14:49
Reading is one of those things in language learning that sounds amazing. Picture me in a coffee shop with a good book having a great time. But in reality, it often feels confusing. It's boring. It's hard. And most of the time, it just doesn't work. But it doesn't have to be this way. Reading was a huge part of my fluency journey. It helped me expand my vocabulary, improve my grammar, and it honestly made me think in English. But at first, I was just like you. I chose books that were way too hard. I was bored out of my mind and I thought maybe reading just wasn't for me
until I created a system that actually worked. And today I'm going to walk you through that system. I'll show you what the research says, what mistakes to avoid, and how to read to actually get fluent. And I'll give you reading recommendations for every level, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. By the way, if you're new here, welcome. I'm Veronica and here we talk about language learning, fluency, and how to actually enjoy the process, especially if you're doing it all on your own and sometimes just need some extra support. If you want everything I'll be mentioning in today's
video, including the book recommendations, tools, and the full reading method, I've made a simple presentation you can download for free. Just click the link in the description, share your email, and I'll send the file to your inbox. All right, let's now talk about why reading works. And I want to mention two main reasons why reading helps you become fluent and improve your language skills. The first main reason is comprehensible input. According to linguist Stephen Krashen, we learn when we understand messages and reading can help you practice comprehensible input. Reading can
help you understand messages and this way acquire language naturally. We acquire language in only one way. when we understand what people say and when we understand what we read. And reading gives you hundreds of examples of real language and context. The second reason why reading can help you become fluent is because of vocabulary and grammar. When you read, you don't just memorize words, you learn how those words behave. You start to see a lot of grammar structures used over and over again. And because of that, you start learning them naturally. Reading gives you a lot
more vocabulary variety than a typical textbook. And yes, those highfrequency words are also used over and over again. Now, if you want to make your reading more effective and actually learn foreign languages this way, I highly recommend Busuu. And I want to say a huge thank you to them for sponsoring this video. Busuu is an interactive language learning app that's perfect if you're learning English, Spanish, or really any of the 14 languages they offer. What I love about it is that it helps you apply what you read. Like let's say you're reading a short story or an article. Busuu
helps you practice that vocabulary right away with exercises made by real language experts and even corrections from native speakers. All of this prepares you for real life conversation so you can start feeling more confident at work, while traveling or meeting new people. You also get AI tools that give you instant feedback on grammar and pronunciation, which honestly makes a huge difference. Plus, their lessons are short, like 10 to 15 minutes, so you can easily fit them into your schedule. Personally, I really like their course for intermediate learners called Life
in the US. The lessons are really fun and they help you learn phrases that Americans frequently use. You can also learn all the major American holidays and understand tipping culture in the US. If you are more advanced, you can practice your reading with the course, The Economist, and read articles on a lot of different topics. I like how before you start reading, they give you useful vocabulary that you can save to your cards to review later. If you want to try Busuu for yourself, you can do so completely for free. Just use my link in the description and get a
7-day free trial of Busuu Premium. Okay, now let's actually talk about how you can read your way to fluency and the four rules that can really help you here. The first one is you absolutely have to choose the right level for you and usually it's I + one if we're following the comprehensible input theory which I like to follow because if you're not understanding around 95% of the information you're reading that means this book is too hard. That is not immersion. That is not acquiring a language naturally. That's drowning. This is honestly the number one error. That is the reason
why so many of us don't like reading in foreign languages. If the input is not comprehensible, no acquisition will take place. There's this really fun concept called the Goldilock zone that we can apply here too. Too hard, too easy, just right. So the materials you're reading, they should be just right for you. And for me, just right is about two to three unknown words per page. And most of these words should be guessable from context. Only by using this principle, you're actually going to read a lot. And if you read a lot and you enjoy the process, you start reading more and
more. It's like the cycle that keeps on going because you have found something that is just slightly above your current level. You know, when you read something way too difficult, it's like when you go to the gym and you lift weights that are way too heavy for you. Maybe your ego is going to feel great, but you'll actually strain yourself and see no progress. So, please don't read to impress your ego. Don't read to impress anyone. You don't have to feel like you're deciphering some kind of ancient code. If while reading you're constantly thinking, "Oh my god, I have no idea
what is going on. That is so boring. that is way too hard for me, then stop reading this book. It means that yes, it is too hard for you and that is okay. You're obviously not going to think in English while reading. All you're going to be focused on is translating every single word just to have like a slight idea of what is going on in this book. And so, yes, if there's only one word on a page that you don't know, that's great. You can obviously use a dictionary to look it up, but use dictionaries wisely as a support tool, not a crutch. And no, it's not a blow to your ego to
stick to simpler texts. It's actually a very smart strategy. The next main rule that is going to help you read your way to fluency is reading because you like it. I'm just going to say it. You don't need to finish books that you don't like. Even if everyone is talking about this book, even if it's extremely popular, everyone is saying that this is the book to read right now. Okay, you start reading it and you just realize that okay, for you it's boring. Like you have to discipline yourself into reading this book, you have to make yourself read it. And every single time you read it, you
just can't enjoy the process. And if this is the case, just stop reading this book. If a book makes you hate reading, then this is not the book for you. Reading boring books leads to procrastination and you lose any interest in reading whatsoever. There is a very interesting word that happens to a lot of us when we make ourselves continue reading boring books. Read aside. It's basically the dying of your love for reading. And that is not what I want to happen. I want you to continue working on your reading habit. To read for enjoyment, to read for pleasure, not because somebody told you this
is a great book and now you feel like you have to finish it. What you have to be very careful about is your habit of reading. And this habit of reading is only created when you read books that you actually enjoy. If you like what you're doing, you're way more likely to stay consistent. The next rule is practice narrow reading. I used the concept of narrow reading a lot in the past and it helped me greatly. Basically, what it means is you pick one author that you really like and you just read all of their books. If you read multiple novels by the same author,
you will notice that they tend to use the same set of vocabulary over and over again. Their writing style is obviously the same or very similar and they use the same expressions repeatedly. So, a good tactic is to find a book series you love and just go deep. And rule number four that is going to help you reach your way to fluency is try to combine reading with listening. You can read and then listen to audiobooks or you can use tools like link. I've talked about this app many times in the past because reading with audio can really help you improve your pronunciation can
help you improve the sound of the language in your head. It also bridges the gap between spoken and written language, especially when we're talking about English. A lot of the words in English, like we have no idea how to pronounce them, unless we actually listen to the correct pronunciation. It's like this word kernel, for example. If I just look at how this word is written, I want to say colonial, colonal, something like that. But in reality, the pronunciation is kernel. And to learn that, I need to hear how this word is pronounced. And that is why right now, even though
my English is pretty advanced, I still combine reading and listening. When I have time, I read while listening to an audiobook. I absolutely love this strategy. Now, let's talk about what to read at every single level. And let's begin with the beginner level, A1 or A2. The main rule here is simple vocabulary, short sentences, and lots of pictures. That is why this first big area of books that I highly recommend for beginners is graded readers. These books are specifically written for language learners. So, the grammar, like the language, the vocabulary, they're all
adapted to your level. And you can also use these books to practice narrow reading because they're often grouped by level. Another great resource for beginners is the app link because there you can read mini stories and they also have audio which is absolutely amazing. Their mini stories are extremely short. The sentences are tiny. They use very simple structures so you're not going to feel like you can't understand anything. And because of that you're going to continue reading and continue improving. Another resource that I can recommend for beginners is the app Belinguap. And this app
basically shows you parallel texts like a text in English, let's say, if you're learning English, and then the translation into your native language. So you see every single sentence of the story in both languages. This system is going to work for some people who really like to see like the translation to every single word to every single sentence. But if that is not for you, if you feel like if you see your native language, you just rely on your native language too much instead of focusing on English, then maybe this is not the resource for you. And here I just want to leave a
quick comment on children's books. A lot of us want to start with children's books when we're beginners because we think they are easy and some of them are and that is why a few years ago I did talk about children's books as an amazing resource because they did help me. However, here we have to be careful because not all children's books are beginner friendly. A lot of them use, you know, fictional characters and like animal sounds, animal noises and also a lot of the children's books might be quite boring for adults and that is absolutely okay. So, when it comes to children's
books, I just say use them with caution. If you know this is something that you like using, if it works for you, that is great. But if this is not for you, don't feel pressured to read children's books if you find them boring. Okay. Now, let's move on to the intermediate level, B1 to B2. And your main goal here is going to be increasing volume. So, you're going to read a lot. The reason why at B1 and B2, we're trying to read as much as possible is because we're trying to put all of this passive knowledge into active intuition. We're trying to help you develop this
natural feel for the language that a lot of us get at higher levels. Because at B1 or B2, if you only stick to textbooks, there's a very high chance that you're going to get bored. You're going to get diminishing returns and you're going to stay in this intermediate plateau for many months and years. So when it comes to the actual books to read at B1 or B2, the first area is again graded readers because they do offer books up to intermediate and upper intermediate. Graded readers can really help you improve your reading speed and also your confidence because
you're going to be reading faster. You're going to be enjoying the process and you're going to start feeling more confident when it comes to your reading skills. And that in turn is going to make you want to read even more. The second area here is young adult fiction. So, these books are written for teenagers. And because they're written for teenagers, they're really interesting. They're not boring because they're not children's books. And they also don't use this like super flowery pros of some of the classical literature. And a lot of those books come in series. So, you can
practice narrow reading by sticking to a specific author or a specific series. The examples that I saved for you guys here are Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Hunger Games, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, and Twilight. The next area here is going to be graphic novels and they are especially amazing for Asian languages because Asian languages tend to have characters and characters are really hard to memorize and to recognize. So, graphic novels have obviously the visuals to help you understand the text, and they're honestly really fun. And finally, at B1 and B2, you can
start reading the news. And to make this process a little bit easier and more enjoyable, you can use simplified news platforms. For example, the website that I highly recommend is Inu. You can filter the articles by your level. For example, level five to level seven. And finally, let's talk about the advanced level, C1 and C2. To be honest, at this level, you can read absolutely anything and everything as long as you enjoy it. The key here is to try to read in your foreign language more than you do in your native language. If it is even possible for you, just read everything
in the foreign language you're learning. The more you live through the language, the more native like your fluency will become. And you know this advanced level, it shows up in like subtle little moments like using phrasal verbs correctly, understanding humor, joking, reading between the lines. All of these things can only come from extensive exposure to authentic materials. So keep reading a lot widely, but also deeply. So that is why one useful method here is going to be extensive reading with occasional intensive focus. What it means is that you basically read
a lot you know widely for your enjoyment and then if there is a very specific topic that you really like you go deeper and you read a lot of books on this one specific topic. This is always what I do with health and wellness and nutrition. This is like one main topic for me that I often focus on. And this way I know so many different phrases, so many different words when it comes to nutrition for example. But I also read widely like books on social media, books about the ocean, books about space exploration, like all the things that might interest me. The website that I use to look up
books to read is Good Readads. I really like this website. I've talked about this website many, many times. And I especially like to use their choice awards because there I can just filter by, you know, fiction, non-fiction, what it is I want to read, and just see what books won the choice award in 2024, 2023, and basically find some new reads for myself. The main thing that I want you guys to remember here is that fluency doesn't come from forcing yourself. It comes from developing the sense of curiosity. And nothing builds curiosity better than a good book. So, I think it's going to
be it for today's video. If you liked it, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel if you want to get the presentation from today's video with absolutely everything I shared, the mistakes, the tips, the book recommendations. Make sure to use my link in the description, enter your email, and I'll send you the presentation to your inbox. Also, make sure to check out Busuu. It's an amazing resource and with my link you can get 7 days free. Today I talked a lot about enjoying the process of language learning and if you want to see how I was able
to make language learning my favorite hobby, make sure to click right here and I'll see you there.
