitles, or with no subtitles. I *do not* look up every word, and I find it very useful to look up some of the words I don't know.

@Layniebird1776

2 жыл бұрын

This is how I felt about Chinese and was frustrated that I couldn't just learn from context like everyone learning languages with alphabets can. But then I decided to take several weeks just binging the top several thousand characters while largely ignoring the rest of the spoken language. Now i recognize all the characters (~99%) and can learn new words through context from reading just like anyone else can. This might not be as effective with Japanese due to different pronunciations of the kanji, but you might still find a massive anki character binge to be helpful.

@DANGJOS

2 жыл бұрын

@@Layniebird1776 How the actual hell did you learn 99% of the common Chinese characters in several weeks?!

@MatthieuPiquemal

2 жыл бұрын

@@DANGJOS Remembering The Hanzi (RTH)

@Layniebird1776

2 жыл бұрын

@@DANGJOS admittedly, 99% is an exaggeration. It's closer to around 98% (which is a massive difference in number of characters.) Also, I did this over the pandemic so I was able to spend quite a few hours a day. I just started doing this again to get to 4000 characters, which will give me virtually 100% recognition. Honestly at this point it just feels like a tappy game, like candy crush or something, and it's really addictive. If you don't mind, I am genuinely dying to be in contact with someone else serious about learning Chinese. Could you add me on Instagram? My user is amiabean

@Layniebird1776

2 жыл бұрын

@@AG-up7kx 嘿！I would be extremely eager to talk to you about learning Chinese. My family and everyone I know thinks I'm crazy for trying and I would love to be in contact with someone else doing the same. Can you message me on Instagram to talk about it? My user name is amiabean. I would be so happy to talk about my methods to someone who actually cares lol.

Only not knowing he was live is why my camera faces the wall. That, and the fact that my house is the messiest train wreck.

if you already know 80-95% of the words then of course you don't have to look up every single word you don't know..and you can focus on the plot..But if one knows only 10-40% of the words, how can you even *enjoy* the plot when you don't understand much..One probably shouldn't even be reading in the first place

@DANGJOS

2 жыл бұрын

I think you probably can at 40%, as that is pretty high, but 10% probably not.

Sure perhaps your reading method may work with spanish, so if you don't know a word you can do some good guess work and know the word. But try Japanese, only thing you can do is find some manga or use a plugin on the computer and use furigana and read, and do your best to know the meaning by kanji you know. its that or find a graded reader at your level. but some day you will have to look the words up, otherwise you won't know crap. i guess if the word is super common yes it will come up 5 times. I'm sure I could be wrong but when your starting off, reading seems hard if its not baby language, which can be boring.

Q: what percent of the words we know did we look up?