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Viewing Respect Your Brain - Learn in Smaller IncrementsRespect Your Brain - Learn in Smaller Increments
By Kathy Steinemann
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Which do you think is easier to learn? The poem Jack and Jill or the entire text of War and Peace? You didn't seriously say War and Peace, did you? It is a scientific fact that we learn best by absorbing small items of information and then adding to them, utilizing the first information as a stepping stone to the next. So why would you try to study the vocabulary of a foreign language book that is hundreds of pages long? Start with smaller pieces first. The most widely published book in the world is the Bible. Whether you are a Christian or not, you can still use it as a tool to learn your foreign language of choice. The Bible is available in practically every modern language. However, just as I would not recommend the King James version to a student of English, I would not recommend outdated Bible versions in other languages, either. Try an internet search like 'modern bible translations German' or 'modern bible translations French', etc. to find out what translations are available in the language of your choice. Bibleserver.com has several versions and languages available. You can read them online (in parallel translation) if you wish. There are also audio files for many of the bibles they offer. BibleGateway.com also has several online bibles, some with audio files. Wikipedia has information and background on bibles in several languages. No, you don't have to memorize the entire Bible from cover to cover! Take some of the smaller chapters, learn the vocabulary, and then progress to larger chapters. An easy way to do this is to start with Psalms and Proverbs. Each chapter is a standalone creation. The imagery and ideas are beautiful, even if you are a non-believer. For your convenience, the chapters of both books are arranged below, starting with the smallest and ending with the largest. Because some languages and translations vary slightly with their word count, the tables may not be 100% accurate for every language - but they will be very close. Be polite! When listening to audio files, be sure to save copies to your hard drive, instead of repeatedly accessing the remote server. This keeps the internet faster for everyone. Psalms •117, 134, 133, 131, 150, 123, 13, 100, 120, 126, 124, 125, 121, 67, 15 •70, 93, 130, 128, 114, 23, 127, 43, 113, 82, 1, 129, 87, 142, 61 •3, 11, 138, 122, 54, 12, 6, 8, 47, 137, 98, 149, 14, 110, 26 •101, 16, 20, 64, 52, 53, 4, 146, 29, 111, 46, 24, 99, 2, 28 •112, 85, 63, 141, 36, 58, 140, 148, 76, 21, 95, 75, 97, 57, 96 •41, 30, 5, 143, 48, 32, 108, 92, 56, 115, 62, 83, 19, 84, 42 •60, 65, 116, 91, 17, 27, 81, 79, 147, 144, 33, 66, 7, 10, 86 •132, 90, 145, 59, 9, 135, 39, 51, 49, 25, 80, 88, 103, 136, 45 •102, 35, 109, 104, 22, 107, 105, 68, 69, 37, 89, 106, 18, 78, 119 Proverbs •2, 9, 5, 7, 31, 18, 4, 22, 25, 29, 26, 3, 1, 13, 12 •27, 20, 17, 16, 8, 19, 21, 23, 6, 28, 24, 11, 30, 10, 15, 14 (c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included. About the Author: Kathy Steinemann is a busy webmaster and author who enjoys writing German-English stories in parallel translation. She works behind the scenes at several websites, including A-Language-Guide dot com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com |
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