I’ve literally just stumbled upon this site today and am already amazed by it. Everything about this system of language learning beats everything I’ve used before. Being able to see the word highlighted in text and learn that way is simply great. I really enjoy listening along while following the text etc – it’s just an enjoyable way to learn.
Anyway, my question/interest regards entire books. It would seem to me, for advanced learners, it would be awesome to have an entire novel in the language you are learning (for me German) on lingq. Then you could both hear, read, and learn at the same time. I’m sure many of you, like me, struggle reading novels because you have to constantly, or at least often enough to be frustrating, look up a word. Having novels on lingq would obviously make it much easier. This content could be available per book, like $5-$10 like it might cost at a store.
Good idea? I apologize if this already exists on lingQ, but I’ve only just begun.
Hello James, entire novels in German you could come by under www.vorleser.net for example. There are lots of entire novels both as audio and text and you get it for free. On account of author’s rights you find only classics older than 70 years after authors dead. At any rate you could import both into LingQ.
Have great experiences with your language learning.
Horst
I upload entire books and study them. That’s one of the thinks that sold me on LingQ in the first place. Usually for personal use only (copyright issues) but I have uploaded large chunks of books from the copyright-free www.librivox.org.
Currently I have uploaded and am working through ALL the Harry Potter books in Russian, in order. I’m half way through book 5. If the server has space issues Mark, you might want to check my personal library For personal study I upload just the text, not the audio, for space and laziness issues.
Helen, that is originally the same way I pursue. I upload the text from librivox or baldwin project (English) into LingQ and the audio file, if there is the possibility of finding, on my mp3 player. So I can listen and read together or independently of each other. At the moment I am only reading (Harry Potter - last book and from Baldwin Project Mary queen of Scotland). By the way: poor Mary - but I will read the story of Elisabeth next.
Fate was not kind to Mary, Queen of Scots It was an age when the State was paranoid about threats to national security and the intelligence services used brutal methods to extract the “truth” from those suspected of plotting against the State. Not like today eh
Learning/studying other languages through intensive reading of entire texts of substantial length is a far superior way to proceed (in my opinion) once you are at least at an intermediate level. Whole texts will grow your vocabulary and sharpen your comprehension strategies and I think most learners would retain the learning longer because most longer texts have a certain amount of repetition, and this will help reinforce the learning. Besides this, there’s no better feeling than in finishing your first novel in that language, even if you feel you didn’t understand it as easily as you would have liked.
Commasplice:I agree with you that it is particularly helpful to be able to read and study an entire novel.
I think that for my French study, I am reading all of Lettres de mon Moulin, by Alphonse Daudet…I hope all the chapters are there, although it is hard for me to know. When you open “the collection” it seems to show only one chapter, but each time I finish a chapter, there is a link which takes me to the next chapter. So far I have at least nine of them in my library.
Do we also have some Dickens in full novel offerings? I think I may have heard others speaking about this, but perhaps that is private collections.
Yeah, since I made the post originally I’ve been finding books to read. I’m currently working on importing the entire Odyssey in German, but it takes a while with audio size and length limits.
For personal study I upload just the text, not the audio, for space and laziness issues.
It was an age when the State was paranoid about threats to national security and the intelligence services used brutal methods to extract the “truth” from those suspected of plotting against the State. Not like today eh