I’m interested to hear how others use LingQ in combination with reading books and in particular tandem reading while listening to Audible (for example).
After importing to lingQ and beginning to read, do you read and listen in sentence mode in LingQ? Do you pause the audio and change unknown words/phrases to LingQs sentence by sentence or do you read for a longer duration and retrace your steps LingQ unknown words?
I currently am a beginner in French, so not quite ready for books, but I typically approach my mini-stories using the following process and I’m wondering how I should adapt it for books as i progress:
First, I read the story relatively slowly all the way through in sentence mode attempting to understand most of the words, structure, and most importantly the gist of the sentence meaning. I try to avoid using translation at this stage
I go back to the beginning of the story and start lingQing words and phrases and checking to see if i had some comprehension and context for my unknown words and phrases.
I then listen to the story in tandem with reading it.
Listening only - Separately I do extended listening sessions, I repeat the stories, listening ONLY, starting slow at 75%. I try to understand whats going on. I loop the story and try to pick up bits and pieces with each pass. After about 3 to 6 times i pretty much have it and then do one or two more loops at 100% speed.
That completes my process for mini stories. But, what I’m really curious about is how others approach books, audio, and LingQing the contents?
I think everyone’s process evolves continuously with this, partially because the more you progress with a language the more your approach will change as your comprehension grows – and partially because the more you do this the more little tricks and habits you’ll find with trial and error.
I feel I have gone trough pretty much every single way of using TL books and Audible with LingQ:
– comparative reading NL / TL text with TL audio
– reading along with audio
– reading with no audio
– re-listening to a book I just finished reading
– reading chunks of a book then listening to catch up with the same text in my car / and vice versa
– reading on Kindle first then marking words on LingQ
– sentence mode with text to speech machine voice only
– reading NL text while listening to TL audio only
– reading TL1 text while listening to TL2 audio
– TL1 to TL2 comparative reading with both texts loaded onto LingQ
– watching movies with importing subtitles into LingQ
But really, the vast majority of my reading on LingQ boils down to my basic, bread and butter method of reading a book while listening along to the audio and just marking words with keyboard shortcuts. This is the cleanest fastest way to build up both listening and reading comprehension.
As you progress, you will experiment with various ways of doing this, but probably will settle on the same read and listen along method as most us do, I think.
I deal shorter lessons in sentence mode because studying in this mode I feel gives me a better foothole in the language from grammar point of view and I am noticing that I am developing an intuitive feeling for grammar structures . With the passage of time I will be ditching it and will be reading texts continuously. However when dealing with a novel I use comparative reading method. Before starting this method I suggest you to finish all mini story lessons , a few more lessons aimed at A2 and Intermediate 1 in the library to build a solid foundation I also use contemporary novels not novels from old authors. It is active study here I would say if you combine your studies on LINGQ with some downtime like watching youtube videos or childrens cartoons in you TL gives you better value for your efforts.
Thank you for sharing your approach. I’m glad you did. I had planned on trying to read “The Three Musketeers” as soon as i was able but your recommendation to stick with contemporary novels for learning purposes with an eye to communicating in today’s world makes sense. As for watching children’s cartoons, I just cant get interested in that type of material. I wish there were more adult beginner storytelling in that regard. I have enjoyed Alice Ayel and French Comprehensible Input’s videos for beginner story listening on youtube, but havent found much else in that vein.
I really hated listening activities up until very recently. Never done them. I put all my efforts into becoming (semi) literate for a long time without really bothering with the listening part. In my estimation it is reading, where you do the actual learning, since it is the activity best suited for turning incomprehensible input into comprehensible input. With listening you eitherunderstand or you dont. Another option is reading and listening at the same time but as a beginner you will have to pause the audio every couple of seconds and this is just frustrating. So I put literacy first and now with my listening, I am just playing catch up- connecting the sounds to the words and structures I already now. At home I use audiobooks to play along with my reading activity and when I am outside I just put on headphones and listen to interviews or podcasts or sometype of youtube video but not really with the intention to learn new words.
Thanks for sharing your language learning method. I think yours is one of the best and planned method. I just listen to Audible on my commute with my smartwatch to avoid using phone. To do that, I convert Audible with TunesKit Audible AA/AAX Converter first([OFFICIAL] ViWizard AA/AAX Audiobook Converter for Mac - Convert AA/AAX Audiobooks to MP3, M4A, AAC). Then I listen to them again and again. Then I read the text and try to read after the audio track.
I’m not sure I’ve completely settled down how I will handle books + Audible (or other listening). My “study” is rather haphazard so I don’t have a lot of time where I’m able to sit with LingQ + listen to Audible at the same time. Often I’m sneaking in some reading/LingQ’ing on the app standing in line, or reading in bed. If I had more structured time I would read along + listen to Audible at the same time…and probably follow it up with a full listen only.
Currently, therefore, I mostly read/lingQ the novel on its own. If I happen to have some spare time at a laptop/desktop where I can use the browser version of LingQ then I may use the TTS audio while in sentence mode (currently I’m reading any novel in sentence mode).
I’ve done this for one novel, and am following it up with a listen only in Audible of that same book. I’ve currently started reading/lingQ’ing/TTS’ing a second novel. The Audible book for the first book I’m currently listening to in the car mostly or when doing chores.
I did try to read the first novel and “catch-up” with the audible when I could, but found it kind of hard to do so, so I think the above approach for me is what is working best for now. The TTS when I can is good enough for a basic listening exercise.