Hello all,
Do any of y’all read material that is completely out of your level? I have been reading something that is written for native speakers, and know almost no words. It is not discouraging at all, as I am interested in what the article is talking about. My question to everyone is, do you do this? Do you feel like it helps? Am I wasting my time reading something so advanced, or is it beneficial?
Thanks,
Le_Jr
Hey Le
I have not done this, maybe with a page or two but I don’t find it helps, I think that this might be ok when you don’t know the vocabulary but if you are totally lost with the grammar I don’t think you can really benefit from this but each to their own
I completely understand the grammar structures, it’s just the vocabulary that is completely new to me.
oh ok, I guess it would not be as bad then, it probably would be better to see a lower percentage of unknown words but seeing that you are interested in the article I would keep going with it, I think it would benefit you to look up some words and see what they mean if you are not doing that or even read it a couple of times. I find that when i dont understand the endings of a word and why that certain tense id being used that is when i get confused.
I want to encourage you to keep doing this, Le. I don’t think that what you are doing could be classed as reading completely out of your level. The fact that with LingQ we can get an understanding of the meaning of words we have not seen before easily, gives us access to interesting content. Being exposed to interesting content in this way helps us to increase our vocabulary quite quickly and keeps us motivated!
I personally find that returning to this content later, when I have a stronger grasp of the language, is also very useful. Many subtle aspects of the language become clearer than they were the first time.
I only look up words when I am reading a book if it is necessary for me to understand the main thrust of what I am reading. I am quite content to miss bits out of a novel or narrative if I can follow the story. Again, though, coming back to to same text a few months later can be fun!
I always read outside my comfort zone and often do parallel reading in all sorts of languages. I love buying books and I generally try to get as many FL versions as is practicable and/or affordable. Luckily enough, our local library is great. Some books I have in six languages, though Russian books are not among them. They are hard to come buy and very expensive in the UK. As @Ginkgo58 says, it’s great to revisit material and to discover how much my understanding has grown (or not…)
I have tried this, but too many unknown words quickly led to discouragement and even boredom. But that’s just me; I’m sure if I found it motivating and interesting it would be of great benefit.
@ Le_Jr
I don’t know what language you are talking about here, but I guess you are doing Russian. I don’t know what level you are at, but judging by your statistics, I would guess you are a bit more advanced than I am. I find at my level in Russian, there is nothing that I want to read that is not above me. However, I can still work my way through a few more advanced texts with LingQ and I think I learn a lot by doing it.
I am currently reading the Russian translation of Le Petit Prince (and I can share the book with you if you want) on LingQ. I have already made all the LingQs for the entire book, so I can open it on the app and read it. Most of the words are yellow. I read each chapter in German first on the Kindle and then in Russian on the iPad LingQ app. Even though it is way above my level, I can still handle it.