Reading and Language Learning
Living in Holland, the Aspiring Polyglot has been forced to take on Dutch. But how to build one's skills? She gave up on children's books and has been reading grown-up books, but is this the way to go?
I, myself, have been picking at Uzbek, and fantasize about finding a children's story or two - something nice and easy - until I remember my first attempts at children's stories in other languages. While beginning readers (See Dick run?) may have some nice, elementary structures and basic vocabulary put into a readily digestible form, the typical children's book is a mess, using short idiomatic sentences that work nicely with a well acculturated child but terribly for a non-native who can conjugate the basic verbs (which the child can't) but has a limited command of idioms, especially those used in transitional baby talk.
If you're reading a cognate language, or even a language where you've got a couple hundred words of vocabulary, I think you're better off with a grown-up short news article (on an everyday topic) or some such thing. The language is more likely conventional, rather than creative, and it's likely to be in a form where you can guess enough at what should be coming next that you can connect dots you wouldn't otherwise.
The real killer with children's books is that since they're addressed to native speakers, they assume knowledge both of the language and of the things one expects a child in the culture to talk about. And they fly off in different directions to match that mindset of a child taking in and mentally organizing the world. If you're learning the language of a society that takes its children's education seriously and you can read the children's books, you've got a very fine handle on the language. If you're interested in, say, Tibet, follow the child's lead by reading about what interests you. That way you'll keep reading long enough to - taking a phrase from an earlier post - overlearn your reading skills and the vocabulary for things you'd be interested in talking about.
For my part, I'm reading short stories (and listening to them) from the University of Washington. And I'm picking through the lyrics for my favorite songs that I've found at uzfiles.com. (Plus my Talk-Now Uzbek just arrived and I've learned some new vocabulary, but mostly everyday stuff that doesn't come up in the other stuff - nobody sings about their new belt and shirt or where you can buy some toothpaste).
I, myself, have been picking at Uzbek, and fantasize about finding a children's story or two - something nice and easy - until I remember my first attempts at children's stories in other languages. While beginning readers (See Dick run?) may have some nice, elementary structures and basic vocabulary put into a readily digestible form, the typical children's book is a mess, using short idiomatic sentences that work nicely with a well acculturated child but terribly for a non-native who can conjugate the basic verbs (which the child can't) but has a limited command of idioms, especially those used in transitional baby talk.
If you're reading a cognate language, or even a language where you've got a couple hundred words of vocabulary, I think you're better off with a grown-up short news article (on an everyday topic) or some such thing. The language is more likely conventional, rather than creative, and it's likely to be in a form where you can guess enough at what should be coming next that you can connect dots you wouldn't otherwise.
The real killer with children's books is that since they're addressed to native speakers, they assume knowledge both of the language and of the things one expects a child in the culture to talk about. And they fly off in different directions to match that mindset of a child taking in and mentally organizing the world. If you're learning the language of a society that takes its children's education seriously and you can read the children's books, you've got a very fine handle on the language. If you're interested in, say, Tibet, follow the child's lead by reading about what interests you. That way you'll keep reading long enough to - taking a phrase from an earlier post - overlearn your reading skills and the vocabulary for things you'd be interested in talking about.
For my part, I'm reading short stories (and listening to them) from the University of Washington. And I'm picking through the lyrics for my favorite songs that I've found at uzfiles.com. (Plus my Talk-Now Uzbek just arrived and I've learned some new vocabulary, but mostly everyday stuff that doesn't come up in the other stuff - nobody sings about their new belt and shirt or where you can buy some toothpaste).
