Reading May Be the Secret of My Success in Language Learning

If we focus on reading in the language we are learning, we will always have the opportunity to interact with the language, to refresh our skills and to learn interesting things using the language. It always gives me a sense of power to read in a foreign language.

[futurez]

This is interesting. I only really started to read books when I started learning Spanish, and I noticed pretty quickly how much it was aiding my learning; so much so, that it's prompted me to begin a regular reading schedule in my native language too.


I was never a reader during my childhood, or, infact, most of my adult life; I know it sounds stupid, but I had always wondered how people were so knowledgeable, and always felt like I was dumb/ignorant to so many things. It didn't occur to me that they obtained this knowledge largely through reading, I don't know why, but I just hadn't thought about how valuable reading is.


Now, in my late 30s, I've been making sure that I read (in my native language) as much as time will permit; a bit late perhaps, but it's better now than never, I guess. Trouble is, years of not reading has rendered my speed - and concentration - useless; it takes me forever to get through a book, but hopefully that'll improve; I've already started to increase my vocabulary, and have noticed a number of words popping up that I would've just ignored before because I wouldn't understand them; not that those words really hindered my overall comprehension, but my listening/reading experience has definitely been enriched through this newly expanded vocabulary, and I've only been reading regularly for around 6 months or so. It's exciting to think of how much more I'll understand of the world after a further 6 years.


I realise I'll still be behind the majority of people who have made it a life-long habit to read regularly, but as long as I improve my own mind, it matters little to compare myself to those people.

[Michaelatkins]

In my own experience, the higher you go in the CEFR, the more important does the reading become. There are certain reasons for that: one being that as you cover high and mid frequency words, the only thing missing is rare words and it becomes really hard to encounter and get enough repetition for you to absorb all those high-end words if you expect them to show up in listening. This problem occurs if your passive vocab count is somewhere around 13 to 15 thousand root words, all of a sudden you realize that everyone you listen to repeats words you know and rarely do you hear new ones. The only way to learn those words is that you should keep reading material containing advanced vocabulary whereby you get enough repetition to familiarize yourself with the words you want to learn. One step further is that you focus mainly on literature rather than non-fiction books, as you again will rarely encounter unknown words. My final advice would be that you diversify your interest to include different genres and go through those fiction books as a way to acquire words and, most importantly, to enjoy the content.

[jahsoka]

My Spanish has improved so much just by adding reading to my study time. Learning vocabulary is good but understanding sentences put together is important

[nickwilsonxc]

I’ve noticed the more that I read in French the better my listening is too. It’s like I can see captions or subtitles of the words running through my mind as I’m hearing the words. However when I haven’t read for a while, even if I’ve been doing a lot of listening, it’s like my brain gets lazy and no longer even tries to decipher what’s being said. This isn’t so much the case for me in Spanish. But perhaps that’s because it’s more of a phonetic language where the vowels always make the same sound. Much easier for listening.

[thetakeover]

I've said a few times in the last couple of days that I genuinely believe that reading is the best way to learn a language. There is a methodology when you're starting out but, that notwithstanding, after enough exposure it flows. I read a Russian book that was about 老子的 philosophy. I had moments where I struggled, I had moments where I was stuck, but I learnt something. As long as you can flow through it and have an idea of what is being said, that's enough. I spent 2 days in a row, 10 hours each day, translating every single word. I got through, perhaps, 20 pages. What I realised was that I could still understand the gist and I need only translate a word if it hinders understanding, or if curious. Спасибо большое Стив, за Ваше видео. 我现在学习汉语和俄语。Ich lerne auch Deutsch, aber habe ich nicht seit eine lange Zeit auf Deutsch gelesen. Diesen Weihnachtsurlaub werde ich wahrscheinlich dass tun!

[PsLLinguas]

Books have a wide range of vocabulary, that's why it's really good to use this material to immerse in the language. Great video Steve. 👍

[KOSTADINOV]

My formula for learning a foreign language is in parallel with the academic way to learn a foreign language, to learn passively through 75% listening to a foreign speech and 25% reading. It is very useful to listen to someone else's speech with quality headphones. For example you can listen to different lessons on YouTube Channels in foreign languages in. Learning the foreign language simply by reading is not effective. It should be combined with listening.

[johnclifford]

English is my first language and I've always been lazy to learn other languages. However, whenever I hear someone speaking several different languages simultaneously, it does amaze me though.

[osamahabbas]

also, reading in a different writing system feels great

[jnixon]

If you want to look into this further from an academic perspective, there was a study done in the 80s in called the Fiji book flood. In a nutshell, the findings showed that students who only had comprehensible reading input did better on all aspects tested than those who followed the standard teaching method used there at that time.

[thesergio]

We have a lot in common Steve. Thank you, for being an inspiration. You have a great deal of good ideas and advice. Through years of language learning and other subjects, I have learned it is not how much you read or do anything it is how much effort you put into it. You have to think and question when you read and not sit in comfy a place and not concentrate and fall asleep.

[MrLangam]

For Mandarin, I just never removed the pinyin on top of my Chinese characters to make reading like a breeze. I retained shit tons of words this way. Just make sure to look at the characters of the pinyins you've read to at least get used to them every end of a sentence.

[yordanogarc]

You're a very good example to follow for those who want to learn a language... Greetings from Colombia..

[Dannykhc]

Having watched your videos advocating more reading and that the content had to be meaningful, I decided to get the German translation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy which I have read many times in English to see how the dialogues would go in German. Having read the English translation of Emil und die Detektive I also decided to get the novel in German which was written for children. I also ordered some Asterix comics in German too.

[aissamghesmoune]

Thanks millions stive and i absolutely agree with you, reading is super powerful and your education is equals to what are you reading in your everyday life ...

[victorinvestbr]

Esse cara deveria ter uns 10 milhões de inscritos

[MrJerkensen]

Steve, you're a special guy. Thanks for all you do! PS: I snorted at the Trump dig lol

[billywade]

Steve, to piggy back on your epiphany, what I did recently was increase my lingq to 25 from the basic 13 words/phrases. This forces me to read more and thus, increases my level of the language.
I intend to increase from 25 words/phrases to the next quantity once I find that I am easily able to find 25 or more words/phrases.

[Emmanuel_]

Bonjour Steve, pour avoir un très très bon son, sans souffle, comme les podcasteurs professionnels, je recommande d'utiliser un micro dynamique (un Shure sm 58 avec une bonette en mousse ou un modèle plus typé radio comme le Rode Procaster ou le Shure SM7B). Les micros dynamiques ne reçoivent pas d'alimentation électrique contrairement aux micros à condensateur (qui ont l'inconvénient de capter tous les bruits parasites) et le signal à la sortie est un peu faible. Il faut donc amplifier le signal du micro avec un préamplificateur, qui se branche à son tour sur une carte son externe (Focusrite Scarlet par exemple), laquelle est reliée à l'ordinateur en USB. Il faut utiliser un câble spécial XLR pour relier micro, pré ampli et carte son. Bon sinon, si vous ne recherchez pas la perfection, vous pouvez juste acheter un micro à condensateur correct et le brancher sur votre ordinateur :-)

[solea]

My primary school days to my " now " adult memory were quite good. As a little kid our brains are receptive to learning and we soak it up like a sponge. Then when we move onto the secondary stage they start to " direct " you without any consideration to individualty. You're just a robot.
I hated it then and I have no fond memories at all. I couldn't wait to leave the place. I believe I have taught myself far more by my own methods.