So I have recently reached 10.000 words and have just started reading my first book of choice “el lobo de wall street” I have already seen the film ( it is one of my favourites ) and upon reading this book I feel like my I am going though pages and pages and only rarely converting words into known and mainly just passing yellow words in which I have already Lingq?
I suppose this is to be expected as I do know more words now.
currently trying to reach my goal of 100 known words a day.
so when I am reading the pages of text all I see is yellow words and of course some white and yes I know overtime I know I will convert these words into white but it is all I am coming across I have so far studied 1 hour today I have 30 minuets left but I have only moved 50 words to known.
At 10K words, if you’re not jumping into native level material, then yes, your word count progress is going to slow down. With 10K you’re exhausting the vocab of most upper intermediate level material you might be reading.
As far as I’m aware I am reading native level content I am reading a book called “El lobo de Wall street” it’s about the film “the wolf of wall street” I’m enjoy reading it when I have imported the pages I do have 23-24% new words
That’s good. Are you also listening along to the audiobook? That will make a big difference as to how fast you’re picking up new words. Also, I’d recommend doing comparative reading – reading along with the English language version of the book. It will speed up your process for the first book or two you’re reading in a new language.
As far as I’m aware it does not have an audio book, but instead I’m watching a kids series on netflix for 40ish minutes and then watching two 10 minute YouTube videos with Spanish audio and subtitles to make up my 1 hour of listening per day
It’s a translation, isn’t it? My take is that it has a prety poor vocabulary. I’d advise you to read books originally written in Spanish and with some modicum of writing quality. Either literature or challenging non-fiction, history, etc.
I usually go for novels myself
I’ve always found that there are distinct advantages for reading translated titles – of course reading original works is an excellent way to go – but books translated from English to your target language have many upsides:
1.) They’re usually bestselling page-turners to begin with, hence the international editions.
2.) More likely to have audiobooks produced in various languages due to wider interest.
3.) The context is easier to understand
4.) The original English is available for comparative reading
5.) Easier to find authors and stories you’re interested in.
The truth is when studying a language, reading a thrashy crime thriller, or, (ghasp) a Dan Brown adventure of questionable “quality” is way more beneficial than trying to hunt down some work of literary merit form a foreign author.
The benefit of finding a book with the matching audiobook is not that you get listening practice form it (though you do) it is that you hear the words properly pronounced and personified as you’re reading along. This will increase both your listening and reading comprehension a great deal faster and allows you to mark words as known a lot faster than just reading alone.
Not all translations are bad, of course but they tend to use a simplified language. That’s particularly true if the original version was not great to begin with.
Translations of media content tend to amplify mediocrity and you sometimes end up with very restricted vocabulary and unnatural expression
+t_harangi: in my experinece it’s not difficult to find a middle ground between trashy thrillers and high literature. I have found quite a few interesting, well-written but not overly complicated works in all the languages I’ve studied in some depth. Plus you get to learn about the culture in your target language
Of course, if reading translations works for you, just go ahead. My main point here is not to avoid translations (although I do), only that translations of trashy books are likely to result in over-simplified texts, so you may want to select with some care what translations you read
It is a normal thing. I felt the same when I was learning English. I felt as if I didn’t make much progress but it’s part of the learning process. Dont get discouraged, go on!
I get your point, but there are some misconceptions out there about the literary quality vs. linguistic complexity. Consider this: the original French text of The Three Musketeers, an eloquent, undoubted literary classic, is a total of 221,361 words, and contains 15,500 unique words – compared to the French edition of The Bourne Identity (La memoire dans la peau, which is the kinda trashy thriller I like) at a total word count 197,669 with a unique word count of 15,506. And the French text of The Cookoo’s Calling, a detective story from the author of Harry Potter is even denser: 159,652 total words with 15,451 unique words.
The truth is popular fiction books can be just as complex linguistically as more highly regarded literary works.
Yes, I completely agree. That’s why I insisted on those “well-written” but not necessarily high. The bottomline is that not all trashy thrillers are all that trashy.
For example, before I resumed the reading of “Master and Margarita” (my current reading in Russian, a great classic) I read a trilogy of very exciting recent popular thrillers with supernatural elements: the “Красные цепи” (Red Chains) series. I enjoyed them tremendously and it was challenging material and, I would argue, rather well written.
I did find it very important that they were novels originally written in Russian. I’m sure it was a much more idiomatic and nuanced text, plus its portrait of Russian life helped me appreciate the Russian way of life (for example the backdrop of the labyrinth of courtyards of St. Petersburg, where the crimes in the first two novels take place).
A quote from the second novel:
“All I had to do was find a place that would be suitable for a shabbath”
“This is St. Petersburg. Every place is suitable for a shabbath!”
Yes, that’s fine. The words need to be lingqed before they can be learned. They need to be blue, yellow, then white. If you’re seeing lots of yellow, you’re on the right track. If you have been reading for 30 minutes and have moved 50 words to known, that’s incredible speed.