are you tired of learning the vocabulary of a new language from boring lists and the sentence structure of dry grammar books?
Do you want to regain the excitement and interest you had when you first wanted to learn that foreign language?
You are reading: Learn a language by reading books
The answer is simple…
read interesting content
By reading interesting content in the language you want to learn, content that grabs and holds your attention, you can learn all the vocabulary and grammar you need to know.
When you read interesting content in meaningful chunks, your brain naturally absorbs word meanings and grammatical rules. your brain can make these vocabulary and meaning connections much easier through reading than through tedious vocabulary or grammar lists.
It sounds simple enough and there is a step-by-step process I have created to help you learn a language through reading.
Before I share the steps, I’d like to take a look at how humans learn to read their first language and how this can help them learn to read another language.
how you learned to read in your mother tongue (and why it matters)
When you are young and trying to learn to read in your own language, there is a natural order to your learning process.
First of all, you learn to speak the language. only then do you learn what your spoken language looks like in written form. you learn the alphabet. you learn to recognize individual letters, then words. then you’ll learn how to connect these words and symbols into meaningful strings to create sentences.
Once you’ve mastered all of this, you’ll begin to learn new words naturally from reading.
In other words, when you learn your first language, you learn to read before you read to learn. So it makes sense that you use that same model to learn to read your second language too!
this is how your brain processes the words on the page
Research has found that the first and last letters are the most important to the human brain when reading.
according to matt davis of the university of cambridge, the brain reads whole words and can often do so just by having the first and last letters in place.
In fact, one study found that jumbled letters in the middle of words only slowed down reading speed by 11 percent.
When you read in your native language, your brain automatically makes connections from context and familiarity with words using the first and last letters to speed up the decoding and comprehension processes when reading.
but what if you don’t even know what those letters are, let alone what words they spell? how will your brain process the material you are trying to read?
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The reason it’s so hard to read in a language you’re learning for the first time is because your brain can’t use this natural process to speed up the reading process. it does not have the advantage of being able to easily extract the meaning of words and sentences. you have to work much harder.
Cultural and background knowledge is also an essential part of understanding any text. it can be difficult to understand humor, historical and pop culture references, and culture-specific sayings in another language. you may have understood each and every word, every sentence, but you didn’t understand the meaning of the larger context.
When reading in a new language, everything feels different and many things are different. the symbols that represent the sounds are often different, even in languages that also use Latin script. for example, t in Portuguese makes it sound more like ch. In Spanish, -e has the same name that we call the letter -a in English.
and it can seem even more complicated with languages that don’t use Latin script. even the directionality of the language script may be different. in Korean, it is read from left to right and from top to bottom. One of the reasons it usually takes three to four times as long for an English speaker to learn languages like Mandarin, Korean, Arabic, and Japanese is that those languages don’t have as much in common with English as other languages. closely related. .
all those different elements are confusing and foreign to what your brain is used to processing. that is why a person who can read with ease and accuracy while scanning, skimming and skipping words in their native language suddenly becomes illiterate when trying to read in a second language. However, there is good news. . .
When you can read, you can learn anything.
by learning to read in the language you are studying, you get much more out of the learning experience. When you encounter words in several different contexts through reading, you begin to understand and comprehend the vocabulary in a more meaningful way. you can learn much more about the language and culture than you could ever discover by reading a language learning book by reading material written in that language.
The literacy skills you already have are transferable. those basic skills he developed when he learned to read as a child can be used to build his knowledge and comfort with a new language. By reading, he can exponentially increase his vocabulary in a new language in a short period of time and with less concentrated effort.
Intelligent linguaphiles know this. dr Stephen Krashen, a leader in language education, promotes free reading time in language classes. Tim Ferriss partly credits “an unpleasant manga habit” for helping him develop his Japanese language skills.
Good readers don’t just decode words, they negotiate meaning, make predictions, use prior knowledge, and create images of what they read. Good readers read quickly, read accurately, enjoy reading, and walk away from what they read with a full understanding of what they finished.
use many comprehension strategies simultaneously and think on many levels to make sense of a text.
Learning to read in another language opens the way to learn words and syntax that you otherwise couldn’t, and start reading to learn.
reading in a foreign language offers vocabulary in meaningful parts. neuroscientists can even detect changes in signals to the brain whether the words make sense in context or are not called n400. the closer our brain approximates the pattern of a native speaker in our target language, the higher our level of proficiency.
be like a hollywood actor: dig into the text
Think of a time when you saw a movie, play, or TV show that really drew you in. It can be hard to remember that all those visual and dramatic mediums usually start with the written word.
Before appearing in their favorite TV show or movie, the actors read and learned the script so deeply that the language became a part of them. only then were they able to convey that story to you without that text from them.
This is the kind of approach that should be taken when reading in a foreign language: delving into a text several times. each time you do this, you will learn more vocabulary and grammar.
These are the five steps I follow to dig deeper when I’m reading in a new language.
step 1: start the conversations
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Focus on the spoken language at the beginning of your language learning journey, and once you’ve started speaking, don’t stop. A language textbook is a great tool when used correctly, but you didn’t learn your native language by reading one. we all start with spoken language.
Parents of children with speech difficulties in early childhood are advised to spend a lot of time talking and reading to their children. That’s because hearing a language helps you understand the relationship between sounds and writing accurately, and is key to learning to read.
the spoken word and the written word are connected. Focusing on conversations will help you access the written word, make connections, and always expand your vocabulary. reading will help you develop your vocabulary for conversations. the relationship has a lot of reciprocity.
step 2: choose texts that allow you to solve problems
If you have a beginner’s understanding of the meanings of words and phrases, be sure to spend some quality time studying more text at the paragraph level. this allows you to “solve problems” with the language without being too far beyond your level of understanding, so you can discover meanings of words you haven’t encountered before.
This approach means you can learn new vocabulary without getting too frustrated or drowning. Problem solving also allows you to make logical connections, further embedding the vocabulary you learn this way into your memory.
step 3: choose texts you like
As I said at the beginning of this article, it is very important to choose reading materials that capture your interest.
When people go to high school and college, they spend a lot of time reading. however, this assigned reading is often not fun or interesting for most students. Now that you’re learning to read a new language yourself, you need to choose what you want to read.
think recipes, blogs, junk novels, pop culture magazines, websites, menus – read whatever you want. if you like literature, read or reread a classic in your second language. here are some links to free online reading resources, with many different languages available:
- gutenburg project
- online newspapers
- online magazines
- open library
- feedbooks
It’s always a good idea to start reading for short periods of time and build your reading stamina as your vocabulary naturally increases. it doesn’t have to be academic for it to work. A self-assessment journal is a great way to help you expand your vocabulary in a fun and easy way.
step 4: mark the text and read it several times
A great advantage of spending time reading to develop your language skills is that when you come across an unknown word, you can “pause” the text and give yourself time to find the meaning. that can be really hard when you’re in a conversation with someone!
If you underline unknown words, then write the definitions in the margins, you can understand the text and consolidate new words in your memory. sticky notes are also great replacements if you can’t mark the text you’re reading. paste them in the margins of the text.
step 5: make the most of online tools
If you’re reading online, apps like lingq and readlang can help you look up unknown words, offer reading selections, and make flashcards of the words you looked up.
plus, a simple google search can yield all sorts of authentic readings in the target language. take a look at these finds online:
Japanese menus
web content in the target language
New content delivered daily in many languages is all over the web.
When you get it right, reading is a great way to learn a language. Happy reading!
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