<p>I am about to be a third-year undergraduate student, majoring in English literature, and I suppose it’s a given that I want to attend graduate school since I’m posting here. I have chosen to study French and German, and I hope to obtain a reading proficiency in one or both of these languages by whatever deadline is given me at the graduate school that I end up attending. Two hitches: one, I am only beginning both of these languages this coming semester (I recently made a major change in direction), and two, the courses in which I am enrolled are not “for reading” classes, as these are not offered at my college.</p>
<p>I realize that I will not gain the highly advanced level of proficiency required of me in either of these languages in just two years, but I hope that it will be a good enough start. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what extra things I might do in order to maximize the time that I have and gear my own independent studies towards reading knowledge specifically?</p>
<p>I hope my question made sense, and I thank you in advance for your time and advice.</p>
<p>Yeah, find a good reader. I can’t recommend any for these languages, but I’m sure the one sarbruis linked is good, and a little poking around in Amazon’s reviews and asking your school’s profs in the languages for recommendations should narrow down your choices a bit. </p>
<p>Two years is a lot longer than you think – dedicated independent study will progress you much faster than the standard two-year beginning sequence of classes in college. French and German are not difficult for English-speakers to learn, and if you can create a good study plan and set aside an hour every day (365/year) for study, it shouldn’t take much more than a year to achieve a solid reading knowledge of either one (with a dictionary handy); two years of one language should leave you far enough along to read its literature for enjoyment.</p>
<p>find your favorite book…one that you know so well that it’s almost by heart…and get it in the language you desire…</p>
<p>Something that really helped me with my Hebrew reading skills was reading Harry Potter in Hebrew…</p>
<p>when i was studying french i bought a few books (Candid, for instance) that had English on one page and the original French on the other (side by side). That helped too…because i could read the French and if i didnt know a word i could consult the english on the other page :-)</p>
<p>Yeah, all the above advice: get every book you can get your hands on and read. If you feel discouraged, plow on; it really does allow you to comprehend. If you can handle the distraction, listen to radio/news/music in the language as a background influence. Hearing the language and reading it at the same time has given me great leverage in learning a language. Essentially, it is a home-made immersion programme.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your helpful advice, everyone! I especially like the idea about reading one’s favorite books in those languages. And gooberyglobs, thanks: you’ve made me feel a good deal more hopeful about my late start.</p>
<p>I also find it’s a good idea, if you have native friends from the respective culture, to ask what their favorite books are. While I was studying abroad in Japan, I picked up a bunch of books on these recommendations and it helped immensely.</p>
<p>Although this requires being in the country, one of the best things I did was just go to the store and ask around for books I might be interested in reading anyways. I’ve always loved insects, so I asked for a field guide to entomology and spent a while reading/practicing my Japanese while boning up on the local insect populations.</p>
<p>Hi,
Adding to this question: I have what (at least IMO) I would call a reading proficiency in Spanish. However, I haven’t taken a Spanish class since high school. My family speaks Spanish, we live on the Mexican border, and my father works in South America for a large portion of the year, so I’ve had almost constant language “practice” throughout my life, but no college level classes. How do I demonstrate this in a graduate application? Will that matter, or are classes on a transcript all they look at? for reference, I’m applying for masters programs in American Colonial History.</p>
I have chosen to study French and German, and I hope to obtain a reading proficiency in one or both of these languages by whatever deadline is given me at the graduate school that I end up attending. Two hitches: one, I am only beginning both of these languages this coming semester (I recently made a major change in direction), and two, the courses in which I am enrolled are not “for reading” classes, as these are not offered at my college.</p>