Lose yourself in the story and the rest will follow. Going through a little struggle is something that we should expect and embrace. I love this approach of pulling out the unknown vocabulary little by little, but always with the focus on understanding the story. That's exactly how I started with Spanish and I'm so grateful that I did (because it worked!) 😉 Great video!
@@skypuff sometimes you realise the next sentence or context helps and sometimes you realize you don't really miss out on the plot. But if you feel like you missed out just look up. Also I realized even in my native tongue I don't get all the vocab in a book but just ignore it or find out I was wrong later about the meaning of one word. So why should I work myself up about it in a foreign tongue.
I'm a beginner 2 1/2 months self learning korean. I still sound like a slow robot when reading. I cant wait when im able to understand what I'm reading and watching
It's been a year since I started learning Norwegian. The truth is I still haven't really figured out the best ways to learn. But one thing I can say definitely works is reading. Short Stories in Norwegian was a major helping hand - I hope there's an intermediate one on its way!
@@saraf5414 Look up Olly's books on Amazon. You can buy separately the audio versions on Audible. I listen to the audio and read the book together. I also read out loud if I am not listening to the audio. I suggest a follow up intermediate not only for Norwegian, but for Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic and Turkish. Audio books also of course. Hopefully, Olly will consider other languages for beginner's like Afrikaans, Romanian, Catalan, Tagalog and Indonesian.
This is actually the way I supercharged my English. I took classes when I was a child but after that, I ditched them because I hated them. But I never really quit the language, just the stressful classes. I learned it by needing it. I love movies ( any sort of story really, be it in books, movies, or games) and I am someone who really enjoys rewatching or rereading the things I love. For example, to this day, I think I have read Harry Potter books more than 50 times in total. So I was watching and rewatching the movies I loved, to the point of memorizing the dialogues. I naturally shadowed the actors, ( Why so serious? ) So I learned vocabulary with pronunciation. The turning point for me was the Inheritance Cycle books. Now that I'm older I can see how they kind of suck, but I was a fan of them when I was in high school. And when the 4th book of the series came out, I couldn't wait for the translators to do their job. I went straight for the English version, reading it with my iPod touch. It was pretty hard for me back then, but I was determined to know what happens. Now, I read more than 100 thousand words a day on average ( thank you fanfiction) and I am trying to use the same method to learn french. Hopefully, I would be fluent in a year and be able to read all the French I want.
I am a high/advanced intermediate in Spanish. I can read the average novel with difficulty. I've been reading and listening to The Da Vinci Code (el Codigo Da Vinci) and listening along with the audiobook. It really helps. I underline the words I don't know and come back to them later.
I started learning English at the age of 28. The last three years I started studying German. I'm now 51. I had read the Arabian Nights in English about 8 years ago. I enjoyed the stories tremendously, maybe also because I'm Turkish. When I started German I bought the 1001 Nacht, which is the same book. It was way above my level (I'd spoken German 0-7 yo). But I kept at it. I didn't care about the books' high grammar and vocabulary. I'm on the second volume, page 1100, and have no difficulty understanding it. I worked up to it, I did not worry about finding books my level.
Interesting video :) I have to add a step, since I am learning Japanese : looking up the pronunciation of kanji based words. I am reading a novel without furigana. I don’t do it everytime, only when I see the same word 2-3 times in a row, I check the meaning and pronunciation. Also, i have another tip : reading the book of a story you already know (for instance, you have seen the movie). Then even if it is not told the same way, you already know the setting and can understand the places, the things described, and guess the emotions of the characters without searching for every word.
Fellow Japanese learner here, kanji is one of the main reasons I've been putting off reading actual books. So in the meantime I've been slowly grinding kanji and reading manga. Reading a physical book with no furigana sounds painful as a beginner, so I'm hoping to put that off until after I finish KKLC and have a few more books under my belt
I started reading El Principito in Spanish yesterday, and today was the first time I felt emotion about the way the prince speaks about how the million stars in the universe wouldn't mean a thing to him if he loses the flower that he loves so much. Feeling that emotion from reading in a language which I'm just starting out with again after 3 years was something truly special.
Comprehensible Input is even gaining traction with learning the Latin language! I really appreciate how you break down the process into steps and emphasize re-reading. I have been trying to convince my Latin students to re-read the sentences and paragraphs!! They are always in a hurry to turn in the assignment after simply translating them. I am new to your channel, but love your content so far! Thanks!
Finished your French book Olly. It was fantastic. Moving into other books now. People read books and listen to shows/music in your target language. This is the Krashen method essentially. Your brain will figure it out. It actually works.
I've read several of your Spanish short stories. I appreciate the structure of the chapters. I've learned so much more than reading traditional books. Keep up the great work!
What you indirectly address but do not really mention is word frequency. Thus the more frequent words used in a language should theoretically be learned first. If you read stories, this process becomes natural. More frequent words are used more often in any story. If you read 30 stories, following your method, you will definitely acquire high frequency vocabulary, see how it is used in context and begin to get a feel for the 'flow' of the language. Thank you for the video.
I bought your two Spanish books and it’s amazing how much I’ve improved my vocabulary and comprehension. I’m trusting the process and know I’ll keep improving! Thank you! I also bought my favorite book, The Great Gatsby, in Spanish and one day I’ll be ready for it.
As a comic book nerd, I find them ideal for holding interest and contextual input. Also importantly, in my opinion, the style is often crafted as dialogue, which would have a higher transfer to speaking ability than say the style a novel is written in. Currently using your process to read French versions of Batman comics that I've actually already read in English, which also helps me to already understand a lot of what's going on as I read through the French separately.
Me too! I was reading a story in Tagalog and was like "what's the most efficient way for me to learn this vocab there's so many!" It's almost counter-intuitive what he suggests but I need to try this out it makes sense to just want to get to know the gist of the story.
I believe you have time to come back to learn whatever you want, but first story needs to be completed 😊😊 Although I forget to cone back when I see a new story, of course 😅😅
I started the way you've said with the language of the Caraïben. I got a children-book for very little children parents use to read for their children with pictures :-))) Every day I read the same book/story. I need around 45" to read it trough and most times I understand more words/more about the story ... but first I had to start with some words I already learned just to get started. I'm listening to all the video's of you I can find to learn more about this topic. Thanks
@@oldgold8247 I've never seen it used for indicating time rather than degrees of latitude but ' can refer to minutes and " can mean seconds. Still, 45 seconds is really fast for a children's book.
I did something similar to learn english. I also foud that having the english definition was better then the translation. At first it might not work, but when you have a basic level, the english definition didn't break the flow and thinking that you were already on. By lookig the translation, I found it was harder to go back to the story.
Hey Olly! I've been using your Story Learning approach for about 50 something days now and I've really seen some amazing progress. I would absolutely LOVE to see you make a short story book for Japanese learners! I'm also interested in the historical/WW2 stories you were talking about in a video with Steve Kaufman. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us!
I am watching Lupin with subtitles for French. The story is very good and I am engaged. I randomly look up words. But only when I really can't understand. Finding good material to keep you engaged is so important.
This was so helpful because I was reading Jared Turner’s explanation of extensive reading, and he suggested understanding maybe 98% of the reading, which totally discouraged me. Now I feel relieved as I am getting the gist of your Short Stories in Spanish but definitely don’t understand many of the words.
I am at B1 level and reading Harry Potter for first time in german and through the first reading of the first chapter I had marked 25-30 Unknown words on each page and only looked up 7-8 words in the whole chapter but I was able to follow the plot of the chapter easily.
Thanks for your all efforts Olly Richards. Why didn't I watch your video 7 years ago. Because I memorized 10 thousand words in a year with difficulty and couldn't use even 1 percent of them freely, and because of that I concluded that learning language isn't for me and gave up to learn it. And recently I suddenly find out about Stephen Krashen and you, and as you said I am reading and listening all the time , I have planned 100 days challenge for myself and I am now on 60 day th, maybe you can't believe in me, I can easily understand what are you saying without subtitles almost, and express my thoughts without difficulty. Power of reading and listening is just INCREDIBLE. I advise all to follow this rules.
Josh Groban sings a song “Hay si volvieras” (something like that, not sure of the title). When I first heard it I thought it was a beautiful, sweet love song. After hearing it several time I wanted to know exactly what he was saying. I looked up the translation and it was a heartbreaking love song. The love of his life left him. It was incredibly sad!
Reading is great, I started with children's stories as some stories for foreign learning can use quite "unnatural" language, and reading it more than once, first time for plot and then for a grammatical aspect and/or voc. Its how i teach my pupils. And reading along while listening to the audiobook then you have pronunciation too.
Regarding reading and listening, I think of it as every word having two representations: A written form and a spoken form. And that you have to learn both in order to know the word.
I think the part where you mention the gradual shift from lots of repetition to more extensive exposure for pleasure is explained very well, great video Olly. Out of curiosity what is the most memorable book you have read so far in a foreign language?
One of your best videos! You can’t imagine how helpful this is especially when there is not a lot of material in the language for self-study (Romanian). The stew analogy makes complete sense.
Been studying vocab with novels in my target language for a while now and it’s so much fun. Went from 0 understanding to being able to read crime novels!
Awesome advice, Olly! The bulk of my time dedicated to learning Russian is spent on extensive reading supplemented by flashcards, and I totally agree that adding and managing flash card decks can eat up time that one could spend actually reading and learning. I'd been trying to keep this to a minimum, and a couple months back I found a method that adds swathes of cards in under a minute that could be useful for any people here who aren't expert Anki users like me: 1. As I casually check things on Google Translate during my reading, I save phrases I want to remember via the star symbol at the top right of the translated box. 2. On my weekends I open my Google Translate phrasebook containing these saved phrases and export them to Google Sheets, and then clear my Google Translate phrasebook. 3. In the Sheets I tweak the entries a bit and add tags to the column on the right (usually just the date I added them, or the book, youtube video, or person that introduced the word to me), then I copy and save the columns containing the Russian entries, English translations, and Tags onto a new text document file. 4. On Anki I then import the document into my Russian deck under the File tab. I'm really bad at remembering the words I'd picked up from context while reading, but Anki helps me loads in memorizing them long-term. Re-reading a chapter a couple of times with different foci sounds really good though, thanks for the insight! Looking forward to trying it out.
I love the stew analogy. A professor of German in University used a vending machine analogy (with vocabs being the coins you put in to get something out).
Hi Olly, I bought your short stories in Spanish book (intermediate) a few weeks ago at first I had to read the stories 2 or 3 times to get a good understanding of the plot but now I'm on story 6 and I can understand it all after 1 reading although it doesn't feel as if I'm reading at below my level.
Another tip: if you can't listen to what youre reading (like a physical book without an audio thingy) read aloud. It helped me tremendously, and you get to practice your accent😁
Cool video. I've employed the reading repetition method over the last 6 weeks, and my improvement in my target language has escalated very quickly. Words just stick better when you repeatedly read them in context.
I loathe flashcards with every fiber of my being. I've taken your method from your books to anything I read, to highlight a limited number of words and phrases. I spend about 15 minutes every day reviewing words that I had already gone over in the context of a story(I write these vocab sentences and phrases in the physical book and I make sure to have a limit per page of vocab so as to not over do it). So everything I read builds on itself to review. As I can review anything in chunks. Like read over random pages or vocab. So much more helpful than anki for me
It helps if what you're reading is something that interests you. So if you're interested in baseball, read about baseball in your target language if you can. I'm interested in history and science, I was pleased to see some of your books covered those subjects. I'm learning Spanish and Italian, I'm intermediate at least in Spanish, not so developed in Italian but I've gotten the basics. I'm interested in other languages as well, like French, Japanese, Swahili and Polish. But they are much more difficult to tackle, Japanese because of the writing system, Swahili and Polish because of the lack of learning material.
I’m reading juvenile to adult at this point. Very fun. And my ear learning has been so much fun with youtube, documentaries, news. Thank you for sanity in learning. This is the most effortless way because motivation is built in.
Great video...I just ordered your Spanish book and am looking forward to diving in. I have benefited so much from reading in my native language (English) and I've always felt that reading was the key to also unlocking a second language.
Olly you are the best motivator for language learning. When I am a little bit down and loose motivation, because of the difficulties in language learning process, I go to your videos to keep the motivation on. Thank you!
I agree about the flashcards. The best flashcards (almost the only ones worth making) are ones that are not words in isolation, but words in a sentence. Anki is great. you can put in pictures, whole sentences, and audio. And can keep cards monolingual.
I’m up to the the intermediate Italian book in your series and I can say the stories are so enjoyable and it doesn’t feel like “ studying “, and you really absorb the language . Is there a similar process you suggest for tv shows or movies ie.. watch them a few times, maybe without subtitles and then with ?
When I was 12, I really wanted to read the new twilight book - it came out in English first obviously and I did not want to wait for the translation (my first language is German). So my dad got me the book in English and I basically used this method without knowing. The intrinsic motivation really did it for me ❤️
Hi Olly, I have been reading you short stories for intermediate learners (Spanish). At the same time I talk to a Colombian girl every who is learning English, we alternate days between English and Spanish. I'm now on the 6th story and I now feel like I'm understanding nearly everything and I'm able to understand it first time round and I can answer all the questions correctly without too much effort, where at the beginning it was a bit if a struggle. I will keep reading and do all 8 stories in the book but I was wondering if you could suggest what I should read next in Spanish?
My question is in regards to reading a story that you’ve already read. Like you find a book that you’ve read in your native language, and to read it in the language you are learning and you find the book that is translated into that language. Do you recommend this or would you suggest for us to stay away from this?
The biggest gap for me with this method is where to find comprehensive input. I am at A2/B1 level in French. Although it's easy to find books in French or French/English, it difficult to know whether the book is at the right level. I have purchased a lot of books that have turned out to either be way too low or too high.
There are plenty of graded readers for french, which should be ok for you. You might have to fight through the dull content for a while, but is there! Also, try non-fiction. It tends to be more approachable.
If I may add to your wonderful discussion: Music/songs are also a fantastic way to learn a new language and become more proficient, especially in the spoken language. I believe that every language has an innate rhythm and singing in a new language helps to develop that rhythm when speaking and helps to train the lips, tongue and other parts of the articulatory mechanism (i.e. "muscle memory) for improved speech and pronunciation habits. I'd love to hear your take on this. Au revoir. Hasta la vista. Tot ziens. Oant sjen.
That’s how I teach English to Italian, French and Spanish and vice versa, although it works best for learning English as there’s a lot more music to use and many of the songs lyrics are already known by students. While I understand how this reading stories works, I think you need to have a basic knowledge of the language otherwise you’re going to get bored and stuck very quickly. For intermediate students it’s a brilliant method.
@@lyliavix4366 My high school French and Spanish teacher regularly had us sing the the respective class languages. And, since his name is Marcelo Silveri, we also had to learn to sing Santa Lucia!! Great memories!
I remember getting lists of 20 or so French words to memorise in school. Weekly, if I remember rightly. Later I talked to a man who had been taught Russian while serving in the Royal Air Force - he told me that they too were given vocabulary lists but the rather intensive programme amounted to learning about 200 words a week. I have been fairly successful in language learning - I tend to see stories, factual books and newspaper articles in foreign languages as vocabulary depots.
I started Dutch years ago by using the book Minoes. I started with no previous Dutch. All I did was translate as I went. Not trying to memorise words. By chapter six I was 80 % free reading. Amazed myself. 😉. I had an audiobook as well and was able to understand chapters I had not translated yet. My subconscious did this by itself.
Great video Olly - really well thought out and very useful. Also, I'm happy to see the audio for 101 Russian conversations is finally available. Hope you choose to release a Russian intermediate 101 conversations book some time soon.
Where can I find the 101 Russian conversations? I am a beginner and I am still learning to decode (read) the words, letter by letter. I recognize some words now and use them to learn other words. Cognates help a LOT, especially with a new alphabet. I almost feel like I should read some children's books in Russian and Ukrainian first, but I just discovered that Pottermore released several digital Harry Potter books in Ukrainian, if anyone is interested. This made me think I should read Harry Potter (and other familiar books) in different languages.
1. Thank you, your books have helped me immensely. 2. There is a vocabulary list at the end of each chapter. How would you recommend listing down and studying these vocabulary so one doesn’t forget to them
I would really love it if you were to publish a beginner-level short stories book for Japanese. I am an absolute beginner trying to teach myself. One of your books would be better than a kiddie's story book from the language store. I am enjoying reading the beginner Italian book and have bought the intermediate one in anticipation.
I have started using the Short Stories book to learn Russian and I find it very useful, fun and engaging. It really helps and motivates me to read more. And it's quite surprising how much I can understand without necessarily knowing all the words. But I'm curious about using the same technique to learn another language. I have found out that the 8 stories in Olly's Short Stories for beginners series (Russian, French, Turkish, etc.) are essentially the same stories regardless of the target language, except for some minor details reflecting the cultural and geographical context of the said target language. So, after completing the book in any language, I was wondering whether the method would be as effective with another language since I would already know all the stories very well. So, the language acquisition technique would be significantly different and also, there wouldn't be the extra incentive to keep reading to see what happens next which is an important factor, I think, in this method. No doubt that it would still be useful in many ways, but would it be as "effective", or less effective, or perhaps even more? I'm curious if anyone has had that experience already. 🤓
I had bought your beginner's book in Italian before I found out about you. I really like the short stories and while I am attending a traditional Italian language class my biggest trouble is understanding when Italian is spoken to me. My mind seems to go blank and I can't seem to grasp what the person speaking. What do you suggest to do in helping out this situation.
Thank you for the support Richard. What’s happening here is that your ability to process the spoken language is just lagging behind your overall level. That’s totally normal - it usually comes from rather too much “study” at the expense of spending time with input. I would suggest increasing the time you spend listening across the board, ideally with material where you can listen and read at the same time.
Thanks for this video Olly!! I currently have 4 of your readers with another one on the way!! Struggled with learning "the old fashioned way" ( yes---I'm not young) and really had to get my head around your approach! For anyone interested----OLLYS' METHOD REALLY WORKS!! Keep the books coming!! and---Thank you!!
Great video Olly! I have noticed that if I already know the plot then it helps me even more but what’s your take on it? For example if one has already read Harry Potter in English and then they try to read it in Spanish or your story books are also same from plot perspective in different languages.
I find it easy to learn every word in the story. I don't memorize, but I do know what every word is saying. To me, this is the comprehensivle input that Krashen, Kaufman and others talk about.
How often should you repeat reading the same chapter of a short story book? Once a day or 3-5 times within the same day? Thanks for another awesome video Olly!
Yesterday I found a girl reading sttories in basic german and explaining them after every sentenve,ifound that very helping fpr me, todayi was looking for mpr of those and your video is just on point
This installment in your video series, Mr. Richards, is yet another of your excellent presentation filled with practical ways for us to go about improving our paths to new-language acquisition. I myself've studied several languages over the last (mumble mumble) … okay, over the last few 56 years (But who's counting eh?), and I still learn things from videos. You have my sincere thanks! That said, I hope you will read & take seriously the following. Having *any* music in the background, no matter how softly it plays, is a sound disturbance to your viewer/listeners. (Well, at least to *this* viewer/listener!) Thus I respectfully ask that you leave background music out of your future presentations. Toward the end of this current video ("The RIGHT Way to Learn Vocabulary from Stories") you refer to the way that hearing the sound & rhythm of words-whether the learners are themselves are producing the words while reading aloud or are hearing them as produced by a recording of the book-strongly reinforce the ability to remember the meaning of those words. How very true, to the point that *any* concurrent sounds that are *not* solely the book's text both distract from & compete with learning. As a musician with several decades of training and even more decades than that of being a university professor of music, I know full well what happens to the human brain while listening to (and even while "merely" hearing faint) music. Unless a word+music combination is *intended* by a composer-such as in compositions that specifically combine instrumental & vocal sounds-the mind's focus is inevitably split. That, of course, is not a situation conducive to learning. And because you have so obviously devoted your thought & time to help people *learn,* I hope you will consider my request to omit from your future videos any background music. Please, Olly, let the your spoken voice be the *only* sound component of your videos: I, for one, will consider that plenty enough of music for my ears. Again, I thank you.
i'm reading the alchemist in portuguese right now. it is so rewarding being able to read and follow the plot even though i'm not understanding every little detail and word. i've been understanding the plot the whole way and summarizing it to my brazilian girlfriend. it is truly satisfying. Once I finish reading it i'm going to try listening to an audio version.
I have a different approach but have immense results.. I translate the sentence as I go and do go for a higher level of understanding and I've tried your method but it doesn't seem to work me as well..I'd recommend translating as you go and trying to remember some words because that's challenging and strains your brain too..then when I can read it the next time I just breeze through
I LOVE your books. I underline words I don't know and every 2 chapters make flash cards with my iphone's dictation and the spanish dict app Then practice speaking them while I walk my dog. It works insanely well and takes no time to make the cards!
One thing that I have been wondering is how often should I pick up the book and read? I have a lot of free time, so I could basically finish half the book in a single day if I wanted to but I'm sure that wouldn't help me too much with progression in my target language. One chapter every day? One story every 4 days? What would be the most optimal for reaching fluency in my target language?
Through comprehensible input I reached the level when understand easy and slow language. But I can't repeat some things despite hearing them many times. I think having them written down can help
Bit late to the party but I definitely feel the plot thing. I find when I zone out and just focus on a mental image (both on visual media and in written or audio) I can get into a sort of "Zen" mode where words I don't know sort of don't bother me at all. You notice when something is important because it mentally nudges you to go and figure it out. Weird feeling honestly but I think it's a matter of habit!
Thanks for giving a lot more detail about your reading method. I think listening while reading is especially important in languages with non-phonetic alphabets, like Chinese. If you just read, you have no idea if the word is "fu" or "shi" or "tong". You need to learn the picture, the sound and the meaning. For me, the combination of listening and reading works best. For example I hear a paragraph and understand nothing. I hear it again along with seeing the writing and the whole thing makes sense. Or at least I understand a lot more of it.
I love this concept! Before diving into one of your Short Stories for Beginners books, is there a minimum number of words that I should memorize? Perhaps the 200 most common words in the language? In particular, I’m keen to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I haven’t purchased the book yet - but I assume I shouldn’t launch into reading those stories without at least some rudimentary knowledge?
Correct, they’re not for complete beginners. You should probably take a course or study a textbook first. (Ideally take Portuguese Uncovered but it’s not out yet!)
I would recommend working through a colloquial book (try to go with the older books 1940-1999 the newer books aren't that good) you should have more than enough vocabulary to be able to read his books with ease and maybe easier if you go with the old colloquial books (1940-60) you will learn around 3000! Sorry for bad English :(
Thank you for another great video, Olly. You covered this very thoroughly and I greatly appreciate that. I wish I would have taken this kind of advice sooner. I have now read you short stories in Russian and am looking to find some more intermediate reading in Russian. Any recommendations, maybe from some native books?
You gave very nice advice here. Even if I studied languages my whole life some tips are really good. Thanks ...I'll start to use some of them in my Japanese reading practice!
Wow I have that short stories in Spanish book, saw this video on my recommended and didn’t realise it was the person who wrote it! I’ve hit a bit of a standstill with my Spanish so I’m going to try this method and see how it goes!
Olly, this very useful. I use a "lazy variation" of what you are doing and would be interested in your thoughts on this: I get two versions of the same text, the first in a language I know well and the other in the language I am trying to learn. This can be done in both reading and listening audiobooks. What I noticed is that reading/listening for 10 min will get me fully aware of the plot as well as keywords and expressions. When I then go to the story in the target language, I am situated and can start mentally searching for words, expressions, and the flow of the narrative. The downsides of this method are that (1) I am restricted to books that have the exact same text in two languages and (b) I have to read/listen to the same story twice, the first just for entertainment and the second mostly to get used to the new language.
@@storylearning, exactly, there is a progression in terms of types of texts: starting with (a) primers (yours are amazing!) or books written for teens, then (b) technical books since their words have Latin roots that I am familiar with (this obviously doesn't work for languages that are not Latin-based), then (c) novels, where the vocabulary is definitely more sophisticated, and (d) real dialogues between native speakers, especially if they are teenagers or from any group with a special slang, like gangs. The advantages I noticed are: I don't really need to look up anything because I always understand 100% of the text given that I read it first in a language I know; it's fun since I get the story AND learn a language at the same time; while I haven't conducted a formal experiment, my guess is that my vocabulary/sentence pattern acquisition is optimized because I am always scanning the target-language text for words that I know should be there, i.e., it's easier to learn in context. The last reason is probably just me: although I know that I would learn more if I were to go over the same story multiple times, to me the second time around would be a chore. Since with this "dual-language" method I get the meaning of the full story the first time around, I can finish a book and then move on to the next one. I should say that most of the time I do this with audiobooks, and am about to get started with your books in Korean. Thanks for the awesome material you have been releasing.
Early in my German learning I read Marvel Comics translations. The words "plötzlich," "schicksal," and "gefangen" kept recurring. The repetition really helped.
If there isn't already, I would love a video in the whole a1 b2 etc Cambridge language grades and if they are useful to gage your language progress! Thanks Olly for the great content! I have 3 of your books so far!
Hi Olly! Any tip on how to pick the modern vocab from the stories, that is what is the best way to figure out if the 'word' is still in use and not from the Dickens' era and also is it correct to use French, German or any other dictionary for foreign words in English stories to find the proper way of pronunciation e.g when i was busy reading 'The book thief' there were so many German words that i had no idea how to pronounce them so i was using German pronunciation rather than English. Thank you!
Thanks Olly for this video! Excellent advice. I bought my first Italian novel and I started to translate word for word which I have started to absolutely hate doing. Usually, I read Italian news free flowing like you suggest and I enjoy doing it with topics that I’m interested in. If i focus on reading things I enjoy then I don’t think of it as study but when I was translating the text I found it extremely boring, time consuming and probably not beneficial in the long run. Thanks again for your great advice I will go back to reading for enjoyment 🙌🏻🇮🇹💚
Can you expand more on your learning of Japanese. I have learned hiragana and katakana. In order to read I need to learn kanji. How do you recommend I proceed from this point?
🤯 What is the StoryLearning method? Here's everything you need to know: ruclips.net/video/dPqWN2dlsBg/видео.html
I have a question please. How do you know when you should start doing language exchanges?
hoho
Thanks for the video!
In Lue of audio tapes etc, will reading aloud work as well?
Lose yourself in the story and the rest will follow. Going through a little struggle is something that we should expect and embrace. I love this approach of pulling out the unknown vocabulary little by little, but always with the focus on understanding the story. That's exactly how I started with Spanish and I'm so grateful that I did (because it worked!) 😉 Great video!
I'm going to remember this
So if you don't know what the words mean or how to pronounce them. Do you just keep reading?
@@skypuff sometimes you realise the next sentence or context helps and sometimes you realize you don't really miss out on the plot. But if you feel like you missed out just look up.
Also I realized even in my native tongue I don't get all the vocab in a book but just ignore it or find out I was wrong later about the meaning of one word. So why should I work myself up about it in a foreign tongue.
@@EdgeOfLight 😲 that makes perfect sense. Thank you 🙏.
I'm a beginner 2 1/2 months self learning korean. I still sound like a slow robot when reading. I cant wait when im able to understand what I'm reading and watching
It's been a year since I started learning Norwegian. The truth is I still haven't really figured out the best ways to learn. But one thing I can say definitely works is reading. Short Stories in Norwegian was a major helping hand - I hope there's an intermediate one on its way!
Thanks Michael!
I second the wish for an intermediate short stories in Norwegian book!
Hi, I'm learning Norwegian too and was wondering where you find/read these short stories from? Takk!
@@saraf5414 you can buy them on amazon
@@saraf5414 Look up Olly's books on Amazon. You can buy separately the audio versions on Audible. I listen to the audio and read the book together. I also read out loud if I am not listening to the audio.
I suggest a follow up intermediate not only for Norwegian, but for Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Icelandic and Turkish. Audio books also of course. Hopefully, Olly will consider other languages for beginner's like Afrikaans, Romanian, Catalan, Tagalog and Indonesian.
This is actually the way I supercharged my English. I took classes when I was a child but after that, I ditched them because I hated them. But I never really quit the language, just the stressful classes. I learned it by needing it. I love movies ( any sort of story really, be it in books, movies, or games) and I am someone who really enjoys rewatching or rereading the things I love. For example, to this day, I think I have read Harry Potter books more than 50 times in total.
So I was watching and rewatching the movies I loved, to the point of memorizing the dialogues. I naturally shadowed the actors, ( Why so serious? ) So I learned vocabulary with pronunciation.
The turning point for me was the Inheritance Cycle books. Now that I'm older I can see how they kind of suck, but I was a fan of them when I was in high school. And when the 4th book of the series came out, I couldn't wait for the translators to do their job. I went straight for the English version, reading it with my iPod touch. It was pretty hard for me back then, but I was determined to know what happens.
Now, I read more than 100 thousand words a day on average ( thank you fanfiction) and I am trying to use the same method to learn french. Hopefully, I would be fluent in a year and be able to read all the French I want.
I am a high/advanced intermediate in Spanish. I can read the average novel with difficulty. I've been reading and listening to The Da Vinci Code (el Codigo Da Vinci) and listening along with the audiobook. It really helps. I underline the words I don't know and come back to them later.
I started learning English at the age of 28. The last three years I started studying German. I'm now 51. I had read the Arabian Nights in English about 8 years ago. I enjoyed the stories tremendously, maybe also because I'm Turkish. When I started German I bought the 1001 Nacht, which is the same book. It was way above my level (I'd spoken German 0-7 yo). But I kept at it. I didn't care about the books' high grammar and vocabulary. I'm on the second volume, page 1100, and have no difficulty understanding it. I worked up to it, I did not worry about finding books my level.
Interesting video :) I have to add a step, since I am learning Japanese : looking up the pronunciation of kanji based words. I am reading a novel without furigana. I don’t do it everytime, only when I see the same word 2-3 times in a row, I check the meaning and pronunciation.
Also, i have another tip : reading the book of a story you already know (for instance, you have seen the movie). Then even if it is not told the same way, you already know the setting and can understand the places, the things described, and guess the emotions of the characters without searching for every word.
That’s a tricky one. I am also very tempted to look up pronunciation of kanji, but it also slows you down massively. Chicken or egg?
Fellow Japanese learner here, kanji is one of the main reasons I've been putting off reading actual books. So in the meantime I've been slowly grinding kanji and reading manga. Reading a physical book with no furigana sounds painful as a beginner, so I'm hoping to put that off until after I finish KKLC and have a few more books under my belt
That's a cool tip! I plan to buy "The Little Prince" in Korean because I really love that book 🥰🌹
I started reading El Principito in Spanish yesterday, and today was the first time I felt emotion about the way the prince speaks about how the million stars in the universe wouldn't mean a thing to him if he loses the flower that he loves so much. Feeling that emotion from reading in a language which I'm just starting out with again after 3 years was something truly special.
Comprehensible Input is even gaining traction with learning the Latin language! I really appreciate how you break down the process into steps and emphasize re-reading. I have been trying to convince my Latin students to re-read the sentences and paragraphs!! They are always in a hurry to turn in the assignment after simply translating them. I am new to your channel, but love your content so far! Thanks!
Finished your French book Olly. It was fantastic. Moving into other books now. People read books and listen to shows/music in your target language. This is the Krashen method essentially. Your brain will figure it out. It actually works.
Bingo!
I've read several of your Spanish short stories. I appreciate the structure of the chapters. I've learned so much more than reading traditional books. Keep up the great work!
What you indirectly address but do not really mention is word frequency. Thus the more frequent words used in a language should theoretically be learned first. If you read stories, this process becomes natural. More frequent words are used more often in any story. If you read 30 stories, following your method, you will definitely acquire high frequency vocabulary, see how it is used in context and begin to get a feel for the 'flow' of the language. Thank you for the video.
I bought your two Spanish books and it’s amazing how much I’ve improved my vocabulary and comprehension. I’m trusting the process and know I’ll keep improving! Thank you! I also bought my favorite book, The Great Gatsby, in Spanish and one day I’ll be ready for it.
As a comic book nerd, I find them ideal for holding interest and contextual input. Also importantly, in my opinion, the style is often crafted as dialogue, which would have a higher transfer to speaking ability than say the style a novel is written in. Currently using your process to read French versions of Batman comics that I've actually already read in English, which also helps me to already understand a lot of what's going on as I read through the French separately.
Dude, today i was searching how to learn vocab from stories and you made the video at the right time😁 gracias amigo💖
I could hear you thinking... :)
Me too! I was reading a story in Tagalog and was like "what's the most efficient way for me to learn this vocab there's so many!" It's almost counter-intuitive what he suggests but I need to try this out it makes sense to just want to get to know the gist of the story.
I believe you have time to come back to learn whatever you want, but first story needs to be completed 😊😊
Although I forget to cone back when I see a new story, of course 😅😅
I started the way you've said with the language of the Caraïben. I got a children-book for very little children parents use to read for their children with pictures :-)))
Every day I read the same book/story. I need around 45" to read it trough and most times I understand more words/more about the story ... but first I had to start with some words I already learned just to get started.
I'm listening to all the video's of you I can find to learn more about this topic. Thanks
You need 45 inches every time?
@@oldgold8247 I've never seen it used for indicating time rather than degrees of latitude but ' can refer to minutes and " can mean seconds. Still, 45 seconds is really fast for a children's book.
I did something similar to learn english. I also foud that having the english definition was better then the translation. At first it might not work, but when you have a basic level, the english definition didn't break the flow and thinking that you were already on. By lookig the translation, I found it was harder to go back to the story.
Hey Olly! I've been using your Story Learning approach for about 50 something days now and I've really seen some amazing progress. I would absolutely LOVE to see you make a short story book for Japanese learners! I'm also interested in the historical/WW2 stories you were talking about in a video with Steve Kaufman. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us!
Awesome! That’s fantastic to hear. The WWII book is coming soon!
Not sure if you are still on the 日本語 grind but Olly just released the Short stories in Japanese this week!!!
どう？ 2年前のコメントだけど 日本語喋れるようになった？
I am watching Lupin with subtitles for French. The story is very good and I am engaged. I randomly look up words. But only when I really can't understand. Finding good material to keep you engaged is so important.
This was so helpful because I was reading Jared Turner’s explanation of extensive reading, and he suggested understanding maybe 98% of the reading, which totally discouraged me. Now I feel relieved as I am getting the gist of your Short Stories in Spanish but definitely don’t understand many of the words.
I think the 98% thing is good advice, but there’s a practical problem of actually finding the material at exactly that level.
@@storylearning Ah ok, especially at the beginner stage, right?
At any level really, because your 98% is always moving.
@@storylearning Understandable. Thanks for your input.
I am at B1 level and reading Harry Potter for first time in german and through the first reading of the first chapter I had marked 25-30 Unknown words on each page and only looked up 7-8 words in the whole chapter but I was able to follow the plot of the chapter easily.
Thanks for your all efforts Olly Richards. Why didn't I watch your video 7 years ago. Because I memorized 10 thousand words in a year with difficulty and couldn't use even 1 percent of them freely, and because of that I concluded that learning language isn't for me and gave up to learn it. And recently I suddenly find out about Stephen Krashen and you, and as you said I am reading and listening all the time , I have planned 100 days challenge for myself and I am now on 60 day th, maybe you can't believe in me, I can easily understand what are you saying without subtitles almost, and express my thoughts without difficulty. Power of reading and listening is just INCREDIBLE. I advise all to follow this rules.
That's awesome bro, The language you have learned is English , I guess right?
Yeah
Josh Groban sings a song “Hay si volvieras” (something like that, not sure of the title). When I first heard it I thought it was a beautiful, sweet love song. After hearing it several time I wanted to know exactly what he was saying. I looked up the translation and it was a heartbreaking love song. The love of his life left him. It was incredibly sad!
Reading is great, I started with children's stories as some stories for foreign learning can use quite "unnatural" language, and reading it more than once, first time for plot and then for a grammatical aspect and/or voc. Its how i teach my pupils. And reading along while listening to the audiobook then you have pronunciation too.
Regarding reading and listening, I think of it as every word having two representations: A written form and a spoken form. And that you have to learn both in order to know the word.
I think the part where you mention the gradual shift from lots of repetition to more extensive exposure for pleasure is explained very well, great video Olly. Out of curiosity what is the most memorable book you have read so far in a foreign language?
One of your best videos! You can’t imagine how helpful this is especially when there is not a lot of material in the language for self-study (Romanian). The stew analogy makes complete sense.
Been studying vocab with novels in my target language for a while now and it’s so much fun. Went from 0 understanding to being able to read crime novels!
Awesome advice, Olly! The bulk of my time dedicated to learning Russian is spent on extensive reading supplemented by flashcards, and I totally agree that adding and managing flash card decks can eat up time that one could spend actually reading and learning. I'd been trying to keep this to a minimum, and a couple months back I found a method that adds swathes of cards in under a minute that could be useful for any people here who aren't expert Anki users like me:
1. As I casually check things on Google Translate during my reading, I save phrases I want to remember via the star symbol at the top right of the translated box.
2. On my weekends I open my Google Translate phrasebook containing these saved phrases and export them to Google Sheets, and then clear my Google Translate phrasebook.
3. In the Sheets I tweak the entries a bit and add tags to the column on the right (usually just the date I added them, or the book, youtube video, or person that introduced the word to me), then I copy and save the columns containing the Russian entries, English translations, and Tags onto a new text document file.
4. On Anki I then import the document into my Russian deck under the File tab.
I'm really bad at remembering the words I'd picked up from context while reading, but Anki helps me loads in memorizing them long-term. Re-reading a chapter a couple of times with different foci sounds really good though, thanks for the insight! Looking forward to trying it out.
I love the stew analogy. A professor of German in University used a vending machine analogy (with vocabs being the coins you put in to get something out).
Hi Olly, I bought your short stories in Spanish book (intermediate) a few weeks ago at first I had to read the stories 2 or 3 times to get a good understanding of the plot but now I'm on story 6 and I can understand it all after 1 reading although it doesn't feel as if I'm reading at below my level.
Criminally underrated omg
Another tip: if you can't listen to what youre reading (like a physical book without an audio thingy) read aloud. It helped me tremendously, and you get to practice your accent😁
Cool video. I've employed the reading repetition method over the last 6 weeks, and my improvement in my target language has escalated very quickly. Words just stick better when you repeatedly read them in context.
I loathe flashcards with every fiber of my being.
I've taken your method from your books to anything I read, to highlight a limited number of words and phrases. I spend about 15 minutes every day reviewing words that I had already gone over in the context of a story(I write these vocab sentences and phrases in the physical book and I make sure to have a limit per page of vocab so as to not over do it). So everything I read builds on itself to review. As I can review anything in chunks. Like read over random pages or vocab. So much more helpful than anki for me
Your best video re reading Olly. This one has the best description of the process
It helps if what you're reading is something that interests you. So if you're interested in baseball, read about baseball in your target language if you can.
I'm interested in history and science, I was pleased to see some of your books covered those subjects.
I'm learning Spanish and Italian, I'm intermediate at least in Spanish, not so developed in Italian but I've gotten the basics.
I'm interested in other languages as well, like French, Japanese, Swahili and Polish.
But they are much more difficult to tackle, Japanese because of the writing system, Swahili and Polish because of the lack of learning material.
I’m reading juvenile to adult at this point. Very fun. And my ear learning has been so much fun with youtube, documentaries, news. Thank you for sanity in learning. This is the most effortless way because motivation is built in.
Great video...I just ordered your Spanish book and am looking forward to diving in. I have benefited so much from reading in my native language (English) and I've always felt that reading was the key to also unlocking a second language.
Olly you are the best motivator for language learning. When I am a little bit down and loose motivation, because of the difficulties in language learning process, I go to your videos to keep the motivation on. Thank you!
I agree about the flashcards. The best flashcards (almost the only ones worth making) are ones that are not words in isolation, but words in a sentence. Anki is great. you can put in pictures, whole sentences, and audio. And can keep cards monolingual.
I have just bought the Spanish stories for beginners . It's amazing method . Thank you Oilly
I think its the best video about this topic and i watched alot of them. Finally i have the answers on all those questions. Thanks for your great work!
Fantastic to hear, glad to be of service!
I’m up to the the intermediate Italian book in your series and I can say the stories are so enjoyable and it doesn’t feel like “ studying “, and you really absorb the language .
Is there a similar process you suggest for tv shows or movies ie.. watch them a few times, maybe without subtitles and then with ?
When I was 12, I really wanted to read the new twilight book - it came out in English first obviously and I did not want to wait for the translation (my first language is German). So my dad got me the book in English and I basically used this method without knowing. The intrinsic motivation really did it for me ❤️
Thankyou for this video. This is exactly how I learned to read English as a child and I just carried it over to my foreign language learning.
Hi Olly, I have been reading you short stories for intermediate learners (Spanish). At the same time I talk to a Colombian girl every who is learning English, we alternate days between English and Spanish. I'm now on the 6th story and I now feel like I'm understanding nearly everything and I'm able to understand it first time round and I can answer all the questions correctly without too much effort, where at the beginning it was a bit if a struggle. I will keep reading and do all 8 stories in the book but I was wondering if you could suggest what I should read next in Spanish?
How is your Spanish now?
@@Sinklebarn it's a lot better than it was 9 months ago.
My question is in regards to reading a story that you’ve already read. Like you find a book that you’ve read in your native language, and to read it in the language you are learning and you find the book that is translated into that language. Do you recommend this or would you suggest for us to stay away from this?
key here is mass reading on particular subject, great advice
The biggest gap for me with this method is where to find comprehensive input. I am at A2/B1 level in French. Although it's easy to find books in French or French/English, it difficult to know whether the book is at the right level. I have purchased a lot of books that have turned out to either be way too low or too high.
There are plenty of graded readers for french, which should be ok for you. You might have to fight through the dull content for a while, but is there! Also, try non-fiction. It tends to be more approachable.
@@storylearning Thanks for the suggestion. Do you have a preferred online store for purchasing graded readers?
If I may add to your wonderful discussion: Music/songs are also a fantastic way to learn a new language and become more proficient, especially in the spoken language. I believe that every language has an innate rhythm and singing in a new language helps to develop that rhythm when speaking and helps to train the lips, tongue and other parts of the articulatory mechanism (i.e. "muscle memory) for improved speech and pronunciation habits. I'd love to hear your take on this. Au revoir. Hasta la vista. Tot ziens. Oant sjen.
That’s how I teach English to Italian, French and Spanish and vice versa, although it works best for learning English as there’s a lot more music to use and many of the songs lyrics are already known by students. While I understand how this reading stories works, I think you need to have a basic knowledge of the language otherwise you’re going to get bored and stuck very quickly. For intermediate students it’s a brilliant method.
@@lyliavix4366 My high school French and Spanish teacher regularly had us sing the the respective class languages. And, since his name is Marcelo Silveri, we also had to learn to sing Santa Lucia!! Great memories!
@@raykloetstra8501 sounds super cool 😎
I remember getting lists of 20 or so French words to memorise in school. Weekly, if I remember rightly. Later I talked to a man who had been taught Russian while serving in the Royal Air Force - he told me that they too were given vocabulary lists but the rather intensive programme amounted to learning about 200 words a week.
I have been fairly successful in language learning - I tend to see stories, factual books and newspaper articles in foreign languages as vocabulary depots.
I started Dutch years ago by using the book Minoes. I started with no previous Dutch. All I did was translate as I went. Not trying to memorise words. By chapter six I was 80 % free reading. Amazed myself. 😉. I had an audiobook as well and was able to understand chapters I had not translated yet. My subconscious did this by itself.
Super goed! Ik ben meteen benieuwd wat je moedertaal is en waarom je Nederlands bent gaan leren.
Great video Olly - really well thought out and very useful. Also, I'm happy to see the audio for 101 Russian conversations is finally available. Hope you choose to release a Russian intermediate 101 conversations book some time soon.
Thanks... it's a long list of requests now! But Intermediate Russian Short Stories is coming later this year!
Where can I find the 101 Russian conversations? I am a beginner and I am still learning to decode (read) the words, letter by letter. I recognize some words now and use them to learn other words. Cognates help a LOT, especially with a new alphabet. I almost feel like I should read some children's books in Russian and Ukrainian first, but I just discovered that Pottermore released several digital Harry Potter books in Ukrainian, if anyone is interested. This made me think I should read Harry Potter (and other familiar books) in different languages.
1. Thank you, your books have helped me immensely. 2. There is a vocabulary list at the end of each chapter. How would you recommend listing down and studying these vocabulary so one doesn’t forget to them
Brilliant, thank you
I just ordered my first two Spanish books of yours on Amazon 📚
Thanks so much for the support!
I would really love it if you were to publish a beginner-level short stories book for Japanese. I am an absolute beginner trying to teach myself. One of your books would be better than a kiddie's story book from the language store.
I am enjoying reading the beginner Italian book and have bought the intermediate one in anticipation.
I have started using the Short Stories book to learn Russian and I find it very useful, fun and engaging. It really helps and motivates me to read more. And it's quite surprising how much I can understand without necessarily knowing all the words. But I'm curious about using the same technique to learn another language. I have found out that the 8 stories in Olly's Short Stories for beginners series (Russian, French, Turkish, etc.) are essentially the same stories regardless of the target language, except for some minor details reflecting the cultural and geographical context of the said target language. So, after completing the book in any language, I was wondering whether the method would be as effective with another language since I would already know all the stories very well. So, the language acquisition technique would be significantly different and also, there wouldn't be the extra incentive to keep reading to see what happens next which is an important factor, I think, in this method. No doubt that it would still be useful in many ways, but would it be as "effective", or less effective, or perhaps even more? I'm curious if anyone has had that experience already. 🤓
It helps having a kindle or such where you can simply tap on the word you want to know about.
Thank you! Very thorough explanation
I had bought your beginner's book in Italian before I found out about you. I really like the short stories and while I am attending a traditional Italian language class my biggest trouble is understanding when Italian is spoken to me. My mind seems to go blank and I can't seem to grasp what the person speaking. What do you suggest to do in helping out this situation.
Thank you for the support Richard. What’s happening here is that your ability to process the spoken language is just lagging behind your overall level. That’s totally normal - it usually comes from rather too much “study” at the expense of spending time with input. I would suggest increasing the time you spend listening across the board, ideally with material where you can listen and read at the same time.
I'm Italian and I struggle too when someone speaks a dialect that isn't the one from my region don't worry ahah
I am Italian, I think you need to talk to people in Italian more often
Thanks for this video Olly!! I currently have 4 of your readers with another one on the way!! Struggled with learning "the old fashioned way" ( yes---I'm not young) and really had to get my head around your approach! For anyone interested----OLLYS' METHOD REALLY WORKS!! Keep the books coming!! and---Thank you!!
Great video Olly! I have noticed that if I already know the plot then it helps me even more but what’s your take on it? For example if one has already read Harry Potter in English and then they try to read it in Spanish or your story books are also same from plot perspective in different languages.
It’s a great tactic, because “meaning” is taken care of, so you can give 100% attention to decoding the language.
I recommend my students to do this!
I find it easy to learn every word in the story. I don't memorize, but I do know what every word is saying. To me, this is the comprehensivle input that Krashen, Kaufman and others talk about.
I'll definitely pick up this process to interleave my language learning!
How often should you repeat reading the same chapter of a short story book? Once a day or 3-5 times within the same day?
Thanks for another awesome video Olly!
Yesterday I found a girl reading sttories in basic german and explaining them after every sentenve,ifound that very helping fpr me, todayi was looking for mpr of those and your video is just on point
This installment in your video series, Mr. Richards, is yet another of your excellent presentation filled with practical ways for us to go about improving our paths to new-language acquisition. I myself've studied several languages over the last (mumble mumble) … okay, over the last few 56 years (But who's counting eh?), and I still learn things from videos. You have my sincere thanks! That said, I hope you will read & take seriously the following. Having *any* music in the background, no matter how softly it plays, is a sound disturbance to your viewer/listeners. (Well, at least to *this* viewer/listener!) Thus I respectfully ask that you leave background music out of your future presentations. Toward the end of this current video ("The RIGHT Way to Learn Vocabulary from Stories") you refer to the way that hearing the sound & rhythm of words-whether the learners are themselves are producing the words while reading aloud or are hearing them as produced by a recording of the book-strongly reinforce the ability to remember the meaning of those words. How very true, to the point that *any* concurrent sounds that are *not* solely the book's text both distract from & compete with learning. As a musician with several decades of training and even more decades than that of being a university professor of music, I know full well what happens to the human brain while listening to (and even while "merely" hearing faint) music. Unless a word+music combination is *intended* by a composer-such as in compositions that specifically combine instrumental & vocal sounds-the mind's focus is inevitably split. That, of course, is not a situation conducive to learning. And because you have so obviously devoted your thought & time to help people *learn,* I hope you will consider my request to omit from your future videos any background music. Please, Olly, let the your spoken voice be the *only* sound component of your videos: I, for one, will consider that plenty enough of music for my ears. Again, I thank you.
i'm reading the alchemist in portuguese right now. it is so rewarding being able to read and follow the plot even though i'm not understanding every little detail and word. i've been understanding the plot the whole way and summarizing it to my brazilian girlfriend. it is truly satisfying. Once I finish reading it i'm going to try listening to an audio version.
Also, the story itself is really inspiring me on my dream of learning português.
I have a different approach but have immense results.. I translate the sentence as I go and do go for a higher level of understanding and I've tried your method but it doesn't seem to work me as well..I'd recommend translating as you go and trying to remember some words because that's challenging and strains your brain too..then when I can read it the next time I just breeze through
I LOVE your books.
I underline words I don't know and every 2 chapters make flash cards with my iphone's dictation and the spanish dict app
Then practice speaking them while I walk my dog. It works insanely well and takes no time to make the cards!
what an outstanding video! love it so much. the story learning method is the best method for me. thanks so much!
This video was very helpful. Thanks
One thing that I have been wondering is how often should I pick up the book and read? I have a lot of free time, so I could basically finish half the book in a single day if I wanted to but I'm sure that wouldn't help me too much with progression in my target language. One chapter every day? One story every 4 days? What would be the most optimal for reaching fluency in my target language?
Through comprehensible input I reached the level when understand easy and slow language. But I can't repeat some things despite hearing them many times. I think having them written down can help
Great topic. I think you're my favorite language channel rn.
Bit late to the party but I definitely feel the plot thing. I find when I zone out and just focus on a mental image (both on visual media and in written or audio) I can get into a sort of "Zen" mode where words I don't know sort of don't bother me at all. You notice when something is important because it mentally nudges you to go and figure it out. Weird feeling honestly but I think it's a matter of habit!
Thank you for the video. I have your short stories in Dutch.
Thanks for giving a lot more detail about your reading method. I think listening while reading is especially important in languages with non-phonetic alphabets, like Chinese. If you just read, you have no idea if the word is "fu" or "shi" or "tong". You need to learn the picture, the sound and the meaning. For me, the combination of listening and reading works best. For example I hear a paragraph and understand nothing. I hear it again along with seeing the writing and the whole thing makes sense. Or at least I understand a lot more of it.
Amazing video, man! Helping me a lot in french. Can u make videos on how to learn a language on your own from zero? Thanks!
You are an extraordinary teacher! Keep up the good work. You are an invaluable asset.
I love this concept! Before diving into one of your Short Stories for Beginners books, is there a minimum number of words that I should memorize? Perhaps the 200 most common words in the language? In particular, I’m keen to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I haven’t purchased the book yet - but I assume I shouldn’t launch into reading those stories without at least some rudimentary knowledge?
Correct, they’re not for complete beginners. You should probably take a course or study a textbook first. (Ideally take Portuguese Uncovered but it’s not out yet!)
I would recommend working through a colloquial book (try to go with the older books 1940-1999 the newer books aren't that good) you should have more than enough vocabulary to be able to read his books with ease and maybe easier if you go with the old colloquial books (1940-60) you will learn around 3000! Sorry for bad English :(
Thank you for another great video, Olly. You covered this very thoroughly and I greatly appreciate that. I wish I would have taken this kind of advice sooner. I have now read you short stories in Russian and am looking to find some more intermediate reading in Russian. Any recommendations, maybe from some native books?
My intermediate Russian book is coming out later this year!
Very thorough, and so encouraging! Thanks Olly!
You gave very nice advice here.
Even if I studied languages my whole life some tips are really good.
Thanks ...I'll start to use some of them in my Japanese reading practice!
Thank you!
How do you find stories or books with an audio too ?
Very helpful video thank you
Wow I have that short stories in Spanish book, saw this video on my recommended and didn’t realise it was the person who wrote it! I’ve hit a bit of a standstill with my Spanish so I’m going to try this method and see how it goes!
Olly, this very useful. I use a "lazy variation" of what you are doing and would be interested in your thoughts on this: I get two versions of the same text, the first in a language I know well and the other in the language I am trying to learn. This can be done in both reading and listening audiobooks. What I noticed is that reading/listening for 10 min will get me fully aware of the plot as well as keywords and expressions. When I then go to the story in the target language, I am situated and can start mentally searching for words, expressions, and the flow of the narrative. The downsides of this method are that (1) I am restricted to books that have the exact same text in two languages and (b) I have to read/listen to the same story twice, the first just for entertainment and the second mostly to get used to the new language.
This sounds great, possibly more in the early stages?
@@storylearning, exactly, there is a progression in terms of types of texts: starting with (a) primers (yours are amazing!) or books written for teens, then (b) technical books since their words have Latin roots that I am familiar with (this obviously doesn't work for languages that are not Latin-based), then (c) novels, where the vocabulary is definitely more sophisticated, and (d) real dialogues between native speakers, especially if they are teenagers or from any group with a special slang, like gangs. The advantages I noticed are: I don't really need to look up anything because I always understand 100% of the text given that I read it first in a language I know; it's fun since I get the story AND learn a language at the same time; while I haven't conducted a formal experiment, my guess is that my vocabulary/sentence pattern acquisition is optimized because I am always scanning the target-language text for words that I know should be there, i.e., it's easier to learn in context. The last reason is probably just me: although I know that I would learn more if I were to go over the same story multiple times, to me the second time around would be a chore. Since with this "dual-language" method I get the meaning of the full story the first time around, I can finish a book and then move on to the next one. I should say that most of the time I do this with audiobooks, and am about to get started with your books in Korean. Thanks for the awesome material you have been releasing.
I love your videos. They have taught me so much. I have been learning French and would love it if you could write some short stories in French.
Early in my German learning I read Marvel Comics translations. The words "plötzlich," "schicksal," and "gefangen" kept recurring. The repetition really helped.
Great advice. I do that in technical reading.
If there isn't already, I would love a video in the whole a1 b2 etc Cambridge language grades and if they are useful to gage your language progress! Thanks Olly for the great content! I have 3 of your books so far!
Hi Olly! Any tip on how to pick the modern vocab from the stories, that is what is the best way to figure out if the 'word' is still in use and not from the Dickens' era and also is it correct to use French, German or any other dictionary for foreign words in English stories to find the proper way of pronunciation e.g when i was busy reading 'The book thief' there were so many German words that i had no idea how to pronounce them so i was using German pronunciation rather than English.
Thank you!
Really nicely explained, thank you! I'll pass this on to my students.
Thanks Olly for this video! Excellent advice. I bought my first Italian novel and I started to translate word for word which I have started to absolutely hate doing. Usually, I read Italian news free flowing like you suggest and I enjoy doing it with topics that I’m interested in. If i focus on reading things I enjoy then I don’t think of it as study but when I was translating the text I found it extremely boring, time consuming and probably not beneficial in the long run. Thanks again for your great advice I will go back to reading for enjoyment 🙌🏻🇮🇹💚
Can you expand more on your learning of Japanese. I have learned hiragana and katakana. In order to read I need to learn kanji. How do you recommend I proceed from this point?
We're in the process of making a video about this!
@@storylearning Perfect! Looking forward to it!!!!
Any tips on material for intermediate learners of English?
Your book just arrived at my house! I'm excited 😀
I brought your 2 Italian story books. I learnt at school. Haven't had a chance to use lately so I'm using your books as a refresher
You brought or you bought?