Language comprehension strategies of German language speakers with receptive skills in Hungarian

Abstract

This article deals with language comprehension strategies of German language speakers with receptive skills in Hungarian. This study explores how they come to terms with understanding two short Hungarian texts. To achieve this goal, I chose an introspective method of thinking aloud to visualize internal processes and strategies of comprehension. The results show that contextual knowledge and general knowledge of the world are highly important when it comes to (text) comprehension. In addition, the pronunciation of words must be properly memorized for the participants to be able to recognize them. Furthermore, the so-called “lack of contrast” plays an important role in the results, meaning that the participants often find the words familiar but are not able to access their meanings.