Alexander Arguelles - Reading Literature in Foreign Languages: Tool, Techniques, Target
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- čas přidán 16. 10. 2014
- Professor Arguelles talks us through how reading and success in foreign language learning are linked and which methods to use to get most out of your reading to gain really solid language abilities in any language.
Professor Arguelles has been dedicated to the Polyglot Community for a number of years. You can see his videos on his CZcams channel and check out his website below: Foreignlanguageexpertise.com
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damn he's getting his steps in
I continue to come back to this talk. Best lecture I have ever heard as a polyglot myself. I use it for my own learning and as I direct my school and students.
Everything by prof. Arguelles is always very worth watching!
I love reading! I am an English Major from the University of Michigan. My life has been enriched by reading the great works of English Literature and Classical Literature. I've also studied Russian Literature translated in English. I wouldn't trade my English and Russian Studies for any other studies!
I totally agree!
It is true. PROFESSOR 50 LANGUAGES..... JACQUELINE. VIETNAM🥰🥰
Everyone: I listen to audiobooks.
Super polyglot extraordinaire: I listen to audiobooks in FIVE WAYS.
I was falling asleep with my earbuds on the couch when I heard what the professor said at around minute 20, about the percentage of the vocabulary needed for extensive reading, how you'll lose interest in the story if you're not at %98 level. I disagree. So I got up, I lost my sleep to write this rebuttal. I started my German language study three years ago reading only one book, 1001 Nacht. 2000 Pages of heavy duty literature. With very little vocabulary. Now I'm probably at %70-80 level. I never lost enjoyment of reading these stories. Still reading.
It's worth going back to this talk for some fresh inspiration every now and then as there are a lot of useful ideas.
I think the main thing is to bridge the chasm between conversational level and general reading eg of literature.
Roughly a difference of 5,000 to 9,000 words so you need some techniques to bridge the gap.
This amounts to an almost doubling of vocab which is quite an expectation.
Anyway Arguelles has some interestign ideas for trying to do this like biingual texts, using audiobooks with translations. Some good ideas.
Obviously simpler texts, shorter texts can also be used. Graded readers for example.
Wonderful presenter. Just wow 👏🏾
Five methods for reading from an audio visual Assimil type of material.-
1)Translated text and listen to the original audio - for overall language knowledge
2)Read the Original text with translated audio
3)Original Text with original audio
4)Shadow - audio alone
5)Looking at 2 different subtitles at once - ex: French based Assimil to learn Serbian for an English speaker. Helps for those who want to maintain many languages at once.
What a great discussion. I have to admit, that I push through literature material that is well below 90% known over and over again. Each time I understand more and more; bringing the level of known words closer to that target 98%. I like buying used books in the target language on-line and when they show up and are way above my level, I feel obligated to work through them because of the investment. Thanks for the encouraging talk!
Joseph Mazerolle Yes, and it's often tough to find material at the "correct" comprehension level, especially in less popular/common languages. There is the same problem in finding parallel texts, translations, or audiobooks as well.
What you're describing is "intensive reading" according to Krashen.
The rare polyglot who is also a good speaker 🤣
Great presentation by Professor Arguelles. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Everything he said I either related to, learned from or gained a deeper understanding of my own experiences. There is definitely a lot here for me to apply to my own learning!
Thx! I really enjoyed watching the video and i think im now getting the hang of how to learn a third language other than English.
As you mentioned the values of learning a language at the end of your presentation, i cant agree more.
Also, since Im looking forward to becoming a diplomat of my country, South Korea, having commands of languages as many as possible would put me on a vantage level compared to other candidates.
I will try to follow the methods you mentioned in the video.
Hopefully, I could reach to a master level in Spanish in less than two years, and if and only if I truly become a sort of a native speaker in Spanish, I hope I could learn either Chinese or Japanese. Maybe French or Russian too. Or all of them haha..
proud to say i've been lucky enough to be a student of Alexander's at my university for the past two years.
What University, pls
I think his lecture is more relevant than ever. We are not living in a world were reading is forbidden but the Brave New World where people chose images over the written word.
I read 1984
Now I will read Brave new World.
So interesting. The best!
OMG! it's him the Legend!
These are excellent techniques. I think you have to watch this video a few times and take notes to grasp progressive approach to building vocabulary by reading literature.
I used several of these methods with the last 2 languages I have learned. The hard part is finding content. I started making my own parallel texts on excel, using content from multilingual websites with corresponding audio files. I started with easy material, and progressively going to harder content. I mixed up the different exercises. Listening to English audio, while following in French, then Listening to French, while reading along in English. Then I would listen to French and follow along in French, and shadowed the reader, and finally graduated to reading the text out loud myself. I am not sure about the science, but I can tell you I learned and retained the vocabulary at a rate surprised me. I found that if you combine these techniques with speaking with natives at every opportunity, your progress will be surprising.
Interesting. Could you share what resources did you use?
When I saw this on Luca's Facebook my blood started pumping. I wish Arguelles would still make videos.
Why can't he?
I know it's years later but Alexander Arguelles is active once again on youtube
@ 17:02, it's 33% faster. 9 months produces 12 months of knowledge means that at this pace, after 12 months of learning you will have progressed 16 months of the "standard" rate (12/9*12 = 16, or in words: 12 months progress per 9 months learning time for 12 months time produces 16 months of progress). When you say "percentage" it must be relative to something. % increase relative to the "normal" rate (12 months progress after 12 months of learning) is what I considered). I don't know where he gets "4 years time you'll make 5 years progress". That isn't the same rate as 9 months time you'll make 12 months progress, but nonetheless, it would be the equivalent rate of 6.25 years of progress within 5 years (5/4*5 = 6.25 years of progress within 5 years of physical time), or 25% increase ([6.25-5]/5 = 0.25). Sorry, I'm just answering his question and clarifying.
True, 33% faster.
What I do is that I expose myself to different works of literature in Spanish, as that is the language I am learning, and I base my conversational abilities after sentence structure from the books, as well as incorporating it's vocabulary. I am a native English speaker, and that is how I started to develop my conversational English abilities, as I am not a natural conversationalist, and I appreciate the way books structure information and ideas, too.
You can buy books on Kindle.
His wife is Korean girl. She is honor and proud of her husband. God bless her. I am envious, wishing this Professor to be my husband😘😘🥰🥰😇😇
todo esta bien, su discurso , la pronunciacion , muy inteligente ,,,,,,peeerooooo MUCHO SE MUEVE Y ESO OCASIONA QUE SUS PALABRAS SE GOPEEN CON EL MICRO Y TODO EL SNIDO SE DIFUMA O NO DEJA ESCUCHAR BIEN POR QUE DA LA IMPRESIOON QUE SE VA A TROPEZAR CON LAS COSAS QUE ESTAN A LOS LADOS
GRACIAS DE TODAS MANERAS ,,,,MAESTRO
7:10 Nativos parlantes usualmente manejan cerca de 20 mil palabras (Un nativo educado) Pero para una persona normal solo podría sobrevivir para comunicarse con 3 mil palabras. 5-9 mil palabras es el promedio de palabras que se necesitan comunicarse y hasta para leer una novela.
Good video! My brother studied languages at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in California. The pace of study was intense. Students had to master the language course in 36-64 weeks. Psychologically it was very difficult, but fortunately he was helped by Yuriy Ivantsiv's book "Polyglot Notes. Practical tips for learning foreign languages”. The book " Polyglot Notes" became a desk book for my brother, because it has answers to all the problems that any student of a foreign language has to face. Thanks to the author of the channel for this interesting video! Good luck to everyone who studies a foreign language and wants to realize their full potential!
Epic! Almot can't believe this exists.
13:15 Importante. Los estudiantes que dijeron les gustaba leer libros tenían promedio el doble de vocabulario y dieron mejor en la prueba. Por lo que la lectura intensiva es dificíl pero eficiente.
I'm one of the reasons physical books are dropping in sales. I read quite a lot, but I quit buying physical books years ago. I'm dyslexic and find the single page e-reader format (where I can control font, size, leading, line length, and change the page color) much easier to deal with. I read as much as ever, but I don't read "books."
You can store many more books digitally.
That's why I changed to Kindle.
@@diariosdelextranjero Definitely. I have over 1,000 books on my little device.
rguelles is always very worth
I watched at 1.5x speed. Thanks YT for saving me time
Thanks
It's a good idea , thanks
Congratulations on discovering this feature.
😂I literally watch everything on 2x speed. Regular talking sounds so slow to me now
Thanks for wasting mine with this comment
great
Anybody have the links prof put up?
I took that word-group test. Only got 15k word groups. Profound sadness. Genuinely surprised, since my main hobby is reading and I generally consider myself to have a relatively large vocabulary comparatively.
are you a native at english?
15,000 words is good for a foreign language learner, it's nothing to be ashamed of. I do recommend adding word cards into your routine - there are fine software options around such as Anki.
I would like to visit the web site he mentions and he shows in the screen but I can’t catch. I would appreciate it a lot if someone shares it. Thx!
Lincy, was this the site you were talking about?
www.keybr.com/
Hope this helps.
Audio books.. love them ocassionally but it's only passive 'reading'
They are becoming more popular by the day.
16:36 Formula to improve your learning
11:50 Examen de vocabulario dió como resultado que los estudiantes tenían promedio 5 mil palabras solo suficientes para la comunicación elemental y así esperaban seguir con sus estudios superiores.
Yes, interesting and reading is the quickest way of acquiring information. I believe that I could get this lecture in less than 1:07:12...
ironía ? hahaha
you can set this to run 1,5 speed !! = 50 % faster !
16:40 tres horas de estudio por semana. En un período de 9 meses harás el progreso de 12 meses. Es decir aprenderás más del 20% que el promedio estudiante.
prof
9:08 How do you know how many words you know
I only got 13/1400 and I'm a native English speaker study history at university. Quite surprising
Ben Hallo do you mean 13.000?
From Vietnamese love. Professor Polygot
So my question is that if I can't find a book at that 98% level, or even close is it completely useless to read? I can't find/afford graded readers in Russian (I found one but it was really short and now I'm done with it). What will happen if I just keep plowing through book after book at 70-80% understanding until the end? I live next to a book store, I have a plethora of books of potential interest to me. Obviously it isn't ideal, but I've got to do SOMETHING to get up to that 98% level right? And I can't stand intensive reading, checking translators and dictionaries for unknown words. At 70% understanding it is still more enjoyable without stopping for translations and to just move on and focus on what I understand. What is recommended here?
Also I often imagine what people did to learn languages way back long ago before there was anything close to language learning resources. They probably picked up a book as soon as they had a few core words and just made do. And read. And read. And read. At 20%, 30%, 50% understanding, didn't matter. Just kept reading and eventually with enough input their understanding constantly went up. That's what I'm imagining, anyway.
I believe that 98% is ideal, I'm convinced, but it just seems so unattainable that you are better off using that time it would have taken you to find that one perfect book to actually just pick something up and read. I've spent an unforgivable amount of time scouring the internet for that perfect input and I still haven't found it.
I've found this to be the case in my experience. It's too difficult to find a text that fits your level, but is too boring, or maybe the allure of how difficult a text is makes it more appealing, so it's easier to delve into it and have intense reading. I'm also convinced of the value of extensive reading, but it doesn't seem realistic, so I'm sticking with intensive reading, as it has also given me super amazing results
I believe his method only makes sense if you're a busy polyglot. Just pick a book and read. I mostly read classics - there's no way I'm going to pick up Harry Potter or Little Prince to read (no offense to anyone).
So you can do intensive reading, and do it repeatedly, and it's even fun if the books are so good as to be almost worth remembering. They used to recite Homer or Rigveda or Kalevala by heart, but they also spent their childhood reciting the Vedas. It takes time, but if you don't plan to study 10 languages, what's the hurry? Quality over quantity.
I strongly disagree with Arguelles on this point. I believe most of modern and even ancient literature is useless and vain snobbery - all power to you who have literature as a hobby - but we shouldn't confuse language learning with bourgeois literary ambitions. Like Aquinas wrote: "hominem unius libri timeo". One should really consider what's worth studying and what isn't. Do you want to remember Assimil phrases by heart, or the word of God? Do you want to quickly recall Hermione's response to Ron, or would it be more beneficial to quickly recall a detailed summary of Plato's theory of forms?
Samuli Matilainen wow this was a very educated response
I use LingQ.com to do intensive reading. It allows you to easily check every word for its translation so you don't have to physically refer to the dictionary any time. Hands down worth the subscription
It's a matter of gaining citizenship in the vast Republic of Letters...which makes us multidimensional and quasi ubiquitous...capable now of inhabiting the ancient Latin idiom of Pliny the Elder, the modern French of Camus, or the cosmopolitan Spanish style of Carlos Fuentes. Few of the so called polyglots will ever reach this. Can you read and enjoy THE SOUND AND THE FURY in the original? Than sorry my friend, you don't know English.
Great talk by Prof. Arguelles; I applaud him. He shows the road to follow.
Polylitterates are time travelers.
jean enviedapprendre Exactly.
peter browne "Than sorry my friend, you don't know English." "Than sorry my friend" "Than" "THAN"?!?
Sorry, this was just a horribly ironic sentence.
+dragan176 jajajaja dont mess peter hermano
Thank you for that wonderful summary
27:40 Lectura en voz alta para mejorar
You know, I have to say I can only focus with Audio, however when I write I forget what I write. That's odd.
4:38 Reading is a tool for a language development
5:36 Why reading is necessary above all for vocabulary. Word families. Educated native speakers know 20+k words; basic functionality needs 3k words.
9:35 my.vocabularysize.com as a tool to identify how many word families to you know.
12:28 TOEFL 500, IELTS 5 = 5K word know families. It's enough for conversations but not for study.
The distinction between Intensive and Extensive Reading
13:57 Intensive: short informative text + dictionary.
15:38 Extensive: fun, easy; no dictionary; long and connected texts. No for vocabular but for understanding a language. www.robwaring.org/er/what_and_why/er_is_vital.htm
18:15 For engaging in Extensive Reading you have to know 98% of a text's vocabulary. 6 unknown words per page.
31:20 As you type it www.keybr.com/ you read it very closely
26:40 como sabes como leer en un idioma extranjero?
I listened to the start of this talk, and was about to give it up listening after 10 minutes or so, as I was distracted by the delivery and nervousness of the speaker. However, I persisted, and as the talk continued I found myself growing more are more interested. I'm just at the halfway point, but I can safely say that I recommend it highly.
Sermonem optimum, Magister!
I don't think people read less. In fact, some scientists people read even more in terms of the quantity of different articles and subtitles and texts from games... The quality might be lacking though...
He said that during the first few minutes
Ceaseless love, Professor of languages. Jacqueline. Vietnam🥰🥰😇😇🤩🤩. Hoping to meet You soon, Prof
So, if I don't know 98% of the language I should go for intensive reading and not extensive? I would like to know his technique for acquisition of vocabulary if you're not fluent yet.
He is not talking about 98 percent of the language but about 98 percent of the particular text you want to read. Maybe intensive reading of shorter text is a way to improve your reading vocabulary. The first things that I read in spanish were short texts by borges and juan rulfo.
@@13tuyuti Easy to say in Spanish. How about for learning Japanese or Korean (for an English speaker) ? If you can't tolerate cartoons or comics you are screwed.
@@wanderingdoc5075 I have been listening to Harry Potter on Audible in Spanish and just downloaded it on my tablet for kindle in Japanese.
57:00 Q&A
Change is constant,progress is not so much.
18:20 Un libro promedio utiliza 300 palabras
Me pregunto siendo ésta una conferencia de poliglotas ¿como es posible que no le hayan puesto los subtitulos a éste video en al menos las lenguas mas habladas ? mucho trabajo ? o simplemente esto es solo para que lo entiendan los angloparlantes ?
+Ari S. jajajaja bueno ésto es una conferencia de poliglotas pero no es excluyente, es decir cualquiera que desee aprender un idioma puede o debería de verla /oirla por lo tanto mi pregunta es muy valida , have a nice day bro hahaha ...!
I'm learning English. So can anyone tell me if there is absolutely no point to read literature if your understanding level is below 95%? I can't beleave it's true. Yes, i'm far from that level and when i'm reading original books in English i can understand 60-80% but still i enjoy reading it. So there is no point to read untill i get to 95%? I really doubt that statement is true.
Hey, we can talk if you'd like to. I can tell you all you want to know about English so feel free to message me.
+Anton P I think, if I remember correctly, that lip readers only need to understand 40% to get a grip about what people are talking about. You can enjoy literature at 60%-80%. I would recommend you to look up all the words you dont know every ten pages or so, or even more often at the beginning of the book. That way you will learn quickly but still maintain the enjoyment you get from reading.
Many of us have enjoyed books in foreign languages at that 60-80% understanding level. I strongly agree with you.
You can still read intrsnively. Look up the words you don't know and add them to flash cards. When u get to the 98% that's when you should stop looking up the words and just read the book.
This is why you hold the microphone under the aperture of your mouth rather than pointing it at your mouth.
Didnt bother me a bit, sorry for your discomfort.
9:08 test
So Christophe Clugston never showed up I assume.
+htfcm I know right? That would have been interesting.
And he does not even have a Ph.D. as he revealed a few months ago acting as though because he published articles in a few journals he should be taken as a serious scholar; he does, however, have a masters. And while he lambasts Kaufman and almost all other foreign languages "gurus" as he calls them, has he ever had the courage to speak at length in a foreign language? I've never seen him do so. Finally, it was extremely cowardly not to show up at the conference. He knew that there are dozens of people there who would put him in his place!
Every movement needs a punching bag to rally around!
Interesting. However, the board is not readable.
30:03 App
So extensive reading is not for people below a B2 level then. Because if you know 95% of the words in a book then you're already basically fluent. So why do so many polyglot teachers suggest reading books in the target language for even beginners? I'm a bit confused.
I think he means that 95% in a suitable text. So basically you need to find a text that you understand 95% percent of. So for example if you are a beginner even baby books or level 1 graded readers are fantastic starting points as they are designed for beginner vocab in mind. And when your understanding of those gets over 95% you need to move to harder content, bit by bit until you are eventually reading novels. That's why teachers recommend them.
31:50 que leer
It's pretty in India, but not as good as in Finland or Iceland.
Wow, this was in my city, and I didn't attend. :(
Anyone else see that dude in the front pick stuff out of his ear and sniff it TWICE xD
whats his first language?
Tomb japenese
bostonrules222 4 years later lmao thank you
@@tombraiderfan2 its english and he is american.
1:05:02 - Makes the claim that "reading aloud" is not a real skill that we use in real life, but think by analogy of all other types of exercises we do like martial arts katas, playing scales, jogging, and these are not skills that we use in "real life" either. Practice activities are fundmanetally different than the "real skills" that we use. For example when I learned to practice typing on a computer keyboard, we normally type a bunch of nonsense characters that appear on different rows of the keyboard, specifically designed in order to train our fingers to quickly move to those positions.
thought2007 Agreed, I think his point was poorly considered in his question. I find reading aloud to be an extremely important skill that not only helps reading but, yes, conversation. It is essentially shadowing without the audio (so a graduation from it in a sense).
My Korean professor from when I took Korean in college used to have us read aloud quite often, at each level in the program, and for good reason. She knew the inherent quality in practicing reading aloud. And it was very clear to see, the students who had the best conversation, accent and pronunciation, were also the strongest when reading aloud. Students who had difficulty in conversation, even in the higher levels, also stumbled through voiced readings.
As I mentioned, it is essentially shadowing without audio. To learn and then practice how to read a foreign text fluidly, naturally, and as native-like as possible is wonderful practice for conversation. You can understand how natives tie words together to form sentences, and by internalizing this rhythm you will speak in a much more natural way, even unconsciously. Yes the skill itself may not show up in daily life (however when it does, like reading a news item or page of a novel to a friend, I'd prefer to do it well rather than butcher it), but that doesn't diminish the power of the technique, for reading and conversation.
bylanduck Exactly. Wonderful lecture Professor Arguelles. There is substantial evidence supporting the professor's techniques concerning reading aloud; they are used to develop literacy and speaking skills in many schools. Pity young Alex hasn't learned any deeper wisdom from all those languages. Perhaps he should spend more time reading the classics too.
I did outloud reading a lot while learning the English language; and the first three years of my learning German. Recently I deliberately refrain from it. I concluded that it's a bad habit. It can do more damage than good since it can lock your tongue into the wrong intonation and bad accent. I'm working on improving my English accent via shadowing audio right now. And I'm using the same method with German. It's much less likely that I'll lock my tongue into bad habits that way.
Richard Simcott?
I thought the same
y es que no piensan ponerles los subtitulos ? que desperdicio ...!
Enserio lo llamas desperdicio? Sabes, mi nivel de Inglés no es muy alto, pero uso estos videos para practicar y no importa si los oigo una y otra vez, mi meta es entender mejor cada vez. Agradecido estoy de que haya gente que trate estos temas, que me inspire a aprender mas y mas. Úsalo como meta, que puedas entenderlo sin la necesidad de subtítulos, el único impedimento no son los subtítulos en sí, eres tú, así que manos a la obra. Enserio espero y lo logres.
+Hieroric te felicito lo que haces es una buena técnica y tambien la practico a veces pero no olvides que hay muchos que no saben nada del idioma y quieren aprender tambien de estos expertos y debe llegarles el mensaje en su idioma de alguna manera u otra. para ellos esto es un desperdicio en cambio para los que quieran aprender mas del tema mientras fortalecen la escucha del idioma es muy valioso ..!
¿Sabes el trabajo que lleva escribir toda una hora de substítulos y sincronizarlos?
si , se que es bastante trabajo , pero en este caso se trata de un tema especial relativo al aprendizaje de idiomas por lo que sus proponentes deben ofrecer esa posibilidad al resto del mundo no angloparlante ...! es como si su titulo dijera "como aprender idiomas solo para angloparlantes "
franklin alexander Colmenarez learn English my friend cheers
One day, I will be able to speak 4 languages, I will be a polyglot.
1 year has passed. In which language have you made progress ?
@@diariosdelextranjero
he quit.
Argüelles: you must comprehend 98% of the words
Latin/Greek students: well I guess I'll never be able to do extensive reading.
Why would that be? There are accessible beginning and intermediate texts available in Latin and even in Greek. Surely it would be great to have more (and great quality) easy readers in both languages, but getting to a level to read Vulgate or Septuagint/NT is certainly not impossible. And at that level there is obviously a LOT one can read. (Full disclosure: I have done and continue to do a lot of extensive reading in Latin myself and so do some of my students.)
French is pretty phonetic. You just need to know silent letter rules and that kind of thing and you are good to go.
It's a conference for polyglots but it's held in English! 🤣
the problem is that it's the only language all polyglots have in common, I don't like it either but it's the most practical
The guy seems tired :P
I would say out of breath
He's just 50. How's that "old"?
He says 6 out of 300 words can be unknown, meaning 6 words per page and that would come up to 2% of unknown words. I think there is a huge mistake here bexause it assumes that every word is only used one. Imagine you have a 300 page novel with 300 words per page, totaling up to 90000 words with 1800 unknown words. But the number of individual words in that book might only be half of the total number of words, since words are used repetedly. So if you don't understand 1800 words out of 45000 individual words than you are missing 4 percent not 2.
Gaining 12 months within 9 is a 33% gain not 25%.
he was talking about the fact that 9 months is a 3 month reduction from 12 months, which is a 25% reduction.
The content is very interesting but the speaker’s pacing (movement) is very distracting.
Close your eyes, minimize the video, or strengthen your mind.
30:10 Can't believe he cannot get "Преступление и наказание" correctly... Now that's extensive reading to the extreme when you can't get the title right!
Alex was REALLY bored.
+Nicolas Alejandro Medina jajajaja si parece decir : joder viejo termina ya jajaja..!
Hahaha. ;)
All the air puffs that the mic picked up why he was talking gave me a headache and made it hard to focus
Mason Leach You must be very weak.
I dont think so ...... ours ears are very sensitive , is for that , iis not about weak@@thisguylearnsitalian3904
Please do cardio
This guy with the brown pants, checkered-shirt, in the front row , in front of the camera, annoys the shit out of me. He is obviously out of place at this conference, constantly fidgeting and looking at his watch. Why dude?
+Jason Arbogast I know right
lmao, that's Alex Rawlings
yeah exactly, would have expected more from him.
blame the guy or girl who set up the camera
The baldhead in first row....Isn't it Richard Simcott? Another brilliant polyglott.
This is a talk on literature and it seems that he is taking Dostojevski et al. almost for granted? I would question the overall benefit of literature altogether. Polyliteracy even?
One should make a distionction between what is worth learning and what isn't. Not all texts use colorful language, and some use colorful language even without being too snobby about it.
The best example that I can give is the Triple Knowledge, meaning the recitation of 3 Vedas. It was common in Europe too for poets to recite large works. Today there is too much "literature" out there. Most of it is not worth even reading, like Schopenhauer said in his essay on reading.
Maybe Arguelles is using too numeric approach to vocabulary building and language learning in general. I think Arguelles fails to make the distinction between sacred and profane languages - between philosophy and science and "literature". One should never lump these things together - and my advice is to never even begin to read "extensively".
How could you "question the overall benefit of literature altogether" .. That's the most unintelligent statement I've seen in the comments so far.
With all due respect for Prof. Arguelles, reading is not the "best" tool for learning a foreign language. Linguists still can't define what "knowing a language" really means. Sure, you can learn, for example, 10,000 words from books. But will you recognize them when you hear them fluently spoken by a native speaker is a different question. Listening or speaking skills are just as important. And reading books is not an efficient way of training your listening comprehension or speaking ability.
If I heard Prof. Arguelles speak Russian on the street, for example, just as he did in this video, I would never think he's the guy who reads Dostoyevsky. His Russian sounds way off base. If he watched more Russian movies, on the other hand, he might have developed a better feeling for the Russian accent. No offence to Prof. Arguelles intended.
You can't impress anyone with your 20,000+ vocabulary if you have a terrible accent, for example. No one is going to take you seriously. I'm just saying that growing your vocabulary doesn't necessarily make you a good speaker or listener in a foreign language. Speaking, listening and reading are all quite different skills. You have to decide for yourself what's more important to you in language learning.
allesindwillkommen Code switching to say one or two words in another language while you're talking in one says almost nothing about the quality of your accent. E.g. if I say "Einstein" while speaking English I speak it in a different way than if I speak it while speaking German. I talk to some people with great accents but then their understanding of some basic words is very limited, and that's more frustrating to me than well-educated people with accent.
thought2007 ***** I don't understand why you feel disrespect in my comment. Arguelles' accent was not the main point. I have nothing against his accent. It was just used as an illustrative example of the multifaceted nature of language which cannot be ignored. My criticism was directed at the superior role of reading in language acquisition process. The truth is, however, there are no "best" methods in language learning. Even some seemingly good methods don't always work for every person and every language. Some languages don't even have any writing system at all. You can't read in those languages but it doesn't mean you can't learn them.
I think its clear from the context that we're considering only languages which have writing systems. For example, languages without writing systems cannot transcend time.
allesindwillkommen I kind of agree with you, and kind of disagree. I don't know about his Russian, but I'm pretty sure he's an accomplished speaker in quite a few languages, not to say that he sounds like a native in them though.
It's probably best to try to achieve a balance between speaking/listening and reading/writing. Not always easy though.
He didn't say it is the "best" tool for learning a foreign language.
He said you can't learn all language skills by reading.
He also expressed the idea: "you have to decide for yourself what's important to you in language learning".
Maybe you need to practice your English listening skills?
98% is not true. What a discouragement! Maybe 60%, obviously the grammar, but that's way too high to get the main point of a text.
Did you understand what he was saying when he said 98%? 80% gives you the gist, which that is fine for short texts. 90% gives a better gist. 98% allows you to understand enough to understand the continuity for long texts. All without a dictionary.
60% is about right for intensive reading. If you're at 60% comprehension and you're not using a dictionary while trying to figure out words from context, you're gonna have a bad time as there isn't very much context to draw from. Even if you do do that, the real benefit of extensive reading comes from doing lots of it. If it's fun, you'll keep doing it.
Sometimes, I do not know more than 5% in my native language, just because the author uses too much of dialects. Use online dictionaries.