Saturday, June 20, 2020

Step 3: Croatian listening, English reading, round one

Only about 10 pages into Harry Potter i kamen mudraca (again) and yikes. Much harder following along in a language that I used to know well but don't know well now.

Dear reader(s) will remember that I'm doing L-R in Croatian. This third step is where I Listen in Croatian while Reading in English. Thankfully there are anchors in the text. What I mean by that is there are enough words or names every sentence that I know in Croatian that help me keep on track. When I L-R'd Russian it was much easier. Granted, my Russian is much better!

Step three is supposed to be done three times. The point being that as one goes through this step repeatedly, the vocabulary will become ingrained and it'll be easier to move along in the text, not needing as many anchors as I need now. We'll see if I stick with it that long. Maybe twice? No matter, when I tire of HP 1 in Croatian I'll have two options: continue the L-R with HP 2, or retake the proficiency tests. Who knows.

The experiment I'd really like to do is this full L-R and see if my Listening proficiency increases more than my Reading. After all, I'm now at the stage of only seeing English. Step 2 (Croatian reading and listening) only happens once in L-R. Therefore as I'm hearing Croatian and seeing the English meanings, seems to me that my brain is learning Croatian listening more so than reading. I expect my listening will have improved at a higher level than my reading. 

If that happens, then I might do a second experiment. Follow L-R steps 1 and 2 the same, but when I get to step 3, I'll read in the L2 and listen in English. Shouldn't that then improve my reading proficiency more than my listening? I wonder if for this experiment, let's call it R-L, I'll have to pick a different language? 

Hmmm...the possibilities!

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