Find 2 hours a day to read in your target language

I read 10 books in my target language in a single month.
To do that, I only had to spend 3 hours a day reading or listening to audio books. If you did even half that much, you should easily be able to finish 50 books in a year.
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Language learning videos, tips and techniques!

OK if you've reached the end of the description then you obviously need something to do.
In my previous video about how I plan to read 100 books in my target language, the thumbnail is me holding a big pile of books. How many books are in that pile? (Comment your answer with "... books in the pile" so as to remind me what you're even talking about!)

[lindaha]

Hey Lamont, I wanted to tell you that I really appreciate those short videos of yours! It refreshing that you're not making the video 10 minutes log for the sake of this stupid YouTube algorithm. So thanks for being you and thanks for being and staying authentic!

[billywade]

One other small nugget that I found helps when listening to audiobooks, is to listen as loud as you can tolerate without it being obnoxious. You are less likely to fade in and out. Lower sound becomes white noise.

[mallory]

I’m learning Spanish and I had to build my tolerance and comprehension by starting with manga/manhwa/manhua translated into Spanish. Then after that the next step was asían light novels, light novels are fairly complex but not as complicated or long as reading a book. Now I can read adult novels with a bit of concentration but truthfully I prefer to read light novels still. I doubt this would be helpful for anyone learning Swedish but hopefully it gives someone some ideas on how to get more into reading.

[HaIsKuL]

I get to work 30 mins early and stay 30 mins later. I also do this for school. That's 2 hours right there. If I don't have classes/work, I'll get some coffee and sit down to read for about an hour. It's consistency, not binging, that gets me volume.

[Livakivi]

First :)
I think an amazing benefit of learning a language and reading/listening to books is the fact that it's not only "productive" in the sense that you're learning when reading in your target language, but also because you are consuming books, which is already something that may enrichen your life, even without the language learning aspect. If someone says that they read for 2 hours a day (in their native language), that's already a feat worth praising in itself.
I'll definitely try to read as much as you suggested my TL in the near future as well!

[Isaac-egum]

Reading is 100% my favorite activity to learn Swedish. I started reading books 5 months in to learning and haven’t stopped over a year and a half / 12, 000 pages later (about 20 books). Even if I move on from actively learning Swedish in the future, I don’t think I’ll ever stop reading in it.

[bigfan]

Can you do a video regarding delayed gratification. Langauge learning is a delayed gratification and I want people to know that it is totally worth it to learn a Langauge but the benefits come much later than earlier.

[BalintFarago]

I'm learning German and the increasing number of books on my shelf I already read make me feel proud every day. Reading the first book in your target language is the hardest step. Reading the 2nd and the 3rd is easier and then it just becomes a habit!

[rachelday]

I’ve noticed that reading books in my native language has helped IMMENSELY with the size of my active vocabulary, has helped me look outside of my prospective, and just made me a more interesting person overall. Definitely gonna try this out with my target language. I have 2 books arriving tomorrow! Thanks for your videos! No other language learning channel really talks about the benefits of reading. I also appreciate your authenticity, as a lot of language learning channels I see are often too focused on acquiring as many languages as fast as possible, which often makes me feel like I’m not doing enough. I come to your videos to be reminded to set realistic and enjoyable goals for myself. Like reading a nice book :)

(Also that intro! I was thinking “I bet that took a lot of takes” but the confidence in which you said “oh wait I just did” makes me think that was your first take. Either way, impressed. I trip over my words all too often)

[yourfirstsecondlanguage]

Great insights as always! Audiobooks for the win, I’ll have to try doing that increased speed cs my thoughts are definitely prone to wander!

[urialol]

Hi "days", I honestly don't say this at all or ever, but it's surprising that you don't have a lot more subs than you have right now. Your videos are so fluid and your setup is so clean and professional. Just letting you know I really appreciate your stuff. Cya!

[amberswilddiaries]

I've read 16 books that year (from 1.1.2021) in a non-native language all of them but one are non-fiction books (Mostly physics math and personal dev) and my greatest advice is stop using your social apps (i.e fb, ig etc) and you'll see that you're bored you open a book, you go take a run or do something useful with your life

[ShaneGodliman]

It’s crazy how impactful getting up a bit earlier and getting sh*t done is! I always find when I get even just a little bit of language stuff done in the morning I’m much more likely to keep things going and hit my targets, start as you mean to go on I guess!

[levipatrickdiaz]

Nice! You hit 39k subscribers, congrats!
I've just started to WRITE a lot in my current target language. I think I've got a long ways to go fluency-wise to have a book be significantly comprehensible. Though I agree, reading is super powerful, and an awesome way to "passively" learn, since you can do it while you do other things (whereas writing is not something you can do while driving, etc, haha). I think one of the main reasons to go hard on grammar and vocab early on is so that you can GET to the point that passive learning is easier and more comprehensible, making each minute more efficient.

[prodomango]

I’d like to know how you deal with stopping when you come across words/sentences you don’t understand. Especially with audiobooks where your speed is set, and stopping is more of an ordeal. This isn’t as much of an issue when you’re more advanced but I’m now trying to read in my 6th language, Mandarin, and I’m stopping and starting a lot because otherwise my comprehension level would be too low and it wouldn’t be having fun/knowing what’s going on.

Of course the obvious thing to do is choose more level appropriate material but this can be an arduous task in and of itself (and that material is often deadly dull), and it is still a problem at higher levels of comprehension. 95% still means 1 word in every 20 is an issue - thats super frequent even at such a high percentage.

There are lots of ways to approach this and it changes as your level increases. What’s your take?

PS. I’m a fan of the video’s length 🍁✌🏼

[billywade]

Ok so I have a few questions.
1. When you read via audio books, do you sit down and listen intensely or is passive listening ok?
2. What % of thr book do you recommend that you understand before taking on this task?
Bonus question for 10 points 🙂. What do you do when there are words or even sentences you don't understand and you're listening passively? Just muster through?

[bofbob]

14 (books in the pile) ^^. Man, I wish there were more hours in the day... It's not always easy to prioritise.

[yourfirstsecondlanguage]

I now look forward to washing up because of the chance to listen to audiobooks :)

[retrolearnskorean]

Last year I did 61 books this year I already know it's going to be less. The reason is simply due to the length of the books, I've been reading for 2 hours a day at least for since Sept 2019. The books at first were a bit shorter than the ones I'm currently reading, in Korean there's a counter for the number of characters for Ebooks and sometimes regular books the first set of books I read were around 70, 000-90, 000 characters, rightly so some I finished quicker than others but it allowed me to hit 61 books. This year so far I've read 11 and they've all been around 130, 000 and the next series I'm going to start on 1st April is 190, 000-250, 000 characters per book over 8 books . It's great that you are pushing reading with the size of your channel but for me honestly the speaking gains from books has not been that great, transfers to writing better but I think there's a couple factors. Korean is very different from English and I've spread myself really wide so I've seen a lot of vocabulary meaning my brain doesn't necessarily have a perfect grasp on spitting out simple sentences. I can type decently without much practice but my speaking is definitely out of practice. Thanks to anyone who read this.

[fdiotalevi]

Speeding up audiobooks is a good idea in your native language too. I had the same problem for years, I really wanted to use my spare time to listen to audiobooks, but I would constantly lose focus. Now I listen at 1.5-1.8x speed (depending on narrator), and the additonal "difficulty" make sure I never lose focus.