Absolutely! I've done this in French for a long time, and now in Italian. Trying to use accurate phrasing helps me with comprehension because it forces me to recognize the grammatical structure of what I'm reading -- that is, how the sentences are put together. It is not important that I know every conjugation of every tense as long as I can recognize the endings enough to get the meaning. Also, trying to read out loud with accurate pronunciation really helps my pronunciation in conversation because, when I am reading, I can easily go back and re-read a sentence if I realize I pronounced it badly the first time. This has been especially helpful in French, where what you see on the page and the way it is spoken are not always the same. (Not such a problem in Italian.) If I am reading in a coffee shop, I will just "sub-vocalize". All this is quite the opposite of speed-reading in English when I am only going after content and don't care how the language sounds. Sometimes I also listen to an audible while reading along and trying to sub-vocalize at the same time. This helps me find words that I would otherwise mis-pronounce as well as helping me with phrasing and other speaking skills.
How have I not thought of this! Great advice, I will incorporate this into my language learning. I’ve been studying spanish for a few months, and I get frustrated when I listen to spanish and can only recognize a few isolated words at a time. I have to remember it takes a few years. Hopefully this will help with my progress. Voy a estudiar y leer mas! Correction: estudiaré y leeré más!
Reading is what took my Spanish to a new level. I am now attempting it in French. The best for me is Harry Potter. I have read the books several times. I have seen the movies more than a dozen times. I know the stories completely. When you are just getting started get the books in both English and your target language. Read a section/page/chapter whatever in English so you know exactly what is happening then read it in your target language. Rinse and repeat until you have finished the series. I would bet by the middle of the series you will probably stop reading the English version first because you simply won't need to.
Helpful tip: if you’re new to reading in a language, don’t start by trying to read books originally written in your target language, instead start with books that are translated into your target language - I’m not sure exactly the reason why, but I’ve found that translations tend to be simpler to read, have smaller size of vocabulary and don’t use the as many idioms
@@matt_brooks-green do you want to learn Spanish more easily, play game vr chat, The method is to speak in each target language, I speak to you in English, which is the language I want to learn and you in Spanish, I correct your Spanish and you my English.
Thanks for the very clear advice. I am learning French and Japanese - the difficulty in even getting a basic beginners ability in reading Japanese is a huge handicap. But French is much easier, especially with all the shared words, gaining a general understanding of a text is quite easy, even as a beginner. With Japanese I think there is little choice if you are to focus on input but to start on listening only, then focus on reading subtitles for videos. I feel you have to be already well on the way to B2 to be able to cope with dense Japanese text.
After a summer HS exchange in Tokyo in ‘75 where I learned kana and sight kanji, I came home with a Japanese middle schooler 漢和 kanji dictionary, and started reading a collection of short story fables. At first I spent more time going in circles in the dictionary, which sped up my lookups even if I had to assembled clues to find the meaning. Later my exchange student girlfriend would give me her Asahi Weekly magazines. Decades forward… Since COVID I’ve done the million words challenge, reading about 15 novels a year. And tripled my reading speed. Now after countless detective novels written with more commas than kanji, I’m able to read great literature. It’s all about what you find interesting to do, and your tolerance for ambiguity vs drudgery. I hate drills, but love to read and don’t mind puzzles.
The languages I actually feel comfortable in (like English, where I've become fully proficient, but I can also understand and read several others) I learned through massive amounts of reading (where the actual purpose was to read.. not to learn, that was just a side effect). Reading is by far the most efficient way to acquire a language, in my opinion (if, like me, you really enjoy reading). But that doesn't work with Japanese. I've been at it for years. It's the other way around, essentially. In order to read, you first have to know the language, and painstakingly learn how to read what you know. You can't really use reading as a way to acquire more of the language until you're already at a high level. Quite frustrating, but there's no way around it. In other words, I do not agree with the "ANY Language" in the video's title. If it were that simple I would simply have used that approach to learn Japanese and get vocabulary and more, like I did for other languages. Instead it's listening which matters. After a while it's possible to listen and read transcripts simultaneously, but that's part of the process of learning to read what you can already understand, not about acquiring the language through reading. Not at all. (If someone is compering with reading Chinese here.. it's not the same. In Chinese, as I understand it, characters essentially have a single sound, in other words, if you know the characters you can actually learn a word from reading, whether it's a new one or not, but in Japanese you can't know the actual sound until you have heard it _and_ seen it written - at least not until you're at a very high level and kind of get the pattern. There are several "readings" of any Japanese kanji character, at least two, sometimes many more.) If you stick to "readable" languages, then yes, I agree with everything in the video - particularly the part about avoiding translations. I never used dictionaries of any kind, and I'm certain that's why I got the nuances and everything to the extent I did. The negative, if you can call it that, is that I almost can't translate.. there's no connection between my native vocabulary and, for example, English.
@@tohaason You've highlighted some excellent points about the unique challenges of reading in languages like Japanese and Chinese, which differ significantly from more phonetic languages like English. Let me address and refine a few of the key differences you mentioned: While the “any language” claim in the video may not hold true in the same way for logographic scripts, reading can still be a powerful approach-as long as the learner takes the time to find or create resources that match their current level and learning needs. The key is to recognize the unique challenges and adjust the strategies accordingly, rather than expecting a one-size-fits-all solution. Firstly, you're absolutely right that in logographic writing systems, such as Japanese and Chinese, the relationship between characters and their pronunciation/meaning is much more complex than in alphabetic scripts. Simply knowing the individual characters does not necessarily allow one to reliably guess the pronunciation or semantic meaning of a word. An in-depth understanding of radicals, phonetics, and the overall language structure is required to make such inferences, especially for more advanced vocabulary. In Chinese, each character represents a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language) rather than a phonetic sound. This means that an understanding of the character doesn't automatically provide its pronunciation or meaning. This complexity is compounded by the existence of “polyphonic characters” or “characters with multiple readings.” The term used in Chinese is 多音字 (duōyīnzì), which translates to "multi-sound characters." These characters can be pronounced in different ways depending on the context and the specific word they are used in. It's important to note that around 40-60% of Chinese characters have multiple pronunciations and can have completely different meanings, even though the written character is the same. This is a crucial distinction from languages like English, where the connection between the written form and spoken form is more straightforward. As you noted, this makes the reading process in Chinese and Japanese much more challenging, as it requires prior mastery of the language to a significant degree. However, reading can still be a valuable approach, as long as the learner creates or sources appropriate materials tailored to their current level. This allows them to gradually build up their familiarity with the writing system, vocabulary, and grammar through comprehensible input, rather than relying on guesswork or translation. Apps like Parallel Translation (Smartbook) are excellent tools in this regard. They enable learners to look up unfamiliar words, create flashcards, and otherwise actively engage with the reading material rather than passively consuming it. This active learning process is crucial for effectively acquiring languages with complex writing systems. That is why it is important to focus on extensive reading rather than intensive reading, which was well mentioned in the video. So, is learning “any language” possible through reading? Yes, but are the approaches the same? Absolutely not. Not to mention that everyone's approach is also vastly different, so it's important to take the time to find the right method for you.
In my case, I started recently to read webtoons in spanish. They are easily accessible and with the images, it is so much easier to grab what is going on and get some context, therefore, perfect to to expand my vocabulary! Then, I started to read fanfictions in spanish (many people suggested to reread books they already know which is good but I feel like reading fanfictions from universes you already know is like a good compromise since you already know the characters but you are also reading something new so you can get some excitement from the experience and be even more invested. (also, once I finished to look at everything available in french and english, it just felt great to have access to a new language!) I can truly testify that reading really works (I learned english this way)
My library has a selection of toddler and youth books in my TL so I've been relying on that. It was tough at first because I needed to brute force my way through with a dictionary for several books but now I've got a solid foothold in the 4-6 year old age range and I'm using that to keep climbing onwards without having to be as militantly intensive about it. I ask my tutor to record herself reading passages of books I've finished reading and I use them to practice speaking by reading the book aloud alongside her audio. I had a solid background in basic grammar before starting so most of my time is spent on vocab. I'm happy with my progress and excited to keep going. It used to take me a week to get through a new picture book and now I can read 3-4 in one afternoon. A lot of people are turned off by this approach because the kid books are boring. Yes they are, but there's two secret weapons to combating this problem: 1) the language learning aspect makes it more interesting and 2) discipline.
Like you flashcards don’t work for me but I will use the books I’ve read kind of like flashcards. I look through my already read book and skim through the words I highlighted to see if I remember the meaning. Having it already in context of its sentence/paragraph is helpful as I retain the meaning more than I would with flashcards. I only do this with books I really enjoyed as the boring ones lack a connection with the story and the words. I find that just as you said, reading levels up your understanding and listening. I made sure a huge jump this summer in my listening comprehension from the books I read it felt like magic. Great video. Fantastic advice.
Buen video!! Buenos tips. Personalmente me incomoda mucho parar y traducir el significado de cada palabra que no entiendo a mi idioma nativo. Por tanto lo que hago es simplemente tratar de sacar el significado por contexto y si no entiendo vuelvo a re-leer toda la pagina o la frase una y otra vez. Y eso mantiene mi interes en la lectura.
¡Gracias! Y yo también. Más o menos eso es lo que hago, pero actualmente estoy utilizando la lectura intensiva también. Si es un artículo muy interesante, me motiva a encontrar un poco más sobre el tema
I've been doing this and more for most of my life. I read around 40 books per year, I've been keeping a diary for 2 years, listening to podcasts, watching movies, using artificial intelligence, and also teaching the language I'm studying. And still, I'm not fluent in it; at least, not at the degree I expected for the work I put into learning. Basically, every student who approaches a new language and is happy to learn it gets to your method or part of it by trying and sticking to whatever floats his boat. Unfortunately, most of the things one reads don't stick if he doesn't practice them and hear them on a regular basis. Meaning, you need to be heavily exposed to the language daily, and to do that you must live where the language is spoken for at least 6 months. Reading helps, though, if your goal is to be able to communicate for basic stuff.
I watch anime with new subtitles, I don't know Japanese at all and watching it with Spanish subtitles forces me to focuse on the reading , offcourse I couldn't do this until I got a good amount of vocabulary that I don't need to translate much , I still need to translate some words but it won't be the whole text
You mentioned at 6:32 that you just kept reading without looking up words. What do I do when I don't understand (or I'm not sure I understand) what is going on, even though I know every word in the sentence (even in the paragraph)? Yes, I usually have a professional translation in my native language. So, I can look it up. But I don't always have that luxury.
Personally if I can't make sense of it in that moment I just keep reading and the story will become clearer. Maybe I'm just a very relaxed person 😆. As you say you can look it up. I also find talking through a sentence with a tutor interesting as there might be nuances there that you might miss if you're just focused on the meaning in order to understand the plot
Thanks for this. I do a combination of extensive and intensive reading. I more or less do what you suggest and translate words I do not know and then I choose a few words and write sentences using them. I hate flashcards as the words are not in context. I find reading a text two or three times useful but what is a gamechanger is talking with a Tandem partner about what I ve just read. I think it is because I am tuning passive language (written language) into active language (spoken). It seems to help the words stick for me.
The only thing I would caution against is learning a language exclusively through reading as a beginner. It really hurts people's ability to develop a natural accent and hear the language clearly if they spend too much time reading as a beginner and not enough time listening. I think 3/4 listening and 1/4 reading is a good balance between the two as listening is more difficult and needs more time dedicated to it for most people. It's much easier to go back and learn to read better than go back and relearn an entire accent, especially in languages where accent matters with pitch accent like Swedish or Japanese and tones as in Mandarin or Vietnamese. Most people subvocalize when they read so any accent they have in mind for the language is reenforced by reading a lot. So, it's important to take the time to develop a decent understanding of the proper pronunciation of the language before lots of extensive reading. It's the same way kids learn their native language. They learn to listen to it years before they can read it.
I've heard various people speak about the subvocalising thing. I think that if it's important to you then you can always wait. Certainly there are plenty of people who've reached a very high level without worrying too much about those small details. I've heard (from BVP I think) that there is evidence some pronunciation adjustments are effective later on but don't necessarily have long term effects if they are done earlier in a learner's journey. TBH, there are so many people arguing for both sides of this that I'd rather continue enjoying what I'm doing that sweat the small stuff
Its something I’ve definitely noticed in high level English as a second language speakers - you can immediately notice if they are ‘read’ oriented learners by their pronunciation - or put another way, they pronounce many words as they are spelled, not pronounced. It’s one reason why I think the ‘silent’ period is still very worthwhile for starting out in a language. I mostly learn French by reading, and I’ve found it frustrating how often I find I’ve engrained horrible pronunciations in my head (I only recently discovered the ‘x’ in ‘Aix’ is not silent, much to my embarrassment).
Back when I started learning Japanese, there wasn't a lot of resources available, and most of them were text only. I read multiple times that "Japanese is flat", "it has no stress", and so I did not pay any attention to intonation for a really long time. Only to find out later in my studies the existence of pitch accent. My spoken Japanese is doomed. It's a hell lot of trouble to fix it now. I also had that issue with English. Too many years pronouncing some words incorrectly. It took me quite some time to pinpoint every mispronounced word and fix them. That was almost 20 years ago, however every once in a while I still find a word or another that still needs to be fixed. Every other language I'm learning, I focus on learning the correct pronunciation first and foremost. I only use audio made by native speakers. I completely stopped using TTS after it taught me wrong pronunciation both in Russian and Norwegian. All that said, I don't let that stop me from reading, but I'm extra careful about learning the proper pronunciation of every new word I come across. As a bonus, I get to absorb the word more easily, so it's a win-win.
@@FrancescoCarpi My experience of some English L2 learners here backs up what you say. I have several Chinese friends who learned formal structured English in China. Despite years here completely immersed in English they still struggle with many aspects of the language. Others I know who started later, but using more native media (sometimes just obsessively watching favourite TV shows) developed a far more natural and higher quality English.
You can search here on youtube Spanish/ English bilingual stories and practice listening to the language... extensive listening in a relaxed way helped me lots 😊... you. An do this for any language u learning not just spanish
One thing I continue to be unsure of with the reading advice is; no matter if I read a book meant for 1st graders in the target language, or a fiction book for young teens, how am I learning/acquiring anything, if I don't have meanings for the words? Knowing how to pronounce and read quick doesn't magically teach me the meaning, and that's been my struggle. Listening doesn't much change this either- it's all words that don't have significance to me yet! Is there some other "visual" aspect missing to this strategy? Seeing a word meaning "dog", hearing the same word meaning "dog", only connects the spelling to the sound- but not knowing that it means dog, stops me from enjoying any content because I don't get even a "gist". Just. Noise or words. Are dictionaries necessary afterall? I was told you shouldn't translate.
From my experience, most people have a foundation in vocabulary and basic grammar before reading. Many do the '1000 most common words' strategy, plus basic grammar structures. Lots of learners dont even consider reading until they're intermediate. Reading is a great exercise, but if you're reading and don't know enough to understand any of the sentence, absolutely translate it.
Sorry, Matt, I got lost in the video. It wasn't clear the system for me. Please can you correct me if I pick it up right? 1. Select the right material 2. Presentation of the text and translation? 3. Re-read
Heya - sorry, I'll try and make my points clearer in future. It's Select, Understand, Review. There's more detail in the download if it would be useful to you. I was trying to not miss out too much and obviously forgot to actually say that! 🤦♂️
So it is okay to look up words, how I do it is I look it up but don’t try to memorize it and then i keep moving on with the book or video or whatever. If i come over that word again I would either look it up again and slowly build it in or I will already remember it. For example Barco meaning boat in spanish i saw it twice and knew its meaning
If it works for you then definitely. Depending on what I'm doing I either do it exactly like you - some books I keep reading without looking it up if I'm still following the story. If I'm reading an article I might look up all the words I don't know and write the sentences in a notebook to review later
the issue i found with reading is perhaps picking up wrong pronunciation. so i really agree with the audio part. but reading is great for picking up new vocab!
I'm a very slow learner and I want to learn Turkish. I'm more of a reality escapist, so it's hard for me to have interest in things. what's the best way for someone like me who is way below average level ?. Also would appreciate if you could let me know the prompt that i can use to learn the language through chatgpt.
With ChatGPT I think of it more of a conversation with the interface - ask it for something along with rough requirements and if what it provides aren't quite good enough send a request to adjust it. So that might be to provide more depth or perhaps make it simpler. If there is any topic you're interested in it will be able to produce something on it at most levels. I don't know what the quality is like for Turkish is the only thing but hopefully it's better than nothing. I've gone through stuff it's produced in spanish and checked it with a tutor which as also interesting to learn a few nuances of how people would change the sentences in spoken Spanish
Fair play. I did Spanish Uncovered and I thought it was a decent intro before going on to focus on lots of input. They've got a money back guarantee so hopefully you didn't lose out
Vikidia est une encyclopédie en français, pour des lecteurs âgés de 8 à 13 ans et tous ceux qui veulent une présentation simple d'un sujet. Ou Wikipédia sur des sujets qui vous passionnent. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Le petit prince.
I need help with this. My vocab level is at about 400 words(Beginner). Toddler-level books are boring or have very little number of sentences. So I tried about a 10 year old-level book (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), and I was TOTALLY lost on the grammar not to mention Looking up practically every word. Can y'all think of books, that's not boring for an adult, and that are in-between toddler and 10 year old leveled books?
It depends on the language. 400 words isn't loads so you might struggle with graded readers (they do exist at that level for some languages though). It might be more of reading through dialogues in textbooks for now or creating material with ChatGPT or a tutor
It may take some more time to learn more words via SRS systems before reading simple texts. Another option is watching children’s TV shows on RUclips in your target language. Once you have more vocabulary you can start doing intensive reading with an online dictionary on the side. Good luck! It takes time for your brain to acquire so don’t worry!
For spanish i buy used subscription books called leo leo. Each monthly publication contains a 20 page story or wildly differing topics. Game and other things to increase reading ability. They are for year 7 up. All kinds of vocabulary and every verb tense. They are great. Then move up to serial authors, horror, mystery, adventure etc.
Do you have a source link for the 95% figure you mentioned? I binge watched a bunch of Paul Nation lectures and interviews as well as those from other academics and the figure I've always seen is 98% ie. you should know 98% of the words in the text to get the best results with extensive reading. The brackets are usually broken down like this: 98%+ = Extensive Reading 90 - 98% = Intensive Reading - this would include the 'grammar translation' between an L1 & L2 version like you mentioned Less than 90% = Reading pain - something the experts suggest never to do as comprehension will be difficult and it will quickly sap your motivation and enjoyment
@@sauloramos9881 I believe the recommendation would be to find something easier to read or work on increasing your vocabulary size and understanding to a higher level. Paul Nation advocates using flash cards for example to help with that.
I've tried to read a book, the story is familiar to me, as you said at 7:29. It doesn't work, precisely because of that. If the plot is familiar, it's not interesting. It is like the ultimate spoiler. I'm not forced to figure out what is going on, because I know it beforehand.
Each to their own. It helps with comprehension but if it's not for you then don't worry. If it's a good story I don't mind as I have motivation to re-read it to get to the best parts
Graded material. And/or very strong interest in the material. I started reading (subscribing to) a computer magazine when I was a teenager, I barely knew any English but I was extremely interested in the material and there were a lot of common technological terms which I could get. Which made it possible for me to read it. Slowly at first, after a year I was up to normal (native) reading speed. The I started to read short books about science.. again, common terms, and stuff I knew and was interested in. There's no way I could have read novels or anything at that point. But at one point I did start reading books.. I had run out of books to read during my travels, so I picked up an English book in a railway station, in a genre I liked to read. And just.. read through it. I got enough of what it as about to let my brain see images, and from then on it exploded. When I finished the first book I read it again (I liked the book), and found that this time I understood much more. In short - you need to, somehow, get to a base level so that you have a minimal starting point. This may be through traditional methods (i.e. studying, learning essential words and basic grammar), and from then on it's about finding material (what's called "graded" material in this video), otherwise called Comprehensive Compelling Input.
@@GeorgeDeCarlo I believe you.. when that's said, there wasn't any graded readers for English back in my day either. It's just that it was possible to find something I could (barely) read. Obviously it's easier to find something useful and of interest in a language as large as English. It's not impossible in other languages, just more difficult.
That's annoying - maybe create some material with ChatGPT or a tutor? Failing that Language Reactor and RUclips videos wouldn't be a bad idea. You can save the transcript to review later and you can create a bilingual text with it. Not ideal but it's something
Im learning chinese now and I kinda use this method but not with real text. I usually just ask chatgpt to give me a 1-2 page text with the specified topic, vocab, context, and it works :) Same way I learned high level japanese, I have a book case full of japanese books :D Chinese is a bit harder because Im still a beginner, but I am aiming for chinese books too (if I ever get to that level)
Nice click bait title. 👍🏻 RUclips is full of junk videos. “This is what noone knows”. “”This is what you need to know”. “You have to know this”. And so on ad nauseum. The truth is that learning a language takes hard work. There are no magic methods.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
I have found it very useful to read a book out loud. It’s really helped my speaking skills too.
bingo!
nice advice
Absolutely! I've done this in French for a long time, and now in Italian. Trying to use accurate phrasing helps me with comprehension because it forces me to recognize the grammatical structure of what I'm reading -- that is, how the sentences are put together. It is not important that I know every conjugation of every tense as long as I can recognize the endings enough to get the meaning. Also, trying to read out loud with accurate pronunciation really helps my pronunciation in conversation because, when I am reading, I can easily go back and re-read a sentence if I realize I pronounced it badly the first time. This has been especially helpful in French, where what you see on the page and the way it is spoken are not always the same. (Not such a problem in Italian.) If I am reading in a coffee shop, I will just "sub-vocalize". All this is quite the opposite of speed-reading in English when I am only going after content and don't care how the language sounds. Sometimes I also listen to an audible while reading along and trying to sub-vocalize at the same time. This helps me find words that I would otherwise mis-pronounce as well as helping me with phrasing and other speaking skills.
@@rayartz8568Could you give me some tips for learning italian or may be you have some materials❤
How have I not thought of this! Great advice, I will incorporate this into my language learning. I’ve been studying spanish for a few months, and I get frustrated when I listen to spanish and can only recognize a few isolated words at a time. I have to remember it takes a few years. Hopefully this will help with my progress. Voy a estudiar y leer mas!
Correction: estudiaré y leeré más!
Reading is what took my Spanish to a new level. I am now attempting it in French. The best for me is Harry Potter. I have read the books several times. I have seen the movies more than a dozen times. I know the stories completely. When you are just getting started get the books in both English and your target language. Read a section/page/chapter whatever in English so you know exactly what is happening then read it in your target language. Rinse and repeat until you have finished the series. I would bet by the middle of the series you will probably stop reading the English version first because you simply won't need to.
Helpful tip: if you’re new to reading in a language, don’t start by trying to read books originally written in your target language, instead start with books that are translated into your target language - I’m not sure exactly the reason why, but I’ve found that translations tend to be simpler to read, have smaller size of vocabulary and don’t use the as many idioms
Agree with this! For some reason translated books are easier.
I re-read books I already know.
Congrats on 25k, Matt!
Thank you so much!
@@matt_brooks-green do you want to learn Spanish more easily, play game vr chat, The method is to speak in each target language, I speak to you in English, which is the language I want to learn and you in Spanish, I correct your Spanish and you my English.
@@matt_brooks-greenI have a method that It can you remember more words
Reverso is also free and can be used as an app or on windows or mac.
Gracias por tus concejos apenas estoy aprendiendo ingles y aveces no se por donde empezar, con esto me has dado un horizonte
Thanks for the very clear advice. I am learning French and Japanese - the difficulty in even getting a basic beginners ability in reading Japanese is a huge handicap. But French is much easier, especially with all the shared words, gaining a general understanding of a text is quite easy, even as a beginner. With Japanese I think there is little choice if you are to focus on input but to start on listening only, then focus on reading subtitles for videos. I feel you have to be already well on the way to B2 to be able to cope with dense Japanese text.
After a summer HS exchange in Tokyo in ‘75 where I learned kana and sight kanji, I came home with a Japanese middle schooler 漢和 kanji dictionary, and started reading a collection of short story fables. At first I spent more time going in circles in the dictionary, which sped up my lookups even if I had to assembled clues to find the meaning. Later my exchange student girlfriend would give me her Asahi Weekly magazines.
Decades forward… Since COVID I’ve done the million words challenge, reading about 15 novels a year. And tripled my reading speed. Now after countless detective novels written with more commas than kanji, I’m able to read great literature.
It’s all about what you find interesting to do, and your tolerance for ambiguity vs drudgery. I hate drills, but love to read and don’t mind puzzles.
Can you summarise just so we know that his explanation is really clear to you. 😊
The languages I actually feel comfortable in (like English, where I've become fully proficient, but I can also understand and read several others) I learned through massive amounts of reading (where the actual purpose was to read.. not to learn, that was just a side effect). Reading is by far the most efficient way to acquire a language, in my opinion (if, like me, you really enjoy reading).
But that doesn't work with Japanese. I've been at it for years. It's the other way around, essentially. In order to read, you first have to know the language, and painstakingly learn how to read what you know. You can't really use reading as a way to acquire more of the language until you're already at a high level. Quite frustrating, but there's no way around it. In other words, I do not agree with the "ANY Language" in the video's title. If it were that simple I would simply have used that approach to learn Japanese and get vocabulary and more, like I did for other languages.
Instead it's listening which matters. After a while it's possible to listen and read transcripts simultaneously, but that's part of the process of learning to read what you can already understand, not about acquiring the language through reading. Not at all.
(If someone is compering with reading Chinese here.. it's not the same. In Chinese, as I understand it, characters essentially have a single sound, in other words, if you know the characters you can actually learn a word from reading, whether it's a new one or not, but in Japanese you can't know the actual sound until you have heard it _and_ seen it written - at least not until you're at a very high level and kind of get the pattern. There are several "readings" of any Japanese kanji character, at least two, sometimes many more.)
If you stick to "readable" languages, then yes, I agree with everything in the video - particularly the part about avoiding translations. I never used dictionaries of any kind, and I'm certain that's why I got the nuances and everything to the extent I did. The negative, if you can call it that, is that I almost can't translate.. there's no connection between my native vocabulary and, for example, English.
@@tohaason You've highlighted some excellent points about the unique challenges of reading in languages like Japanese and Chinese, which differ significantly from more phonetic languages like English. Let me address and refine a few of the key differences you mentioned:
While the “any language” claim in the video may not hold true in the same way for logographic scripts, reading can still be a powerful approach-as long as the learner takes the time to find or create resources that match their current level and learning needs. The key is to recognize the unique challenges and adjust the strategies accordingly, rather than expecting a one-size-fits-all solution.
Firstly, you're absolutely right that in logographic writing systems, such as Japanese and Chinese, the relationship between characters and their pronunciation/meaning is much more complex than in alphabetic scripts. Simply knowing the individual characters does not necessarily allow one to reliably guess the pronunciation or semantic meaning of a word. An in-depth understanding of radicals, phonetics, and the overall language structure is required to make such inferences, especially for more advanced vocabulary.
In Chinese, each character represents a morpheme (the smallest meaningful unit of language) rather than a phonetic sound. This means that an understanding of the character doesn't automatically provide its pronunciation or meaning. This complexity is compounded by the existence of “polyphonic characters” or “characters with multiple readings.” The term used in Chinese is 多音字 (duōyīnzì), which translates to "multi-sound characters." These characters can be pronounced in different ways depending on the context and the specific word they are used in.
It's important to note that around 40-60% of Chinese characters have multiple pronunciations and can have completely different meanings, even though the written character is the same. This is a crucial distinction from languages like English, where the connection between the written form and spoken form is more straightforward. As you noted, this makes the reading process in Chinese and Japanese much more challenging, as it requires prior mastery of the language to a significant degree.
However, reading can still be a valuable approach, as long as the learner creates or sources appropriate materials tailored to their current level. This allows them to gradually build up their familiarity with the writing system, vocabulary, and grammar through comprehensible input, rather than relying on guesswork or translation.
Apps like Parallel Translation (Smartbook) are excellent tools in this regard. They enable learners to look up unfamiliar words, create flashcards, and otherwise actively engage with the reading material rather than passively consuming it. This active learning process is crucial for effectively acquiring languages with complex writing systems.
That is why it is important to focus on extensive reading rather than intensive reading, which was well mentioned in the video. So, is learning “any language” possible through reading? Yes, but are the approaches the same? Absolutely not. Not to mention that everyone's approach is also vastly different, so it's important to take the time to find the right method for you.
In my case, I started recently to read webtoons in spanish. They are easily accessible and with the images, it is so much easier to grab what is going on and get some context, therefore, perfect to to expand my vocabulary! Then, I started to read fanfictions in spanish (many people suggested to reread books they already know which is good but I feel like reading fanfictions from universes you already know is like a good compromise since you already know the characters but you are also reading something new so you can get some excitement from the experience and be even more invested. (also, once I finished to look at everything available in french and english, it just felt great to have access to a new language!) I can truly testify that reading really works (I learned english this way)
My library has a selection of toddler and youth books in my TL so I've been relying on that. It was tough at first because I needed to brute force my way through with a dictionary for several books but now I've got a solid foothold in the 4-6 year old age range and I'm using that to keep climbing onwards without having to be as militantly intensive about it. I ask my tutor to record herself reading passages of books I've finished reading and I use them to practice speaking by reading the book aloud alongside her audio. I had a solid background in basic grammar before starting so most of my time is spent on vocab. I'm happy with my progress and excited to keep going. It used to take me a week to get through a new picture book and now I can read 3-4 in one afternoon.
A lot of people are turned off by this approach because the kid books are boring. Yes they are, but there's two secret weapons to combating this problem: 1) the language learning aspect makes it more interesting and 2) discipline.
Like you flashcards don’t work for me but I will use the books I’ve read kind of like flashcards. I look through my already read book and skim through the words I highlighted to see if I remember the meaning. Having it already in context of its sentence/paragraph is helpful as I retain the meaning more than I would with flashcards. I only do this with books I really enjoyed as the boring ones lack a connection with the story and the words.
I find that just as you said, reading levels up your understanding and listening. I made sure a huge jump this summer in my listening comprehension from the books I read it felt like magic.
Great video. Fantastic advice.
Thank you!
Buen video!! Buenos tips.
Personalmente me incomoda mucho parar y traducir el significado de cada palabra que no entiendo a mi idioma nativo. Por tanto lo que hago es simplemente tratar de sacar el significado por contexto y si no entiendo vuelvo a re-leer toda la pagina o la frase una y otra vez. Y eso mantiene mi interes en la lectura.
¡Gracias! Y yo también. Más o menos eso es lo que hago, pero actualmente estoy utilizando la lectura intensiva también. Si es un artículo muy interesante, me motiva a encontrar un poco más sobre el tema
I start with children’s books.
Hello Matt. Thank you for all the videos. They have really helped as I begin this journey
Great - I'm so pleased! Genuinely, that's why I started all this so I'm glad it's helped
I've been doing this and more for most of my life. I read around 40 books per year, I've been keeping a diary for 2 years, listening to podcasts, watching movies, using artificial intelligence, and also teaching the language I'm studying. And still, I'm not fluent in it; at least, not at the degree I expected for the work I put into learning. Basically, every student who approaches a new language and is happy to learn it gets to your method or part of it by trying and sticking to whatever floats his boat. Unfortunately, most of the things one reads don't stick if he doesn't practice them and hear them on a regular basis. Meaning, you need to be heavily exposed to the language daily, and to do that you must live where the language is spoken for at least 6 months. Reading helps, though, if your goal is to be able to communicate for basic stuff.
thank you!
Thank you! 🙏
I watch anime with new subtitles, I don't know Japanese at all and watching it with Spanish subtitles forces me to focuse on the reading , offcourse I couldn't do this until I got a good amount of vocabulary that I don't need to translate much , I still need to translate some words but it won't be the whole text
ánimo Matt! Loved it. Solid tips as always!👍
Hahaha - thanks mate!
You mentioned at 6:32 that you just kept reading without looking up words. What do I do when I don't understand (or I'm not sure I understand) what is going on, even though I know every word in the sentence (even in the paragraph)? Yes, I usually have a professional translation in my native language. So, I can look it up. But I don't always have that luxury.
Personally if I can't make sense of it in that moment I just keep reading and the story will become clearer. Maybe I'm just a very relaxed person 😆. As you say you can look it up. I also find talking through a sentence with a tutor interesting as there might be nuances there that you might miss if you're just focused on the meaning in order to understand the plot
@matt_brooks-green Thank you!
Thanks for this. I do a combination of extensive and intensive reading. I more or less do what you suggest and translate words I do not know and then I choose a few words and write sentences using them. I hate flashcards as the words are not in context. I find reading a text two or three times useful but what is a gamechanger is talking with a Tandem partner about what I ve just read. I think it is because I am tuning passive language (written language) into active language (spoken). It seems to help the words stick for me.
That’s a great idea. I’m not at a stage where I could do that just yet so I hope I remember by the time I am.
@@raysouth1952 takes a while but even if you did it with an easy text it would work.
Yeah, I've started doing that with a tutor. Read an article and then chat about it in the class at some point. Good work!
Thank you Matt.
I tried a different approach. Asked chatgpt to give me a fictional passage and switch some words to French.
Sound advice as always. Thanks Matt. I was delighted to see Ábel in your last video. He’s my crosstalk partner.
Thank you. He's the man!
Hi, I saw a button at 11:23 minutes called 'IM Translator.' How can we add this feature to our Mac computer? Thank you.
It's a chrome extension - really useful for translating websites if you need it
The only thing I would caution against is learning a language exclusively through reading as a beginner. It really hurts people's ability to develop a natural accent and hear the language clearly if they spend too much time reading as a beginner and not enough time listening. I think 3/4 listening and 1/4 reading is a good balance between the two as listening is more difficult and needs more time dedicated to it for most people. It's much easier to go back and learn to read better than go back and relearn an entire accent, especially in languages where accent matters with pitch accent like Swedish or Japanese and tones as in Mandarin or Vietnamese.
Most people subvocalize when they read so any accent they have in mind for the language is reenforced by reading a lot. So, it's important to take the time to develop a decent understanding of the proper pronunciation of the language before lots of extensive reading. It's the same way kids learn their native language. They learn to listen to it years before they can read it.
I've heard various people speak about the subvocalising thing. I think that if it's important to you then you can always wait. Certainly there are plenty of people who've reached a very high level without worrying too much about those small details. I've heard (from BVP I think) that there is evidence some pronunciation adjustments are effective later on but don't necessarily have long term effects if they are done earlier in a learner's journey. TBH, there are so many people arguing for both sides of this that I'd rather continue enjoying what I'm doing that sweat the small stuff
Its something I’ve definitely noticed in high level English as a second language speakers - you can immediately notice if they are ‘read’ oriented learners by their pronunciation - or put another way, they pronounce many words as they are spelled, not pronounced. It’s one reason why I think the ‘silent’ period is still very worthwhile for starting out in a language. I mostly learn French by reading, and I’ve found it frustrating how often I find I’ve engrained horrible pronunciations in my head (I only recently discovered the ‘x’ in ‘Aix’ is not silent, much to my embarrassment).
Back when I started learning Japanese, there wasn't a lot of resources available, and most of them were text only. I read multiple times that "Japanese is flat", "it has no stress", and so I did not pay any attention to intonation for a really long time. Only to find out later in my studies the existence of pitch accent. My spoken Japanese is doomed. It's a hell lot of trouble to fix it now.
I also had that issue with English. Too many years pronouncing some words incorrectly. It took me quite some time to pinpoint every mispronounced word and fix them. That was almost 20 years ago, however every once in a while I still find a word or another that still needs to be fixed.
Every other language I'm learning, I focus on learning the correct pronunciation first and foremost. I only use audio made by native speakers. I completely stopped using TTS after it taught me wrong pronunciation both in Russian and Norwegian.
All that said, I don't let that stop me from reading, but I'm extra careful about learning the proper pronunciation of every new word I come across. As a bonus, I get to absorb the word more easily, so it's a win-win.
@@FrancescoCarpi My experience of some English L2 learners here backs up what you say. I have several Chinese friends who learned formal structured English in China. Despite years here completely immersed in English they still struggle with many aspects of the language. Others I know who started later, but using more native media (sometimes just obsessively watching favourite TV shows) developed a far more natural and higher quality English.
You can search here on youtube Spanish/ English bilingual stories and practice listening to the language... extensive listening in a relaxed way helped me lots 😊... you. An do this for any language u learning not just spanish
One thing I continue to be unsure of with the reading advice is; no matter if I read a book meant for 1st graders in the target language, or a fiction book for young teens, how am I learning/acquiring anything, if I don't have meanings for the words? Knowing how to pronounce and read quick doesn't magically teach me the meaning, and that's been my struggle. Listening doesn't much change this either- it's all words that don't have significance to me yet! Is there some other "visual" aspect missing to this strategy? Seeing a word meaning "dog", hearing the same word meaning "dog", only connects the spelling to the sound- but not knowing that it means dog, stops me from enjoying any content because I don't get even a "gist". Just. Noise or words. Are dictionaries necessary afterall? I was told you shouldn't translate.
From my experience, most people have a foundation in vocabulary and basic grammar before reading. Many do the '1000 most common words' strategy, plus basic grammar structures. Lots of learners dont even consider reading until they're intermediate. Reading is a great exercise, but if you're reading and don't know enough to understand any of the sentence, absolutely translate it.
Sorry, Matt, I got lost in the video. It wasn't clear the system for me. Please can you correct me if I pick it up right?
1. Select the right material
2. Presentation of the text and translation?
3. Re-read
Heya - sorry, I'll try and make my points clearer in future. It's Select, Understand, Review. There's more detail in the download if it would be useful to you. I was trying to not miss out too much and obviously forgot to actually say that! 🤦♂️
How to find graded readers?! This is something that I struggle with
Amazon will have loads
Depends on the language but there are loads online. I also like World of Books (WOB) for second hand books - they can be quite a bit cheaper sometimes
So it is okay to look up words, how I do it is I look it up but don’t try to memorize it and then i keep moving on with the book or video or whatever. If i come over that word again I would either look it up again and slowly build it in or I will already remember it. For example Barco meaning boat in spanish i saw it twice and knew its meaning
this is a question if that is fine to do?
If it works for you then definitely. Depending on what I'm doing I either do it exactly like you - some books I keep reading without looking it up if I'm still following the story. If I'm reading an article I might look up all the words I don't know and write the sentences in a notebook to review later
@ What do you do to review them? Do you just look over them?
@@NearGoCrazy Sometimes, or read them out loud and have a conversation with myself using the words in different ways
@ gotchu thank youn
What about comic books in your target language?
Definitely!
It only works if the language isn't logographic, otherwise you need to be 70% there to able to piece togther meanings
Book or something extensive right?
the issue i found with reading is perhaps picking up wrong pronunciation. so i really agree with the audio part. but reading is great for picking up new vocab!
I'm a very slow learner and I want to learn Turkish. I'm more of a reality escapist, so it's hard for me to have interest in things. what's the best way for someone like me who is way below average level ?.
Also would appreciate if you could let me know the prompt that i can use to learn the language through chatgpt.
With ChatGPT I think of it more of a conversation with the interface - ask it for something along with rough requirements and if what it provides aren't quite good enough send a request to adjust it. So that might be to provide more depth or perhaps make it simpler. If there is any topic you're interested in it will be able to produce something on it at most levels. I don't know what the quality is like for Turkish is the only thing but hopefully it's better than nothing.
I've gone through stuff it's produced in spanish and checked it with a tutor which as also interesting to learn a few nuances of how people would change the sentences in spoken Spanish
@matt_brooks-green appreciate the the reply, I will try to do what I can.
Each to their own, but I found the Turkish Uncovered course tedious in the extreme.
Perhaps the other languages are better.
Fair play. I did Spanish Uncovered and I thought it was a decent intro before going on to focus on lots of input. They've got a money back guarantee so hopefully you didn't lose out
Why did you think it was tedious?
I am learning french, do you have recommendations what books should I read for intermediate level?
Vikidia est une encyclopédie en français, pour des lecteurs âgés de 8 à 13 ans et tous ceux qui veulent une présentation simple d'un sujet.
Ou Wikipédia sur des sujets qui vous passionnent.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: Le petit prince.
Sorry - I haven't started with French yet. It's on my list though!
@matt_brooks-green Ok! I was just giving an answer to ellymeikle5906 who is learning French presently.
Have a good day.
@@ellymeikle5906 Je vous ai donné une réponse qui s'est un peu perdue quelque part dans les commentaires!
I need help with this. My vocab level is at about 400 words(Beginner). Toddler-level books are boring or have very little number of sentences. So I tried about a 10 year old-level book (Diary of a Wimpy Kid), and I was TOTALLY lost on the grammar not to mention Looking up practically every word. Can y'all think of books, that's not boring for an adult, and that are in-between toddler and 10 year old leveled books?
Which language do you learn ?
It depends on the language. 400 words isn't loads so you might struggle with graded readers (they do exist at that level for some languages though). It might be more of reading through dialogues in textbooks for now or creating material with ChatGPT or a tutor
It may take some more time to learn more words via SRS systems before reading simple texts. Another option is watching children’s TV shows on RUclips in your target language. Once you have more vocabulary you can start doing intensive reading with an online dictionary on the side. Good luck! It takes time for your brain to acquire so don’t worry!
For spanish i buy used subscription books called leo leo. Each monthly publication contains a 20 page story or wildly differing topics. Game and other things to increase reading ability. They are for year 7 up. All kinds of vocabulary and every verb tense. They are great. Then move up to serial authors, horror, mystery, adventure etc.
Do you have a source link for the 95% figure you mentioned? I binge watched a bunch of Paul Nation lectures and interviews as well as those from other academics and the figure I've always seen is 98% ie. you should know 98% of the words in the text to get the best results with extensive reading.
The brackets are usually broken down like this:
98%+ = Extensive Reading
90 - 98% = Intensive Reading - this would include the 'grammar translation' between an L1 & L2 version like you mentioned
Less than 90% = Reading pain - something the experts suggest never to do as comprehension will be difficult and it will quickly sap your motivation and enjoyment
Daaamn, so if your at 30-40% what would be recommended?
@@sauloramos9881 I believe the recommendation would be to find something easier to read or work on increasing your vocabulary size and understanding to a higher level. Paul Nation advocates using flash cards for example to help with that.
I've tried to read a book, the story is familiar to me, as you said at 7:29. It doesn't work, precisely because of that. If the plot is familiar, it's not interesting. It is like the ultimate spoiler. I'm not forced to figure out what is going on, because I know it beforehand.
Each to their own. It helps with comprehension but if it's not for you then don't worry. If it's a good story I don't mind as I have motivation to re-read it to get to the best parts
@matt_brooks-green Got it. Thanks!
How do I read another language when I do not know the words?
Graded material. And/or very strong interest in the material. I started reading (subscribing to) a computer magazine when I was a teenager, I barely knew any English but I was extremely interested in the material and there were a lot of common technological terms which I could get. Which made it possible for me to read it. Slowly at first, after a year I was up to normal (native) reading speed.
The I started to read short books about science.. again, common terms, and stuff I knew and was interested in. There's no way I could have read novels or anything at that point. But at one point I did start reading books.. I had run out of books to read during my travels, so I picked up an English book in a railway station, in a genre I liked to read. And just.. read through it. I got enough of what it as about to let my brain see images, and from then on it exploded. When I finished the first book I read it again (I liked the book), and found that this time I understood much more.
In short - you need to, somehow, get to a base level so that you have a minimal starting point. This may be through traditional methods (i.e. studying, learning essential words and basic grammar), and from then on it's about finding material (what's called "graded" material in this video), otherwise called Comprehensive Compelling Input.
@tohaason there are no graded readers for Tagalog.
@@GeorgeDeCarlo I believe you.. when that's said, there wasn't any graded readers for English back in my day either. It's just that it was possible to find something I could (barely) read. Obviously it's easier to find something useful and of interest in a language as large as English. It's not impossible in other languages, just more difficult.
That's annoying - maybe create some material with ChatGPT or a tutor? Failing that Language Reactor and RUclips videos wouldn't be a bad idea. You can save the transcript to review later and you can create a bilingual text with it. Not ideal but it's something
The only problem is Story Learning doesn't have the language I'm interested in.
No wonder I'm shit at languages. I fuking hate reading and I absolutely despise doing things more than once.
😂
Im learning chinese now and I kinda use this method but not with real text. I usually just ask chatgpt to give me a 1-2 page text with the specified topic, vocab, context, and it works :) Same way I learned high level japanese, I have a book case full of japanese books :D Chinese is a bit harder because Im still a beginner, but I am aiming for chinese books too (if I ever get to that level)
I’m Chinese , and I like to offer some help if you need 😊
Good work!
Reading with your native phonemes results in dismal failure.
Agree with everybody who claims just one thing, this is you have to read books aloud.
How about reading Harry Potter?
3:08
If u want to read war and peace u may also consider a French dictionary 💀💀💀
🤣
Teacher
You have really cool, isn't?
very niche comment but I've been watching several of these videos in a row and you caught me off guard by saying Russian (my target language)🤣
🤣
What a spindly web of explanations -- very UN-simple!
Right, russian language as an example - you couldn't have chosen a "better" one to use
Nice click bait title. 👍🏻 RUclips is full of junk videos. “This is what noone knows”. “”This is what you need to know”. “You have to know this”. And so on ad nauseum. The truth is that learning a language takes hard work. There are no magic methods.
Did he change the title? “Simple system” implies both work and time is needed
two and a half minutes in, 90% just skipping forward through stuff I really dont want to hear. gotta go. please just get to the point.
Skim the pdf then
wants to learn a language but doesn't have the patience to sit through a youtube video. lol. lmao even.