Comments on: How important is reading for learning a foreign language? https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/ How to learn a foreign language. Methods, matrials and stories to help you maximise your effectiveness on the road to fluency Fri, 31 Dec 2021 21:02:21 +0000 hourly 1 By: Gareth https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-35169 Tue, 06 Oct 2020 21:41:30 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-35169 In reply to Mamadou Coulibaly.

Have you thought about finding a text with audio and then reading along? There’s an article about the shadowing method here on the blog.

]]> By: Mamadou Coulibaly https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-34981 Mon, 28 Sep 2020 13:01:27 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-34981 Thank you author for your useful information.I find your article very helpful.My problem is that when I read in English I doubt too much about my pronunciation.Any tips for that.

]]> By: Gareth https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-6334 Sat, 06 Oct 2018 06:04:36 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-6334 In reply to Suzie Kelsey.

Glad you agree, Suzie! There are quite a range available on amazon and similar sights, at least for the more popular languages. Otherwise, I usually try to identify the major bookseller in the country and try and order direct (I do that with Elkar in Bilbao for Basque materials, for example).

]]> By: Suzie Kelsey https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-6305 Tue, 02 Oct 2018 01:13:41 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-6305 Great arguments, and I totally agree – do you have any suggestions of where to actually find foreign novels though?

]]> By: Carol https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-6139 Wed, 29 Aug 2018 22:04:54 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-6139 I am getting around in Chinese a little bit. I can talk to six year olds pretty well about simple topics.
So time to commence reading. I know about 50 characters, so I need a lot more. I have some graded readers. Any comments about reading in other scripts welcome!

]]> By: Gareth https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-4180 Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:01:06 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-4180 In reply to Sarah.

It certainly sounds like a challenge, Sarah, but yes, I’m sure it’ll come with time. I have all this to look forward to (gulp) when I start a language which doesn’t use full alphabet.

]]> By: Sarah https://howtogetfluent.com/how-important-is-reading-for-learning-a-foreign-language/#comment-4178 Mon, 13 Feb 2017 23:47:53 +0000 http://howtogetfluent.com/?p=3108#comment-4178 My reading is still slow and shaky in Hebrew, and it’s frustrating. I think it’s probably, in the grand scheme of things, no less phonetic than English, but the lack of vowels is intimidating for a learner. It’s not that uncommon that I ask someone to write a word down for me and then go back and discover I don’t remember how to say it, and without the vowels, can’t figure it out! I think ideally I need some children’s books, maybe with a transliteration in the back, but the only sources I can find for such things are also in Hebrew so I don’t know what I’m downloading, have no idea of the story to help me work things out from context, and have no transliteration to ensure me I’m understanding and pronouncing stuff correctly. It’s very frustrating!

I think it’s the only language I’ve ever studied seriously (I have dabbled very lightly in Japanese) where you can know the alphabet and even speak some and still be hopeless at even pronouncing the written word, never mind reading for understanding. I guess I just need to keep plugging away and trying, and trust it’ll come in time. I can read the dialogues in the first couple of chapters of Colloquial Hebrew now, so that’s progress, although I don’t know how much is that I know what it says already and way back when I first used the book I also read the transliterarions out of necessity…

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