19 answers
suki
Student
Hong Kong
4
Questions
Asked
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How to read a book effectively if you don’t know the language well?
Hi! I have learned English for about 10years but still can’t manage myself to read a English book faster and effectively. Can someone tell me how you build up your vocabulary enough to read a book effectively. #books #english #language
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19 answers
Margaret McGaharan
Analyst
26
Answers
Jacksonville, Florida
Updated
Margaret’s Answer
Have a dictionary nearby to look up words you aren't sure of. In English, there is heavy use of slang and common sayings that may not translate well. In those cases, Google the meanings for clarification. A good way to start reading books in English is to pick a book you've read before in your native language and get an English version of it. Read the English version with a dictionary and Google nearby as well as the knowledge you already have about the book and how it's written to piece it together.
Another thing that helps with reading English better is to start off by watching a movie or television program in your native language but with English captions. Read the captions and compare them to what is being said. This helps with not only reading English in general, but picking up speed while doing so.
Another thing that helps with reading English better is to start off by watching a movie or television program in your native language but with English captions. Read the captions and compare them to what is being said. This helps with not only reading English in general, but picking up speed while doing so.
Yasemin G.
Aspiring physician
635
Answers
Updated
Yasemin’s Answer
Hi Suki! I think with any language it takes practice to be honest. I think that even learning another language and applying it is definitely an achievement; I would recommend to maybe start off with easy-to-read books and work your way up vocabulary wise. If you don't know a word, you can Google search it then a definition along with pronunciation will come up and if you want to take an extra step you can even make flashcards of the words you are learning and go over them every now and then! Quizlet is free to use and is a great way to make flashcards because it also has the audio where you can hear the word and definition and that way it can really help you get use to the new words and learn them effectively. I've also attached a link below of 10 easy English books to read, some of them are a classic and are always fun to read and re-read, also check out Duolingo if you haven't. It's a great and free language app that allows you to practice your language skills and there are even stories on there that are short but very effective for practicing! You can upgrade to no ads if you want but I think if you keep it free, it's perfectly fine. Just keep practicing and with time I am positive your vocabulary will improve!
Best of luck!
Check out https://www.fluentu.com/blog/english/easy-simple-english-books-read-beginners/
Check out https://www.duolingo.com/course/en/pt/Learn-English
Best of luck!
Yasemin recommends the following next steps:
Doc Frick
Career Coach and Mentor
1616
Answers
California, CA
Updated
Doc’s Answer
Suki reading is an excellent way to improve your general English.
You can only learn from reading, however, if what you read is not too difficult. For this reason, it is important to know what makes texts difficult and how you can improve your chances of understanding them. for example, you can’t change the print in a book or make poor writing better. But there are many things you can do that will give you a better chance of understanding what you read.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND MORE OF WHAT YOU ARE READING
Most of the time you have to read what your teachers tell you to read. But as you know, reading is an excellent way to improve your English, and so you should try to do some extra reading each week.
1.) Choose the right place to read – You can’t really expect to understand a difficult book if you are trying to read in the same room with the television on and your little brother distracting you. The same goes for reading in the bus on the way to school. You also can’t expect to read a textbook and listen to music at the same time. Try to find a quiet and comfortable place with good light, and your dictionaries and other materials nearby.
2.) Get background information – Find something out about the topic you have to read. The more background information you have, the easier it will be to understand the text. You can get this background information background in your own language. For example, if you are reading a book on American History, you could read an encyclopedia or textbook in your own language to find out the most important details about this historical period. You can sometimes get background information from the text itself. Many writers include a conclusion or summary; if you read this first, it may give you a good start. Your parents may also be able to give you useful background information. Talk to them in your language.
3.) Choose something that is interesting to you – If you are really interested in a topic, you will probably be able to understand texts that would normally be too difficult for you. Good textbooks are well-organized, with titles, sub-titles, introductions, summaries or conclusions. Many books also have pictures with captions. Look at all these first before starting to read. It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book, you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination.
4.) Choose the right place to read – You can’t really expect to understand a difficult book if you are trying to read in the same room with the television on and your little brother distracting you. The same goes for reading in the bus on the way to school. You also can’t expect to read a textbook and listen to music at the same time. Try to find a quiet and comfortable place with good light, and your dictionaries and other materials nearby.
5.) Surf the internet – You can learn a lot of English just by surfing around on the websites that interest you. This is particularly true if the webpages contain pictures that help you understand the writing. This could also Increase your vocabulary, the better your vocabulary, the easier you will find your reading.
Hope this was Helpful Suki
You can only learn from reading, however, if what you read is not too difficult. For this reason, it is important to know what makes texts difficult and how you can improve your chances of understanding them. for example, you can’t change the print in a book or make poor writing better. But there are many things you can do that will give you a better chance of understanding what you read.
HOW TO UNDERSTAND MORE OF WHAT YOU ARE READING
Most of the time you have to read what your teachers tell you to read. But as you know, reading is an excellent way to improve your English, and so you should try to do some extra reading each week.
1.) Choose the right place to read – You can’t really expect to understand a difficult book if you are trying to read in the same room with the television on and your little brother distracting you. The same goes for reading in the bus on the way to school. You also can’t expect to read a textbook and listen to music at the same time. Try to find a quiet and comfortable place with good light, and your dictionaries and other materials nearby.
2.) Get background information – Find something out about the topic you have to read. The more background information you have, the easier it will be to understand the text. You can get this background information background in your own language. For example, if you are reading a book on American History, you could read an encyclopedia or textbook in your own language to find out the most important details about this historical period. You can sometimes get background information from the text itself. Many writers include a conclusion or summary; if you read this first, it may give you a good start. Your parents may also be able to give you useful background information. Talk to them in your language.
3.) Choose something that is interesting to you – If you are really interested in a topic, you will probably be able to understand texts that would normally be too difficult for you. Good textbooks are well-organized, with titles, sub-titles, introductions, summaries or conclusions. Many books also have pictures with captions. Look at all these first before starting to read. It really doesn’t matter what book you read, by losing yourself in a thoroughly engrossing book, you can escape from the worries and stresses of the everyday world and spend a while exploring the domain of the author’s imagination.
4.) Choose the right place to read – You can’t really expect to understand a difficult book if you are trying to read in the same room with the television on and your little brother distracting you. The same goes for reading in the bus on the way to school. You also can’t expect to read a textbook and listen to music at the same time. Try to find a quiet and comfortable place with good light, and your dictionaries and other materials nearby.
5.) Surf the internet – You can learn a lot of English just by surfing around on the websites that interest you. This is particularly true if the webpages contain pictures that help you understand the writing. This could also Increase your vocabulary, the better your vocabulary, the easier you will find your reading.
Hope this was Helpful Suki
Zoe Lei
Technician
2
Answers
Macau
Updated
Zoe’s Answer
Hi Suki,
I have experienced for learning English many years, I will divers myself with listening, writing, reading and speaking, always practice and communicate with different native speakers also help for enhance your pronunciation and vocabulary. In life, we also have many resources like news, podcast, movie or magazines which is more interesting, found your passion and use to learn it from English. Familiar with different wordings to express your feeling such as stated, claimed, told, spoke.
I have experienced for learning English many years, I will divers myself with listening, writing, reading and speaking, always practice and communicate with different native speakers also help for enhance your pronunciation and vocabulary. In life, we also have many resources like news, podcast, movie or magazines which is more interesting, found your passion and use to learn it from English. Familiar with different wordings to express your feeling such as stated, claimed, told, spoke.
Krasti Quach
Business Analytics
22
Answers
Round Rock, Texas
Updated
Krasti’s Answer
Hi Suki,
I would say it definitely takes practice and a lot of patience to be comfortable reading in a foreign language. If learning new words and saving time is your main concern, then my recommendation is to get a kindle or any e-book that allows you to define words by simply highlighting the word. This makes learning new vocabulary a lot more convenient and faster. There is a lot of value in this because time is saved. You don't need to put the book down, pick up a dictionary, return to the book to re-read and understand the passage. Of course, the more you read, the more you will familiarize yourself with the language and comfortable you will eventually feel later down in the road. So try not to focus on the speed but on learning and understanding the book.
I would say it definitely takes practice and a lot of patience to be comfortable reading in a foreign language. If learning new words and saving time is your main concern, then my recommendation is to get a kindle or any e-book that allows you to define words by simply highlighting the word. This makes learning new vocabulary a lot more convenient and faster. There is a lot of value in this because time is saved. You don't need to put the book down, pick up a dictionary, return to the book to re-read and understand the passage. Of course, the more you read, the more you will familiarize yourself with the language and comfortable you will eventually feel later down in the road. So try not to focus on the speed but on learning and understanding the book.
Eugenia Galstyan
Lawyer
8
Answers
Prague, Czechia
Updated
Eugenia’s Answer
I saw in the advises above suggestions to read in English those books which you have previously read in your own language. Well, for me it has worked other way around - I was buying the most appealing to me books which I never read in my own language and I was really interested in what's there. I also hate using dictionaries while reading, because searching for words kills the pleasure for me - it interrupts the flow and breaks the dream world created by the book. So probably in my first books I was losing a lot of details, not sure about the character's appearance or landscape around. However normally by the middle of the book you figure out what most words mean, at least on intuitive level, and by the end of the book many of the words will be built into your passive vocabulary, meaning that you will know what they mean when you see them next time.
Adam Bank
IT Business Systems Analyst and Architect
4
Answers
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Updated
Adam’s Answer
Have you tried reading a book while listening to the audio-book version of that book at the same time? Some people find that very helpful. Some people hate it! Maybe it could help you practice.
Here is a website with free audiobooks: https://librivox.org/
Many of the audiobooks on librivox have links to eText versions of book so you can follow along.
Here is a website with free audiobooks: https://librivox.org/
Many of the audiobooks on librivox have links to eText versions of book so you can follow along.
Gwen Le
Product Management
3
Answers
San Jose, California
Updated
Gwen’s Answer
How about picking a book with the topic that interests you, but not a huge stretch from where you currently are?
For example: 110% if you're at 100% then you can build the 10% when reading the book (vs. spending the time to check for the new vocabulary instead of reading the book, which is the main goal)
This, I hope, will keep you going instead of discouraging you
Over time, you'll get to 200% 300% etc while the book vocabulary becomes more difficult
Good luck, and keep on reading!
For example: 110% if you're at 100% then you can build the 10% when reading the book (vs. spending the time to check for the new vocabulary instead of reading the book, which is the main goal)
This, I hope, will keep you going instead of discouraging you
Over time, you'll get to 200% 300% etc while the book vocabulary becomes more difficult
Good luck, and keep on reading!
Alfredo Baudet
Project Manager
11
Answers
Miami, Florida
Updated
Alfredo’s Answer
Have you tried reading books aimed at younger audiences out loud? The more you do this, the better your understanding will be and the better your vocabulary will be.
The other tough thing you can do is to read more and have a dictionary nearby that you can use to find the definitions of words.
The other tough thing you can do is to read more and have a dictionary nearby that you can use to find the definitions of words.
shalini Kumar
Developer
2
Answers
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Updated
shalini’s Answer
Hi Suki,
As said in the above answers it takes time to master any language. We will need to keep in mind that we are learning something foreign considering the fact that we have been very attached to our native language.
So, Don't rush and give it some time and u will be the master of it.
I will always suggest that u start with something that interest you it can even watching a video in that language or reading books whichever is comfortable and then do it for 30 mins every day. In the start, you will feel like you are not getting anything but as time progresses, you will see that you starting to understand a lot of words and phrases and by no time you would master it.
I had resorted to books for the same. But, there is no limitation as long as u are learning, u can explore any options like speaking to people/watching videos with subtitles/reading books
All the Best !!
As said in the above answers it takes time to master any language. We will need to keep in mind that we are learning something foreign considering the fact that we have been very attached to our native language.
So, Don't rush and give it some time and u will be the master of it.
I will always suggest that u start with something that interest you it can even watching a video in that language or reading books whichever is comfortable and then do it for 30 mins every day. In the start, you will feel like you are not getting anything but as time progresses, you will see that you starting to understand a lot of words and phrases and by no time you would master it.
I had resorted to books for the same. But, there is no limitation as long as u are learning, u can explore any options like speaking to people/watching videos with subtitles/reading books
All the Best !!
Anika Neela
Software Engineer
1
Answer
Bellevue, Washington
Updated
Anika’s Answer
Hi Suki, that's a great question. English is not my first language as well so, it took me a while to learn it and be able to read books faster (quite subjective). Here's what worked for me:
Reading involves a lot more than just pronouncing words. It involves imagination (if the book you are reading is fantasy), perspective of culture, etc. You brought up two points of concern: Speed and Effectiveness.
For Speed:
* I will definitely say, when reading, don't read out loud. We, humans, think faster than we speak. So, while reading a book try to read without speaking it out loud.
* If you are aiming to get the gist of the book and not aiming to memorize each detail of it, I suggest skimming through the parts where it adds a lot of adjectives. Like a detailed description of something.
* Don't keep counting how many pages you have read so far. I know I used to do that myself. I will read really fast and count how many pages and that will slow me down. If you read enough books and often, your speed will improve naturally.
For Effectiveness:
* This is something that is beyond just words. It is about understanding perspectives, cultures, tones (sarcasm), and many more. Being able to read effectively, for me, is to truly wrap our head around what is being said.
* If it is a research based book, you may want to read few articles on it before or after to have more context for your understanding.
* Having English speaking friends is VERY important because it helps you understand each tone and subtle meanings underneath each words, which increases the effectiveness. Alternatively, watching TV shows, movies, music by native English speakers also help establish that.
Nevertheless, being able to enjoy reading also helps. So, if you enjoy reading, trust me, it will build onto your reading speed and effectiveness unconsciously yet naturally.
Reading involves a lot more than just pronouncing words. It involves imagination (if the book you are reading is fantasy), perspective of culture, etc. You brought up two points of concern: Speed and Effectiveness.
For Speed:
* I will definitely say, when reading, don't read out loud. We, humans, think faster than we speak. So, while reading a book try to read without speaking it out loud.
* If you are aiming to get the gist of the book and not aiming to memorize each detail of it, I suggest skimming through the parts where it adds a lot of adjectives. Like a detailed description of something.
* Don't keep counting how many pages you have read so far. I know I used to do that myself. I will read really fast and count how many pages and that will slow me down. If you read enough books and often, your speed will improve naturally.
For Effectiveness:
* This is something that is beyond just words. It is about understanding perspectives, cultures, tones (sarcasm), and many more. Being able to read effectively, for me, is to truly wrap our head around what is being said.
* If it is a research based book, you may want to read few articles on it before or after to have more context for your understanding.
* Having English speaking friends is VERY important because it helps you understand each tone and subtle meanings underneath each words, which increases the effectiveness. Alternatively, watching TV shows, movies, music by native English speakers also help establish that.
Nevertheless, being able to enjoy reading also helps. So, if you enjoy reading, trust me, it will build onto your reading speed and effectiveness unconsciously yet naturally.
Sunitha V
Technician,Technical Support
23
Answers
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Updated
Sunitha’s Answer
Take It Easy: 7 Useful Strategies for Smooth Reading in a Foreign Language
If you’re reading this, congratulations!
English is one of the most difficult languages to learn to read. From word to word, the same sounds in English are often spelled differently, or the same spellings are pronounced differently. Research has shown that English-speaking children take more than twice as long to learn to read as children who speak most other European languages.
But you’re not reading this article because you want to bask in the glory of being able to read English; you want to learn to read a whole other language!
The good news is that reading in whatever foreign language you’re interested in is probably easier than reading in English. The even better news is that reading in a foreign language can actually be the easiest thing you ever learn. With the right strategies, it’ll come much more naturally than getting down all that vocabulary or sharpening up your listening comprehension skills.
With the right techniques, language learning can usually be fun, but this is even more true of learning to read in a foreign language: basically all you have to do is read whatever you want, and you’ll get better at reading.
Of course, there are a few tricks you want to use along the way to make your “reading whatever you want” as efficient, effective and painless as possible. Here they are.
7 Strategies to Make Reading in a Foreign Language the Easiest Thing You Ever Learn
1. Transfer Your Reading Skills from Your Native Language
If you can read one language, you can read them all—sort of. Studies (like this one) have suggested that to an extent, reading skills transfer from one language to another.
In other words, learning to read in a foreign language is partly just a matter of learning to read in your native language, learning to speak the foreign language and then putting the two together. However, the catch is that your reading skills only start to transfer in a serious way once you reach a basic level of proficiency in your new language.
Therefore, backloading your reading work is the way to go. In the early stages of your language learning, focus on becoming familiar with the language, expanding your vocab and getting a feel for the grammar.
Once you have the fundamentals down, start practicing reading more intensively. With a solid grasp on the basics of the language and reading muscles already toned from a lifetime of putting up with written English, you’ll find it’s not too hard to put two and two together.
2. Split Your Time Between Focused Reading and Relaxed Reading
You might think the fastest way to learn to read in a foreign language would be to always choose the hardest texts you can find and power through them with a dictionary. It turns out, though, that one of the most important factors in how well you learn to read is simply how much you read. And if you’re always trying 110%, you’re not going to have the stamina to do the kind of voracious book-guzzling that you need to polish your reading skills.
Learning to read in a foreign language is definitely a task where the golden rule of language learning applies: Laziness is the mother of all effective language learning strategies. If you’re working too hard, you’re just not going to make it through an entire language.
So the trick is to divide your time between the kind of intensive, grinding-your-teeth-and-clutching-a-dictionary reading that pushes the limits of your abilities and the kind of Sunday-afternoon-lounging-in-an-armchair-enjoying-a-nice-book reading that lets you put in foreign language reading hours while having a good time.
For the focused reading, pick material that will give you a good challenge, and take the time to untangle the bits you don’t understand. For the relaxed reading, the point is just to read as much as possible, so go for texts that are easier to get through and that are about topics you’re interested in.
You can do both on FluentU in bite-sized chunks thanks to authentic videos at many different difficulty levels.
FluentU makes it possible to learn languages from music videos, commercials, news, inspiring talks and more.
With FluentU, you hear languages in real-world contexts—the way that native speakers actually use them. Just a quick look will give you an idea of the variety of FluentU videos on offer:
FluentU really takes the grunt work out of learning languages, leaving you with nothing but engaging, effective and efficient learning. It’s already hand-picked the best videos for you and organized them by level and topic. All you have to do is choose any video that strikes your fancy to get started!
Each word in the interactive captions comes with a definition, audio, image, example sentences and more.
Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and easily review words and phrases from the video under Vocab.
You can use FluentU’s unique adaptive quizzes to learn the vocabulary and phrases from the video through fun questions and exercises. Just swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re studying.
The program even keeps track of what you’re learning and tells you exactly when it’s time for review, giving you a 100% personalized experience.
Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes store or Google Play store.
You might want to plan out in advance how you’re going to split you’re time between focused reading and relaxed reading. For example, you might chill with some no-big-deal reading 80% of the time and going full-blown-language-learner-wielding-flashcards-and-not-afraid-to-use-them with a copy of “War and Peace” the other 20% of the time.
3. Do Group Reading
Reading is fun, but it can get lonely. After all, a recent study showed that librarians are twice as likely as people with any other occupation to list life-size blow-up dolls as their primary emergency contacts. (Just kidding.)
Doing group readings is a great way to make burying your face in a book a social activity. Just get a group of like-minded (or at least like-languaged) language learners together, and take turns reading aloud while everyone follows along the written text.
There are two big advantages you get from group reading. First, hearing someone read the words and following along visually at the same time connects your aural memory of how words sound with your visual impression of how they look on the page. Second, you can pause every few pages or so and do a group recap or discussion (in the language you’re learning!) covering what you’ve read so far.
If you want to emphasize the discussion part of things, another variant on this strategy is to have a book club. And if you don’t know anyone learning your language, don’t let that deter you from forming a reading group–this is the Internet age! Go looking on social media and places where language learners gather online, and there’s a good chance you’ll find people interested in either a real-life or virtual reading group.
4. Re-re-re-read
I’ve already talked about splitting your time between focused reading and relaxed reading, but the question remains: What exactly do you do when you’re doing focused reading?
One of my favorite strategies for parsing texts that stretch the boundaries of my reading comprehension is re-re-re-reading, which involves reading a text through four times, concentrating on different things each time through. The basic idea is to start off reading for the big picture, then work down to the details, then move back up to the big picture. Here’s how it goes:
Round 1: Get the gist of the passage
On the first pass through, read for the gist. Just get a sense of what the text is about and a general feel for what’s happening. Don’t get too hung up on words you don’t know. However, depending on how opaque the passage is, you might have to look up words here and there even to get at the overall meaning.
Round 2: Go over in more detail, looking up words you don’t know
Pass two is the bring-out-the-toolbox-and-take-this-thing-apart round. This is when you do want to get hung up on the details, looking up all words you don’t know and making sure you understand how the grammatical structure of the text is working. This is when you break the thing down into its parts and figure out how each of those parts works.
Round 3: Put together all the new details you understand
After breaking the passage down into its details, you now want to put those details back together into a unified whole. This pass through the text is about synthesizing everything you learned in pass two about what individual words mean and how the grammar fits together.
You can think of this stage as reading for the gist, like in step one, while incorporating all the new information from step two. You want to read quickly enough to get a birds eye view of the whole passage, but do take enough time to integrate most of the new knowledge you gleaned form step two.
Round 4: Do a final recap, aiming for speed
In the fourth and final run through of the text, speed is the name of the game. Now that you’ve broken down the text and put it back together, the idea is to go through grasping the meaning as quickly as possible. Try to push yourself on this one, both in terms of holding onto the things you learned in step 2 and getting through the passage faster than you thought you could.
5. Read Aloud
When working on reading, it’s helpful to keep in mind that reading is really just an extension of speaking and listening. This fact is key to making reading the easiest thing you do in your foreign language studies.
One way to take advantage of the link between spoken and written language is to actually speak and listen while you read. Just speak whatever you’re reading out loud to yourself as you read it. When you make connections between listening, reading and speaking, all three will improve.
6. Do “Less Slow” Reading
If you want to keep yourself on your toes and challenge your brain to parse the words you’re reading a little more quickly, try some timed reading activities. Speed reading doesn’t need to be your goal, just reading less slowly than you used to and setting new personal bests is the most important thing.
You can do timed reading either by setting a timer while you read so you can see how long it takes you to get through a given text and calculate your reading speed in words-per-minute, or by giving yourself a predetermined amount of time to complete a passage.
Besides pushing your brain to process the text you’re looking at a little faster, “less slow” reading will add a little excitement to your reading practice—which is never a bad idea, since boredom is the death of language learning.
7. Use Context
Context is the best language teacher you’ll ever have. Think about it: You learned your native language entirely from context.
When you’re reading, always try to take advantage of context as much as possible. Whenever you reach a word you aren’t familiar with, force yourself to guess its meaning before reaching for the dictionary, then look it up to see if you were right.
This is actually a good tip for all aspects of language learning, but it’s especially important for reading exercises, where you can find yourself reaching instinctively for the dictionary over and over. Forcing yourself to guess things from context turns language learning into a puzzle of sorts, and you’ll have a stronger memory for the words you can guess correctly from context than the ones you have to type into Google Translate to understand.
It can seem intimidating to be confronted with a wall of text in a language you still have a tenuous grasp on, but if you use strategies like transferring your foreign language speaking and native reading skills, balancing relaxed and focused reading, starting a reading group, reading out loud, re-re-re-reading and taking advantage of context, you’ll see that reading in a foreign language is a skill that just naturally gets better with time if you let it.
And if you ever find yourself getting frustrated, just remember—you’ve already learned to read English, you can do anything!
If you’re reading this, congratulations!
English is one of the most difficult languages to learn to read. From word to word, the same sounds in English are often spelled differently, or the same spellings are pronounced differently. Research has shown that English-speaking children take more than twice as long to learn to read as children who speak most other European languages.
But you’re not reading this article because you want to bask in the glory of being able to read English; you want to learn to read a whole other language!
The good news is that reading in whatever foreign language you’re interested in is probably easier than reading in English. The even better news is that reading in a foreign language can actually be the easiest thing you ever learn. With the right strategies, it’ll come much more naturally than getting down all that vocabulary or sharpening up your listening comprehension skills.
With the right techniques, language learning can usually be fun, but this is even more true of learning to read in a foreign language: basically all you have to do is read whatever you want, and you’ll get better at reading.
Of course, there are a few tricks you want to use along the way to make your “reading whatever you want” as efficient, effective and painless as possible. Here they are.
7 Strategies to Make Reading in a Foreign Language the Easiest Thing You Ever Learn
1. Transfer Your Reading Skills from Your Native Language
If you can read one language, you can read them all—sort of. Studies (like this one) have suggested that to an extent, reading skills transfer from one language to another.
In other words, learning to read in a foreign language is partly just a matter of learning to read in your native language, learning to speak the foreign language and then putting the two together. However, the catch is that your reading skills only start to transfer in a serious way once you reach a basic level of proficiency in your new language.
Therefore, backloading your reading work is the way to go. In the early stages of your language learning, focus on becoming familiar with the language, expanding your vocab and getting a feel for the grammar.
Once you have the fundamentals down, start practicing reading more intensively. With a solid grasp on the basics of the language and reading muscles already toned from a lifetime of putting up with written English, you’ll find it’s not too hard to put two and two together.
2. Split Your Time Between Focused Reading and Relaxed Reading
You might think the fastest way to learn to read in a foreign language would be to always choose the hardest texts you can find and power through them with a dictionary. It turns out, though, that one of the most important factors in how well you learn to read is simply how much you read. And if you’re always trying 110%, you’re not going to have the stamina to do the kind of voracious book-guzzling that you need to polish your reading skills.
Learning to read in a foreign language is definitely a task where the golden rule of language learning applies: Laziness is the mother of all effective language learning strategies. If you’re working too hard, you’re just not going to make it through an entire language.
So the trick is to divide your time between the kind of intensive, grinding-your-teeth-and-clutching-a-dictionary reading that pushes the limits of your abilities and the kind of Sunday-afternoon-lounging-in-an-armchair-enjoying-a-nice-book reading that lets you put in foreign language reading hours while having a good time.
For the focused reading, pick material that will give you a good challenge, and take the time to untangle the bits you don’t understand. For the relaxed reading, the point is just to read as much as possible, so go for texts that are easier to get through and that are about topics you’re interested in.
You can do both on FluentU in bite-sized chunks thanks to authentic videos at many different difficulty levels.
FluentU makes it possible to learn languages from music videos, commercials, news, inspiring talks and more.
With FluentU, you hear languages in real-world contexts—the way that native speakers actually use them. Just a quick look will give you an idea of the variety of FluentU videos on offer:
FluentU really takes the grunt work out of learning languages, leaving you with nothing but engaging, effective and efficient learning. It’s already hand-picked the best videos for you and organized them by level and topic. All you have to do is choose any video that strikes your fancy to get started!
Each word in the interactive captions comes with a definition, audio, image, example sentences and more.
Access a complete interactive transcript of every video under the Dialogue tab, and easily review words and phrases from the video under Vocab.
You can use FluentU’s unique adaptive quizzes to learn the vocabulary and phrases from the video through fun questions and exercises. Just swipe left or right to see more examples of the word you’re studying.
The program even keeps track of what you’re learning and tells you exactly when it’s time for review, giving you a 100% personalized experience.
Start using FluentU on the website with your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes store or Google Play store.
You might want to plan out in advance how you’re going to split you’re time between focused reading and relaxed reading. For example, you might chill with some no-big-deal reading 80% of the time and going full-blown-language-learner-wielding-flashcards-and-not-afraid-to-use-them with a copy of “War and Peace” the other 20% of the time.
3. Do Group Reading
Reading is fun, but it can get lonely. After all, a recent study showed that librarians are twice as likely as people with any other occupation to list life-size blow-up dolls as their primary emergency contacts. (Just kidding.)
Doing group readings is a great way to make burying your face in a book a social activity. Just get a group of like-minded (or at least like-languaged) language learners together, and take turns reading aloud while everyone follows along the written text.
There are two big advantages you get from group reading. First, hearing someone read the words and following along visually at the same time connects your aural memory of how words sound with your visual impression of how they look on the page. Second, you can pause every few pages or so and do a group recap or discussion (in the language you’re learning!) covering what you’ve read so far.
If you want to emphasize the discussion part of things, another variant on this strategy is to have a book club. And if you don’t know anyone learning your language, don’t let that deter you from forming a reading group–this is the Internet age! Go looking on social media and places where language learners gather online, and there’s a good chance you’ll find people interested in either a real-life or virtual reading group.
4. Re-re-re-read
I’ve already talked about splitting your time between focused reading and relaxed reading, but the question remains: What exactly do you do when you’re doing focused reading?
One of my favorite strategies for parsing texts that stretch the boundaries of my reading comprehension is re-re-re-reading, which involves reading a text through four times, concentrating on different things each time through. The basic idea is to start off reading for the big picture, then work down to the details, then move back up to the big picture. Here’s how it goes:
Round 1: Get the gist of the passage
On the first pass through, read for the gist. Just get a sense of what the text is about and a general feel for what’s happening. Don’t get too hung up on words you don’t know. However, depending on how opaque the passage is, you might have to look up words here and there even to get at the overall meaning.
Round 2: Go over in more detail, looking up words you don’t know
Pass two is the bring-out-the-toolbox-and-take-this-thing-apart round. This is when you do want to get hung up on the details, looking up all words you don’t know and making sure you understand how the grammatical structure of the text is working. This is when you break the thing down into its parts and figure out how each of those parts works.
Round 3: Put together all the new details you understand
After breaking the passage down into its details, you now want to put those details back together into a unified whole. This pass through the text is about synthesizing everything you learned in pass two about what individual words mean and how the grammar fits together.
You can think of this stage as reading for the gist, like in step one, while incorporating all the new information from step two. You want to read quickly enough to get a birds eye view of the whole passage, but do take enough time to integrate most of the new knowledge you gleaned form step two.
Round 4: Do a final recap, aiming for speed
In the fourth and final run through of the text, speed is the name of the game. Now that you’ve broken down the text and put it back together, the idea is to go through grasping the meaning as quickly as possible. Try to push yourself on this one, both in terms of holding onto the things you learned in step 2 and getting through the passage faster than you thought you could.
5. Read Aloud
When working on reading, it’s helpful to keep in mind that reading is really just an extension of speaking and listening. This fact is key to making reading the easiest thing you do in your foreign language studies.
One way to take advantage of the link between spoken and written language is to actually speak and listen while you read. Just speak whatever you’re reading out loud to yourself as you read it. When you make connections between listening, reading and speaking, all three will improve.
6. Do “Less Slow” Reading
If you want to keep yourself on your toes and challenge your brain to parse the words you’re reading a little more quickly, try some timed reading activities. Speed reading doesn’t need to be your goal, just reading less slowly than you used to and setting new personal bests is the most important thing.
You can do timed reading either by setting a timer while you read so you can see how long it takes you to get through a given text and calculate your reading speed in words-per-minute, or by giving yourself a predetermined amount of time to complete a passage.
Besides pushing your brain to process the text you’re looking at a little faster, “less slow” reading will add a little excitement to your reading practice—which is never a bad idea, since boredom is the death of language learning.
7. Use Context
Context is the best language teacher you’ll ever have. Think about it: You learned your native language entirely from context.
When you’re reading, always try to take advantage of context as much as possible. Whenever you reach a word you aren’t familiar with, force yourself to guess its meaning before reaching for the dictionary, then look it up to see if you were right.
This is actually a good tip for all aspects of language learning, but it’s especially important for reading exercises, where you can find yourself reaching instinctively for the dictionary over and over. Forcing yourself to guess things from context turns language learning into a puzzle of sorts, and you’ll have a stronger memory for the words you can guess correctly from context than the ones you have to type into Google Translate to understand.
It can seem intimidating to be confronted with a wall of text in a language you still have a tenuous grasp on, but if you use strategies like transferring your foreign language speaking and native reading skills, balancing relaxed and focused reading, starting a reading group, reading out loud, re-re-re-reading and taking advantage of context, you’ll see that reading in a foreign language is a skill that just naturally gets better with time if you let it.
And if you ever find yourself getting frustrated, just remember—you’ve already learned to read English, you can do anything!
Jiejing Qiu
Statistician
4
Answers
Manlius, New York
Updated
Jiejing’s Answer
I'm with you! English is not my primary language so sometimes that can be challenge. I find to it's a bit easier to listen to an audiobook. Picking a book that interest you helps as well.
Melinda Wu
IT
8
Answers
Memphis, Tennessee
Updated
Melinda’s Answer
Depending on what type of book you are reading, there may be some shortcuts you can apply. Assuming the book has chapters, you can start by reading and understanding the first few paragraphs and last few paragraphs of each chapter. (In addition, the most relevant information in a paragraph is usually found in the first or last sentence of the paragraph.) For a scientific article, start with the abstract and be sure you understand that before trying to read the entire article.
Here's some advice on techniques for reading scientific papers:
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-read-scientific-paper
Book summaries can be helpful (CliffsNotes or SparkNotes, etc):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CliffsNotes
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-alternatives-to-sparknotes-cliffsnotes-for-book-summaries/
Good luck and happy reading!
Here's some advice on techniques for reading scientific papers:
https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2016/03/how-seriously-read-scientific-paper
Book summaries can be helpful (CliffsNotes or SparkNotes, etc):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CliffsNotes
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/7-alternatives-to-sparknotes-cliffsnotes-for-book-summaries/
Good luck and happy reading!
Faith Figuerres
Finance / Teaching
5
Answers
Parañaque, Metro Manila, Philippines
Updated
Faith’s Answer
Hi! I feel you, I have gone through that moment of struggle especially when learning another language.
As the suggested steps, try it little by little and you'll be amazed how far you did without realizing that you've dominate a lot of words already :)
With that, I'm sure you'll be able to read faster and pick up words / contexts easily! Keep it up! :)
First, try to focus on topics you are really interested in
Second, write down (yes, by hand) the unfamiliar words and memorize it for the week
Lastly, try to use the words in a sentence.
As the suggested steps, try it little by little and you'll be amazed how far you did without realizing that you've dominate a lot of words already :)
With that, I'm sure you'll be able to read faster and pick up words / contexts easily! Keep it up! :)
Faith recommends the following next steps:
Deepak Sharma
Technical Support
50
Answers
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India
Updated
Deepak’s Answer
Start Reading.
I would like to share my experience. I never liked reading earlier and i started reading. Now i read every day sometimes 15 minutes and sometimes read more than 45 minutes to 1 hour.
I would advice just start reading everyday for 10 minutes or according to your time management. Don't break the chain of reading everyday. You would definitely realize you have generated interest in reading.
All the best.
I would like to share my experience. I never liked reading earlier and i started reading. Now i read every day sometimes 15 minutes and sometimes read more than 45 minutes to 1 hour.
I would advice just start reading everyday for 10 minutes or according to your time management. Don't break the chain of reading everyday. You would definitely realize you have generated interest in reading.
All the best.
Leah Dhuria
Engineer
3
Answers
Plymouth, Minnesota
Updated
Leah’s Answer
I didn't see this comment yet, so I thought I'd add. There's a lot to learning any language. There's hearing AND reading and comprehending and there's speaking and conveying. I've found that hearing and comprehending is maybe the easiest, because you pick up words or phrases here and there and you get the jist of what someone is saying. Speaking is also easier to learn because you can speak at your own pace. Reading is difficult cause you aren't hearing it, you have to remember how vowels and consonants are pronounced in the language and then put it all together to really come up with what the book or article is saying word by word. It's a lot.
That being said, try reading out loud to yourself, and pointing to every word you read. You'll get the practice of speaking, you'll get the practice of hearing, and you'll get better at recognizing words and phrases to put it all together. Even in English, as my first language, when I really want to fully understand what is being stated in a book or article and I'm just really struggling to comprehend and focus, I'll start to read it out load. It helps me engage in the learning on as many levels of human senses (hear, feel, see) as possible. Hope that helps!
That being said, try reading out loud to yourself, and pointing to every word you read. You'll get the practice of speaking, you'll get the practice of hearing, and you'll get better at recognizing words and phrases to put it all together. Even in English, as my first language, when I really want to fully understand what is being stated in a book or article and I'm just really struggling to comprehend and focus, I'll start to read it out load. It helps me engage in the learning on as many levels of human senses (hear, feel, see) as possible. Hope that helps!
vi lci
sale
3
Answers
Macau
Updated
vi’s Answer
HI, Suki,
I had the same problem with me before. When I went to college, my Prof. suggests me some method to help me better reading. Here are some suggestions.
1. Fast read the book before you really get into reading.
2. When you start read the book, guess the meaning by understanding the first and the end of the sentence. Do not use dictionary at this stage.
3. If you still don't understand the word, nows you can look up on the dictionary.
4. Set a time line for reading time daily.
I hope that can help you. Wish you all the best!!!
I had the same problem with me before. When I went to college, my Prof. suggests me some method to help me better reading. Here are some suggestions.
1. Fast read the book before you really get into reading.
2. When you start read the book, guess the meaning by understanding the first and the end of the sentence. Do not use dictionary at this stage.
3. If you still don't understand the word, nows you can look up on the dictionary.
4. Set a time line for reading time daily.
I hope that can help you. Wish you all the best!!!
Eva Ip
Sales
1
Answer
Macau
Updated
Eva’s Answer
Hi Suki, it is very nice to heard this question from you. I do also have the same goal with you. I am also struggling in learning English now. Here are some of the methods I am using currently to help to build up my language skills as well:
1. For you question, I will highly encourage you not to check on the dictionary word by word when you don't know the meaning of one word. Mark it down. But please read through the passage to understand the meaning first and then look into the dictionary for the exact meaning in order to build up the vocabulary.
2. Get some app that can help you build up the vocabulary or try to read through the dictionary.
3. Try to build up connections with foreigners, so that you can have communication with foreigners so that you can build up your communication skills as well.
1. For you question, I will highly encourage you not to check on the dictionary word by word when you don't know the meaning of one word. Mark it down. But please read through the passage to understand the meaning first and then look into the dictionary for the exact meaning in order to build up the vocabulary.
2. Get some app that can help you build up the vocabulary or try to read through the dictionary.
3. Try to build up connections with foreigners, so that you can have communication with foreigners so that you can build up your communication skills as well.