Some people are bookish by nature; others learn to enjoy reading through effort and great discipline. Whether you are innately drawn to the written word or not, it can be an excellent and interesting means of language learning. Assuming you have read some common popular texts (e.g. the Hobbit, the Bible, the Little Prince, etc) which you would be keen to revisit, the stage is set to learn by reading.
Getting Started
Select a text in your target language (TL) that:
- interests you
- is already familiar to some degree. This will probably be a translation from your first language or bestselling text.
- (Optional) Obtain a copy of the book in your first language if you don’t have it already, in order to do some comparative reading.
If you have some knowledge of and/or interest in the Bible, this is often the easiest and cheapest text to obtain (there are many Bible Societies worldwide). Some editions of the Bible even contain the text of two languages in parallel, enabling instant comparative reading. If you use the Bible as your text, I suggest beginning with the New Testament, in particular the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. These have more narrative and conversation compared to the epistles (letters).
Once you have selected you text, set a certain amount of time daily to reading the TL text. For my Xhosa challenge, I typically would spend one pomodoro (a 25 minute session) per day reading my Xhosa text (the Bible, iBhayibhile).
Learning by reading, it goes without saying, will require you to be studying the TL’s grammatical structure simultaneously alongside your reading, as well as its most frequent vocabulary (i.e. top 500 words) – otherwise you will be floating down the rapids of a linguistic river with no logs to help you float along. With time, your comprehension will increase, your reading confidence will increase, you will begin discovering the natural rhythms of the TL (although, this is assuming you have some exposure to spoken language in the form of podcasts/radio/conversation practice… You need to know the general rules for intonation and stress). To continue the earlier metaphor, eventually you’ll construct a raft from all the flotsam and be floating down that linguistic river in a house-boat!
Reading Technique and Protocol
In terms of how you read (the technique), I suggest the following:
A) I personally advocate reading out loud. This will help you to:
- learn how to pronounce the words correctly (both individually and in context of other words),
- begin to figure out how the language flows and chunks together,
- prevent boredom due to reading incomprehensible text. This is achieved by shifting the focus towards the phonetic (sound-related) features of the language rather than the semantic (meaning-related) features. This is important for the beginner stage of learning a new language – comprehension is achieved over time, and it needs input if you want the brain’s sorting and systematising mechanisms to start firing.
B) Do not read with a dictionary ready-at-hand, as this will break up the flow of reading. If you are reading a familiar text, you will often be able to work out the meanings of words in context without recourse to a dictionary. In any case, let unknown words and phrases bypass you – unless you begin to encounter them often enough (perhaps in the context of words that aren’t unknown) and their incomprehensibility seems to defeat you: this is the trigger-moment for checking the word in a dictionary, because the word has shown that it means something to you. However, don’t do it immediately – rather, underline those reoccurring words or phrases.
Kato Lomb has said much the same in her language learning biography:
Ignore what you can’t immediately understand. If a word is important, it will occur several times and explain itself anyway. Base your progress on the known, not the unknown. The more you read, the more phrases you will write in the margins. The relationship that develops between you and the knowledge you obtain will be much deeper than if you had consulted the dictionary automatically. The sense of achievement provides you with an emotional-affective charge: You have sprung open a lock; you have solved a little puzzle (Lomb, K. Polyglot: How I learn languages. 2008. p. 69)
C) After every few days of reading and underlining / annotating the text, go through the sections that you have read, collecting all the words and phrases into a text document (either on your computer/smartphone/notebook). Set aside time every week to go through this file, looking up the words’ meanings using an online (or oldschool) dictionary, and above the unknown word or phrase write in a translation and any other notes about the word. Having completed this stage, you can then create a series of flashcards in order to remember the words efficiently (unless you choose Lomb’s anti-dictionarianism).[1] You could use flashcard applications like Anki or Memrise, the former which I’ve used to great effect both on my PC and Android phone. This is what I’ve come to call ‘Vocabulary Development’ in my personal learning, which informs my reading but doesn’t interrupt it.
After you’ve begun learning the words via flashcards, you could return to the old sections of your text and reread them, armed with this new knowledge. I’ve generally preferred to continue reading new material, operating on the assumption that texts written by the same author often use and reuse the same vocabulary; your new vocabulary, gained from the text, will likely be reinforced by the text as you continue reading (and underlining new irritating, attention-seeking words!).
Gradual Mastery
This describes the process by which, in the space of a few months of steady reading (which entails both grammatical recognition in the text and vocabulary development), you will begin to understand texts at the word level, phrasal level, and then after a while at the sentence level. You’ll catch the ‘gist’ of what is being said even if you cannot give a precise translation. Depending on the similarity of the language you are learning to your first language, as well as the consistency of your reading and study,[2] you could quite easily be understanding 95% of sentence level meaning (the ‘gist’) in 6 months of study, and reading purely for interest. The fact that the text is in a foreign language soon becomes irrelevant… which is precisely the aim. I found this was the case with German and Xhosa, although in the latter case I needed to spend far more time on vocabulary development and study of grammar, largely because there were fewer cognate-language features between Xhosa and English when compared to German and English, both Germanic languages.
Once you are reading entirely for underlying meaning, and the surface-level grammatical structures and vocabulary have become comprehensible – then the stage is set for long term enjoyment and solidifying of vocabulary and language mastery; with enough exposure to the text, you will begin obtaining a ‘feel’ for correct prose: at first passively (i.e. you can identify what sounds good) and then actively, as you begin formulating your own ‘literary’ sentences in your target language, whether orally or in writing. Marvellous phrases will come out unbidden. You will get a feel for metaphor, and be able to sound out complex pluperfect or subjunctive forms. Indeed, a massive investment in comprehensible language input – which extensive reading provides – will return many dividends.
[1] Using Anki or Memrise or other similar SRS (spaced repetition system) flashcard applications.
[2] 15 to 25 minutes per day is ideal, in my opinion