Another great tip that I’ve used when reading novels is to look up a lot of words in the beginning of a book( e.g. for a 500 page book maybe the first 15 pages or so) because every author has their specific language and words they tend to use often. After this you’ll have a lot of the vocabulary you need to read the rest of the book more smoothly. Most of the time finding reading material that perfectly fits your level is extremely hard, especially when you’re trying to break through the intermediate levels and native novels and articles are still very daunting. This technique + a reading schedule of minimum 10 pages a day is what got me a 54/60 score on the reading section of the highest level of the Japanese Language proficiency test
Which japanese authors do you love the most? I'm very interested in japanese literature but I can just read it in my native language (spanish) or in english (if I find the book). So I'm always looking for new and cool recommendations!
@@misaelrobles1865 I’m actually not a big fan of any Japanese authors but I did enjoy reading Mizuki Tsujimura who’s extremely popular among millennials in Japan. I also like this book called ビリギャル (I think the English title is something like flying colors?), there’s also a good movie based on it
I've done this too! I have been frustrated by being limited to the news articles, and I have found it difficult to read new novels. Pre-teaching myself vocabulary, has helped me very much!
1. material at right level 2. use contextual clues 3. read right through the reading material 4. pause and summarize what you've read 5. repeat reading + check only words coming up often 6. keep reading
With regards to tip #3, this is where the 101 Conversations books are great. The conversations are actually realy short, but they're filled with very interesting words and actually progress the story VERY well. On top of that, they allow you to reread sections very easily, and in doing so, reinforce the context you deduced on previous reads. So while the first time you read a section, you might not get more than 25% of the context, the 5th time you read it, you've got the entire story in your head and you're suddenly UNDERSTANDING things
lmao, I'm thinking to myself, "These tips seem familiar". Then I look on my bookshelf and sure enough, the book I came across at the bookstore "Short Stories in Russian" is written by Olly Richards. I'm still working through it and enjoying it very much!
Well ... ,the problem is that reading that is adapted to the level of the reader is terribly boring and unsatisfactory. The stories, which are simplified, appear shallow, without depth. The depth is precisely that motivates us to read. For me everything is the other way around ..., I make an effort to finish reading a page, but only in the area that fascinates me, regardless of the difficulties. It's a shame about the valuable time spent on irrelevant texts. Thanks for your advice which may be useful to some people. Best Regardes Michel
I understand your point, I love love to read, and I got you about how bored can be if we read a kid’s book or short book in a foreign language, I started to buy short books about thriller for teens in another language and that keeps me motivated bc I want to know what happens next, it helps a lot bc that keeps me entertained
I should have found this channel a long time ago. I like how you get right to the point and cover your techniques / Tips. I have spent a while learning about different methods primarily Stephen Krashen, language acquisition (the naturel learning method), FLR etc. but its always good to find new things because that in a sense is a way to motivate and try new ways or even just jump back into it again.
I really enjoy watching your videos. Would love to buy a Mandarin short story book from you, but I don’t see one on your website. Please let me know if this offering is available, or best alternatives. Keep up the great work. Thanks!
@@storylearning Awesome, just found your video today and thought it would be really handy, I can read hirgana and katakana already but I only know a handful of kanji, some of the basic ones. I've found some short stories that are supposed to be for beginners but still a lot of them have kanji in them I don't recognize, might be worth it to try and read some in romaji.
Hi, thanks very much for this video! I have a question about the "inner voice" in your head when you read. I know that not all people have this but whenever I read something the words are pronounced "aloud" in my brain. I've recently started to learn Swedish and I don't know the pronunciation of many words. So, is my inner voice a problem when I don't know the pronunciation and should I thus not read short stories yet?
Yet another great video! It is becoming a habit... Congratulation! A problem I'm facing now, while studying German, is that most, if not all, of the stuff that interests me is in *English*, not in German. It happened the same with French, years ago. English is so pervasive in our world it shadows any other language. (I'm an Italian native speaker.) A way I found to overcome this problem is to use the "target language" (German in my case) to study *something else" (programming languages and related stuff, in my case). It works best if you choose something that you already know quite well (but NOT too well) and/or is of great interest to you. I learned this lesson using my second language (English) to study science and technology topics at the university AND using English to study other foreign languages.
It recently occurred to me that a lot of English books are translated into German and can thus be used for learning the language. For example, I recently just ordered the German version of the Hunger Games (Die Tribute von Panem), I’m excited to give it a read.
Great tips man, I can definitely say I'm glad I found you Short Stories in Spanish book, was a huge help to me! Been absolutely loving reading novels in Spanish recently and I can definitely feel the steady improvement. I have to admit though I'm not great at re-reading chapters, need to get onto that more!
Thanks, these tips really worked! I was stuck on one story for 4 months because I was trying to understand every word. Once I focused on just the gist of the story, I finally finished it in 1 hr. I read it again two more times and have actually moved on to another story. This is real progress for me.
should I just read books or can I read something else? i just wanted to keep reading podcast transcriptions, videos on youtube and etc as content of the app LingQ. But I don't know if it is as good as reading books
This reading strategy appears to be working for me. I've been reading Harry Potter in my target language. I probably know 90-95% of the words in the book. For the last 6 weeks, I've been reading a chapter a day. I then re-read the same chapter the next day, and repeat the process for 4-5 days before moving on to the next chapter. I'm glad I like the story, as re-reading chapters can be laborious, but I know it's helping me learn words in context.
May be a stupid question, but: This method seems quite easy in for French or Spanish or Italian, which use a quite straight-forward script-to-speach, but lets say I read in a language like Chinese or Japanese, where I can not even artikulate the sound of a word (since the script is more independet from how words sound), but only can tell "Ha, I have seen this one twice before, and it might (since perhaps I know some Kanji) mean X". Let´s leave the meaning aside, which can be assimilated by context. When to look up the (pure) pronunciation? Or is this a third readthrough step?
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm a native English speaker and if I was to try and "read" Spanish or Italian I could at least enunciate the sounds of the words, albeit incorrectly no doubt. But I'm teaching myself Japanese so I can't read much of it at all, especially considering there are no spaces between words :/
@@mfniklz Ah very cool. I am German native and I really face the same problem. To be fair, there are many software addons to make reading on electronics or pc quite easy, but when it come to the only real reading experience, which is A BOOK, you are fucked, and looking up things is so slow, that the fun of reading is gone as fast as you can write 読書.
I've generally been missing steps 3-5, stopping to look up words as I go. Now time to try it this way. I've been successful at chosing suitable material by reading books translated into Spanish from English. I am envoying the Harry Potter series and the Hitchhikers series. Of course this meets step 2 as well since I know the story anyway. Thks for the advice
Hey Olly, with reading for comprehensible input, are you constantly translating words from the text or do you just guess what they could mean based on context?
My goal is a little bit different. I'm a Finnish university student and my spoken English level is A2-B1. My reading level B1-B1. At the Finnish university it is taken for granted and expected that the students have at least B2 level of English when they start the studies. Some materiales and lectures will always be given in English, in some Faculties more materials and in other a little bit less. I don't like reading in English but I just have to learn to do it to be able to study and some day, maybe, be a scholar. When I read for pleasure, I read in Spanish. It's my strongest language (after my native language Finnish) and a language that I really enjoy. English for me is only a means of communication and study, and many times an obligation in the academic world. I hope I'll learn to enjoy it also.
I am trying to learn Mandarin Chinese, because I've gotten interested in some music I've heard recently. The language isn't written in actual words but they us pictographs which actually don't make any sense at all, yet. How can I learn what these pictographs mean in word from?
Memorization. Have you checked out Chineasy? The books make some of the characters into art which can help you to remember what the character stands for.
The strange thing is that I can understand every word you say in this video, but I can't read books in English. Probably I just can't find a book in my level. I've tried a few, but never finished.
@Rat Des Champs thank you so much! I analyzed the possible reasons and I bought new books that I'm sure I will be interested in. I think that this is also a problem, I didn't have good books (I mean good-written and interesting for me). So I will try to read these and also I ordered the first book of Harry Potter and found the audiobook so I will do as you say with that one. I hope it will work. I think the first one is the hardest, then it will be easier. Thanks again!
@@exceptionally_ordinary there are so many vocabulary words, especially descriptive words that are in novels. We usually don't hear them while listening to things, or even reading news articles, which I have been able to do pretty well. How is your reading going? I hope it is going well! My first novel in Spanish was Harry Potter, and it went well because I had read it sooooo many times, as a kid, in English. Since then, it has been many years and I have struggled with reading any new novels. Recently, I have been pre-teaching vocabulary by scanning for frequent words I don't know before I read the chapter. I also read a chapter, summarize it in Spanish, then listen to the chapter from the audiobook at full speed. I am reading I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter in Spanish and it's finally going well!!
@@MeAVE243 thank you for the respond, I read now, but never read second time the same chapter, I'm just too interested in the story and want to know that will happen next. I red the first book of Harry Potter, 2 books for women that I would never read if it was on Greek or Russian. One book of Pablo Coelho and one Stephen's Hocking book. Now I read "to kill a mockingbird" which is too difficult, and I wish I will be able to read "Rebecca". This one has very beautiful language. Also I bought "three men in a boat". Will see. I just have no patience for learning... But I see that I understand more then 3 months ago anyway
reading hunger games in french, i use audio from youtube while i read, go through the whole thing, wth out interuptions put down my book and then tommorow re read it and then read the chapter after it, and then on the third day, take any words from that first chapter i donk know and load them in to anki and read the 2nd chapter again and start on the third chapter and repeat
I learnt to read English and grammar from toddler books as a beginner: short and simple sentences, large text (definitely helpful, especially with an alien script) and pictures that spell out the context. Some of the stories were the same as animated stories on TV children's hour. Many native speakers also learn to read by following the text of their favourite story they know by heart; having the same story on video also teaches how to pronounce the words. There are many read along story videos on RU-vid in major languages.
Honestly in starting a new language I attempt to find they're version of Sesame Street. I learn pronunciations, basic numbers and letters and speech rhythms.
Good morning Olly, I've been following you for a while now and this is an interesting subject. Do you think that reading out loud can improve our speaking and so pronunciation, please? And I've been following this method for a while by chance before you mentioned it here, I mean repetition reading.
Do you think it would help to read a book in my chosen new language, while an audio-book of it (also in the language I'm learning, not in my native language) is playing? I thought it might help with pronounciation, but as I have Auditory Processing Disorder, perhaps it would simply be an exercise in frustration in trying to pay attention to two things at once.
Does anyone know of such books to read in Tagalog? I have a pile of children's and grammar books using Prof. Brown's instructions and I have looked at many of Krashen's videos. Problem is I have to beg partner and others. After 10 years finding the only method that works and still no help extreme anger and depression. This guy talks about books but which ones in Tagalog. Today as just one of dozens of examples I tried reading a book read to me and I understood very little. When read to me by partner I get words but linking them to make sense of the story not much. I am up to 580 hours as explained in Prof. Brown's videos. I now written dozens of posts on this topic and my struggle. I have thought to use supplements and drugs and anything I can discover. For several years I do not go out unless needed and I stopped going to any Filipino gathering since I end up alone in a crowded room. I need serious help. I even removed all those supposed friends who should have helped. I deleted all followers on FB since no offers of help. I could go on and on with much more. My life was a mistake.
Been watching your videos for a bit. Didn't realise I was also reading your book lol. Just got the audio on Amazon, wish I had started earlier with it.
I had two languages I gave up on, French and Latin. I started the dowling method with Latin with a book called Lingua Latina. I have had an amazing amount of progress in Latin that when I saw your story learning method for French, a similar method, I bought your book on French. I am more intimidated of French than Latin because of pronunciation and hearing the language is sooo difficult for me. I really hope this method conquers that problem for French.
Thanks for the tips! Why don’t we check for all the new words that seem important right from the beginning before reading the story? I think it can help with understanding the story better and you can see/learn them in context again and again when reading the story multiple times.
Olly, when you say ‘summarise in your own words’ the content of the chapter that you have just read, do you mean, summarise it in your native tongue or attempt to summarise it in your target language? 🤔
The hardest part for me is the 2000+ kanji barrier necessary for even middle school level Japanese text. Even using RTK etc it’s still a massive amount of time necessary to learn all these characters.
Target is 3-5 months to finish all the 常用漢字. If you make stories that are strongly connected with your initial memory of the English word, recall will be much easier. I also add images to my cards, which has never been mentioned in any talk of RTK that I’ve seen, but was highly effective for me.
Should take about 3 months to plow through the RTK (Heisig) if you're focused then do the sounds later! You can do it with a weekly/Daily plan...I did although I was living in Japan and had some basics in Japanese.
WaniKani is the best way to learn kanji, imo. I’m at level 30, halfway through, after a year, and I can read many things now. Plus kanji is actually really amazing and fun! NHK News Web Easy is good for reading practice.
I wish there was a book series or list of books based on learning level. I can't find a definitive list. Lots of teachers say "Do this" or "Do that" with no material for guidance. I can't even find reading material where I'm able to read about 70%. Of course, I know that requires LOTS more vocabulary study, too. Which is hard as well.....
I bought 3 books for italian that are labelled as A1 - 500 words Ive only read 1 chapter for now but it seems like a good place for me to start (i have a bit of prior basic knowledge of the language and i speak french)
The book that I'm reading is actually a book that you wrote. Portuguese short stories. It's perfect. I love it. I can't wait to find out what noise was that Sílvia heard inside of that old house near the lake. What happened to Jorge? I can't wait to find out!!
I have just read the first story of Short Stories in Dutch, I am really enjoying it... it's a pity though that there is not a intermediate book for Dutch, I would by it for sure! Thanks Olly!
I currently learning mongolian, and I want to pick up some vocab, because I haven’t much. So I decide to read the first Harry Potter in mongolian. I read in hungarian (my native); about 600 times, so I know the story, I can follow with a few understood word. I don’t know if it gonna help or not ‘cause I understand around 1-2% 😅
@@storylearning Great news! I also remember you saying in an interview somewhere that you were planning to release language learning material based on WW2 or some other historical event. Any news? :-)
I'm still not sure if I'm reading at the right level. I can usually get the jist from context clues, but I still don't think I actually know 70% of the words
I definitely have to start reading more in Italian. I’m a B2 level now and never developed a reading habit. Thanks, I hope this method will help me to reach the next level. :))
My problem is that my boss has put me (someone who can only speak American English) in a position where I have to quickly become fluent in Nepali which uses a non-Latin alphabet called Devanagari. How do I use reading to learn he language when the “letters” aren’t even in a Latin script?
I am so glad I found this channel!!! I have been learning Korean for about a year and I can have a really basic conversation right now but I really need to brush up on my reading more than I do. I'm using Korean Short Stories for Learners and I love how it starts with really short stories and progresses into longer ones. Happy I found this channel and you have a new subscriber!
Here's a question for point number 1: What if I've just begun and I don't have that level of knowledge yet, that level being the ability to understand most of the words in a story?
I hate to be the only negative guy here, but I just don’t find reading for light comprehension to be very enjoyable. I prefer a deeper dive to see how the language really works.
Im soanish native english process been super interesting has opened lot of doors . The thing now is: the languages that wouls open the most doors for me are the hardest. Russian. Chinese. Japanese
It also helps to read things which are familiar to your culture. For example I have been learning German for many years and it helps to read books I have already read in English or books which have been translated from English ( or other languages) into the target language ( i.e German )
What's the point in reading stuff, and not understanding anything? stupid advice. no, what you put in, is what you get, read without knowing the words, get nothing out of it, except the satisfaction and pretending to yourself that you finished it.
Hi Olly, enjoy your RU-vid stuff. This is the second time I've looked at it. And that is after reading My first French chapter in a dual French English edition of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds. It's at my level of an intermediate learner but I know the story from when I was a kid. Also, I've been hooked on the new Englis/French Series. I just read the English chapter which fits in with the pre-reading. I'll read the English before the French. H.G. Made them all short chapters. Also, I bought your French Beginners Book here in a bookshop in the Blue Mountains near Sydney and have ordered your Intermediate one. I came across it by accident. I really enjoy your RU-vid broadcasts and the interviews you've done with Steve Kauffman and Benny Lewis. I've become a big believer of Steven Krashen too. Keep up the good work.
Yeah it does. Not specifically for increasing vocabulary, but for naturally noticing patterns and getting a feel for the language, it absolutely does benefit you. Learn the individual words on the second read through.
@@loganjukes8820 What if I'm learning a new language with a different script like Japanese or Chinese and unless you know the word you can't know the word? You literally can't understand without looking things up
@@FlowUrbanFlow Yeah that would suck unless you're at a more advanced level. Most languages though, you can start reading when you're at a high beginner/low intermediate. Notice how he said you should start reading things you know 70+% of already? He's not recommending reading for complete beginners.
@@loganjukes8820 I totally understand the point. I mean, if I were to learn a language like Spanish it would probably take me a month or so to get decently fluent (to the point where I don't use English anymore) I was just pointing out that it doesn't particularly work for people who are learning a language vastly different to their own, such as an English speaker learning Japanese
This is a great video. What about reading at a beginning level in a language that few people learn, like Romanian. It seems like Everything I find is beyond me and uncomfortable to read because I understand so little. I've found good material for later, but not that would allow me to understand 70% of what I can read now, as you suggested. It's even hard to find children's books. Do you have any ideas? I would great appreciate any advice.
I have found childrens books are not necessarily easier as their topics could be quite fantastical and test your grammar. But straightforward things where you have an expectation what it should be about are better. Instructions on how to do something, something historical that you know a little about, or just a memoire. I hope that gives you some ideas. I used to email very infrequently with an exchange partner for several years, and I could make an inference what they were saying to me rather easily. Then one day I tried to read a novel and although there were lots of new words, it didn't feel beyond me anymore. I had just assimilated enough from those simple emails.
So basically if I have a list of vocabulary I can generate stories with chat gpt on my reading level 🤔 interesting approach. I was thinking how to add vocabulary. This could be helpful especially if you want to read technical documents. You could use reference documents to create a vocabulary lists 🤔 thanks for your input ❤
Great advice in general, perhaps you could offer a bit more suggestive or less restrictive advice such as with the looking up words. When you are starting out maybe five appearances before you look it up may work out fine but as you get further into a language, the words that compromise a large part of what you don't understand will not even appear that much. (i.e. you'll perhaps not get the chance to ever learn many words if you refuse to look them up). And to refine your language skills it gets more efficient at a point to just look up words you don't know, or at least trim the requirement to something like 2 appearances.
Thanks for that beneficial video for me. İt gave me clues about how i read books in my aim language. But i have a question that should i keep vocabulary for words which i take from text i read ? (btw my aim language is english)
What’s funny is the tip to only look up words that occur 5 times is sort of what I do in my mother tongue, when reading advanced level text: I’m like “damn, I don’t know what this means, but if I’m going to completely understand the text, I have to know this word that keeps coming up.” So I look it up, and that’s one way that I expand my English vocabulary
Olly, I don’t know if you are still reading the comments to this video as it’s a bit old but I have 2 questions… First, do your tips change any if reading a ‘native speaker’ novel that you already have read (and know quite well) in your own native language? Secondly, are you planning to produce any of your story books in Thai? (I watched your learning Thai series from a while ago so I know you are interested in the language.)
In all the years I been learning Spanish and struggling with consistency, never have I ever thought about reading novels to increase my vocabulary I think the approach Im gonna take is reading a chapter then go back and look up all the words (and phrases) I don't understand then go back and re-read once I've absorbed the word and phrases I didn't know. I think as you do that for a few books, the words you learned previously will show up in new literature. It may be a slow process, but if most of your vocabulary learning is from reading, it might be time well spent
QUESTION - How do you start reading target language if you dont know the Alphabet or pronunciation in advance? THANK YOU - this is my 3rd video and the work you have put in over years is incredible!
Cant wait experimenting with this tactic !! Im so glad I found this because I have just read a Spanish book only with rule 1 and 2 . Then I thought to myself it has to be an effective way for me to learn more from this . Then I found this video 🙏
Prior to using your Spanish Uncovered process, I was never 1) reading a chapter all the way thru once and accepting that I wouldn't know all the words, and 2) picking a book that was just a bit above my level. I am now TRUSTING in the process!
Will you comment on reading a new word without knowing it’s pronunciation. Are we committing to a poor/bad pronunciation without stopping to hear (via an app) a correct pronunciation ? Hope that makes sense.
