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Benvenuti, Bienvenue, Croeso and Welcome.
Hi, I’m Juliet. Join me on my language learning journey and discover my thoughts on different aspects of language learning with the A Language Learning Tale Podcast. Today, the subject is …
I’m Not Going to Lie, It’s Difficult
Or
How Do I Start Reading Books in a Foreign Language?
So, let’s start right at the beginning and, remember, this is just my opinion, based on what I've done in the past. Other people will have different ideas. Listen to them all and decide what you think is going to be the best method for you. It might be a mixture of many things suggested by different people and that’s fine. We’re all different.
However, the universal truth is that you’re not going to be able to read any book right off the bat when you start learning a language. It just isn’t possible. You need to know a lot of vocabulary even to read a simple book. That, in my opinion, is your first task. Learn vocabulary. Easier said than done, I know.
But let’s be a little more strategic about this. You’ll be learning a lot of general vocabulary with whatever course or app you’re using to learn the language, but novels and non-fiction have their own language, depending on the genre and depending on the voice of the author. So, in addition to your general language learning, to help you with that, you might want to learn some of the vocabulary you’re likely to come up against in your favourite genre, or genres. And, when you start reading properly, you should be reading in your favourite genres as much as possible. This is supposed to be an enjoyable experience, not a chore.
How do you do this? Well, if you like fantasy, for example, try watching fairy tale videos in your target language. There are quite a lot of these on Youtube, with subtitles and/or closed captions. You will hear the same language over and over again and, at some point, it will sink in. If you like science-fiction, look for creators providing content about space and spaceships that you can understand - so usually something with subtitles, or closed captions again. If you like mystery and crime, erm, perhaps read news articles, or watch the TV news. More seriously, there are probably YouTube creators providing content about this, too. Alternatively, you could, of course, watch TV or film in the language for your genre, again, with subtitles, or closed captions. However, a word of warning about this. All you get consuming this type of content is the dialogue, none of the narrative and, unfortunately, that’s where most of the vocabulary you’ll need for reading will be.
Anyway, you get the idea. Be creative. Find the things that will give you the exposure to the vocabulary you’ll need, at a level you can understand, and immerse yourself.
When you think you’re at the stage of being able to read … actually, what is the stage at which you’ll be able to read? Well, estimates differ from about seventy per cent to ninety per cent. That’s the percentage of the text that you can read without looking anything up, because that’s what you’re aiming for, not having to look lots of things up. This is what is called comprehensible input. Seventy per cent would be for those who aren’t frightened by the ambiguity that not knowing everything brings, ninety per cent for those who really need to know everything that’s going on. Anyway, when you think you’re there, I’d suggest going on to a site like Amazon and browsing the look inside pages of books that pique your interest, to see if you really are at that stage. You’ll know immediately.
However, you will need to start with simple books. There are a number of options. Here are three.
- You could try a graded reader. Personally, I’m not a fan of these. I find the stories boring and, because they’re usually batch created in a number of languages, the stories aren’t likely to be tailored to the culture of your language, or your favourite genre.
- You could try a simple novel, like a children’s novel that you’ve already read and that’s been translated. That will give you an extra safety net in terms of understanding, because you’ll remember the original and will be able to piece things together more easily.
- You could try a children’s novel written by a native speaker. This would be my preferred option. Native language books will always be better, because translations fit one language into another, which often isn’t the same as native speak, because the way things are expressed isn’t the same. But this isn’t always possible.
I would not suggest going straight for an adult-level novel. The language will just be too difficult.
Should you read a paper book, or an eBook? From what I’ve seen on YouTube, I think I’m in the minority here, but I would always recommend an eBook over a paper book. One, because they’re generally cheaper, which is a concern for many people. Two, we don’t have to cut down trees to make them and to transport the final product across vast distances. And three, because they often have dictionaries included, so you can look things up quickly and easily. You do need to turn off distractions for this, though. No notifications popping up while you’re reading.
Should you read and listen at the same time? This is something that some language channels recommend. Well, if you can afford to buy the audiobook as well, and those are generally quite expensive, then, maybe. You could also use text-to-speech to read the text to you as you read if that’s available on your eReader. However, I have never found this an enjoyable way to read, because I either want to go faster or slower than the audio, but it might work for you.
And one more thing to take note of, before you even start. Are there peculiarities to literature in the language you’re learning that you need to know about? I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. Italian literature is more often than not, but not always, written using the Passato Remoto tense, rather than the Passato Prossimo. The Passato Remoto is spoken in some areas of Italy, but the Passato Prossimo is the main past tense you’re likely to have been taught. This means that you may not be familiar with the verb forms when you start reading. So, you need to be prepared for this. I don’t mean you need to know the Passato Remoto backwards. I don’t. But you do need to be familiar with verb stems. Is there something like this in your target language?
Now, I’ve seen others recommend that you should read without looking anything up the first time through for a story, or a chapter, or whatever, and then go back and re-read and look up the words on the second pass. This is a reasonable suggestion, but it would, honestly, bore me to tears. I don’t like re-reading. I’d rather have time to read more books. So, if you’re like me, this is what I would do.
It is true that you should avoid looking up words unless you absolutely have to in order to make sense of the text, otherwise you’re not really reading, you’re studying. You can do this by, as well as having a good vocabulary knowledge, using cognates to determine meaning and knowing things like suffixes that can be added to words to enhance the meaning. But, even given that, whenever you start a new book, even if you have done all the vocabulary prep, you will have to get used to the language used by the author. There is no way to pre-learn this. They may use technical terms in the genre that you haven’t yet come across, or it may just be the style of the author’s writing, the types of verbs they use, the constructions they favour, but you will need to acclimatise. I would say it takes a good two, or three chapters, depending on length, to get comfortable with this. Yes, every time you read a book, unless you’ve read the author’s work before, you’ll have to get used to their style. Don’t believe me? Well, think about the books you read in your own language. There are some that you don’t get on with, right? Sometimes, that will simply be because of the style of the writing - the author’s voice.
So, while you’re in that first part of the book, I would suggest you look up as many words as you feel you need to, especially if they come up multiple times. Then, once you get those first two or three chapters in, you’ll be in a position to continue on with looking up far fewer words for the book to be comprehensible. Once you get used to this, it will be obvious to you when you’re at this stage, but in the beginning, you might have to force yourself to stop hugging your real, or virtual dictionary, which you will have to do, if you want to progress through the book.
If you’re using an eBook, looking things up can take just seconds, so won’t take you out of the story. Yes, again, others disagree on this, they say that it will take you out of the story, but I have done this quite a lot now and I don’t find it to be true. Not understanding what you’re reading is much more likely to do that. Also, don’t be scared of looking up the same word multiple times. It doesn’t mean you’re stupid because you can’t remember it. The repetition of looking it up will help it finally stick in your brain. What I wouldn’t advise though, is writing the vocabulary down, in most cases. That really will interrupt your reading far too much. The only time I have done this is when I was building up a master list of verbs for my own use, which was a very specific, experimental project.
Now, I know I’ve mentioned this in a video on YouTube before, but another thing you need to understand is that reading in a foreign language uses so much brain power that you are going to get tired pretty quickly to start with. Don’t try reading for half an hour at a time, unless you’re finding it really easy. Start off with, perhaps, just ten minutes, and build up from there. If you push on too far, you’ll get frustrated, because your poor old tired brain won’t want to cooperate and understanding will go out the window.
Another thing you need to realise is that when you start reading, you probably are simply going to be consciously translating in your head back into your own language. This is fine. You can’t expect it to be any other way. There is no specific point at which your brain will switch to simply reading and understanding in the language. Don’t stress about it, just let it happen. One day, you’ll realise that you’re doing it without you even noticing and, believe me, that’s a great feeling. It’ll probably happen a lot sooner than you imagined, too.
Obviously, once you’ve mastered reading simple books, you can gradually move onto more and more complicated texts. If you started with graded readers, or translated texts, though, do make an effort to go for books written by native speakers, as soon as you can. This will always be best.
So, to summarise. Pre-load your brain with relevant vocabulary. Choose a book relevant to your level. Find out if there are any language quirks with literature. Allow yourself to hug the dictionary for the first couple of chapters, no guilt needed. Keep your session lengths to what your brain can cope with and move on up to more difficult content as soon as you’re able.
Ah, but that’s not the end, is it? I can hear you. You’re the person who doesn’t like to read. All I will say to you is, are you sure about that? Or, is it just that you haven’t found the genre of book you really enjoy reading yet? Maybe, try reading novels in some different genres in your language first, ones that you wouldn’t have dreamt of trying, and see if you can find something you love - and that includes graphic novels. You never know, you might surprise yourself. But, if you still can’t bear reading, then I’m afraid you’ll have to find some other way to get the necessary input to increase your vocabulary.
That’s all for today’s episode. Don’t forget to join me again next time, for more language learning tips, tricks and tales and in the meantime, check out the A Language Learning Tale YouTube channel for additional, non-podcast content.
Ciao, salut, hwyl and bye for now.