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Earlier today I was watching a Japanese medical drama (called Kyumei Byoto 24 Ji), which is rather unsubtle but at least less of a soap opera than Grey's Anatomy. And something occurred to me as I was looking up "kumomakuka shukketsu" in the dictionary (it means 'subarachnoid hemmorhage'. Not that I looked up all the medical vocabulary, because there was way too much and it went by way too fast, but there were a couple I managed to catch).
The tough thing about becoming an advanced language learner is that you reach the point where all the vocabulary you're learning is specialized vocabulary. If I'm reading a magazine article about the rioting in Urumqi, and a novel, and an essay on modern literature, you're not seeing the words you're learning reinforced across those separate contexts. 'Subarachnoid hemmorhage' is an extreme example, sure, but how often are you going to see a word that means 'ringleader of a conspiracy,' or 'prisoner condemned to death'?
And, short of being exposed to the language 18 hours a day, I'm just not going to get enough input to learn all the very obscure and moderately obscure words. I guess this is why Krashen advocates reading within a narrow genre. I can get better at reading current events op-eds, or at reading pre-war novels, or whatever--but I　can't necessarily expect to get better at reading in general any more, and that's okay.
The tough thing about becoming an advanced language learner is that you reach the point where all the vocabulary you're learning is specialized vocabulary. If I'm reading a magazine article about the rioting in Urumqi, and a novel, and an essay on modern literature, you're not seeing the words you're learning reinforced across those separate contexts. 'Subarachnoid hemmorhage' is an extreme example, sure, but how often are you going to see a word that means 'ringleader of a conspiracy,' or 'prisoner condemned to death'?
And, short of being exposed to the language 18 hours a day, I'm just not going to get enough input to learn all the very obscure and moderately obscure words. I guess this is why Krashen advocates reading within a narrow genre. I can get better at reading current events op-eds, or at reading pre-war novels, or whatever--but I　can't necessarily expect to get better at reading in general any more, and that's okay.