So, try reading a book with their accompanying audio book to make sure you don't miss any vocab or grammar structures. Alternatively, using an audiobook alone (if you are a beginner) risks completely missing certain words that you might have otherwise recognized. Reading just a single book while listening to the accompanying audio-even if you don’t understand everything completely-will dramatically improve your “ear training” and habituate you to the general speed and cadence of a native speaker. Read books with their accompanying audiobooks Read books that you've already read in your native language Tip 3. For example, if you've already read Harry Potter, try reading it again in Mandarin. Otherwise, if you get lost in a new story in a foreign language, it is difficult to recover. Choose material you’ve already read in your languageĮven if you last read something 15 years ago, the fact that you at least know the gist of it will help you tremendously to pick up context clues and implicitly learn new vocabulary and grammatical constructions. (Try “Charlotte’s Web” in Spanish, or the BBC’s “Learn French” series.) Don’t try to dive into a novel or newspaper too early, since it can be discouraging (or might take too long to constantly look up every word you see!). Start basic and smallĬhildren’s books are great practice for beginners, as are software programs with short sentences or passages that allow you to listen to accompanying audio. So, without further ado, let's dive into the tips for for finding and using good foreign-language reading materials! 6 Tips for reading in a foreign language efficiently Reading is one of the best ways to learn a foreign language. (Just think of all the pauses, transitions, and action scenes where characters are not speaking.) This is exactly the reason why heavy readers of just English tend to speak more articulately than average English speakers, despite theoretically having had the same number of years of exposure to the language.īeing exposed to a larger “brain feed” of vocabulary and grammar simply trains you to use your language better in your own speech. Reading at even a slow pace also exposes us to more sentences per minute than the average movie or TV show. Seeing the text of new words and concepts visually helps to reinforce our memory of them, while having the ability to stop, think, or look up words in a dictionary allows for more individualized pace of mental absorption. Reading in a foreign language helps us become more comfortable with the words and grammatical rules that enable us to express our own thoughts, just like reading in one’s native language. The importance of reading a foreign language In this post, we will explain why reading is the best way to learn a language and will give you 6 tips for how to involve reading in your language learning. It's a much better practice activity than simply watching TV/movies, since the former provides the learner with an adjustable pace, a stronger incentive to pay attention, and a greater chance of receiving corrective feedback.īut learning a language isn't only about speaking. We not only developed a groundbreaking method for learning languages faster using spaced repetition, but also a model for what an ideal language learning journey should include.įor example, we've already discussed how useful it is to practice speaking a foreign language. We spent years building our own "certified" foreign language learning curricula-starting with our adaptive French flashcards and Spanish flashcards. We at Brainscape have spent a ton of time learning how you can best master a foreign language using reading as part of an overall suite of activities. Reading is one of the best ways to learn a language, even from very early on in your learning journey. But there's another method that will take your learning to the next level: reading! There are many ways to learn a new language: taking a class, speaking with your friends from Madrid, hiring a Chinese tutor, or just watching old French movies with subtitles.
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