The RIGHT Way to Learn Vocabulary From Stories 

🤯 What is the StoryLearning method? Here's everything you need to know: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dPqWN2dlsBg.html

Lose yourself in the story and the rest will follow. Going through a little struggle is something that we should expect and embrace. I love this approach of pulling out the unknown vocabulary little by little, but always with the focus on understanding the story. That's exactly how I started with Spanish and I'm so grateful that I did (because it worked!) 😉 Great video!

This is actually the way I supercharged my English. I took classes when I was a child but after that, I ditched them because I hated them. But I never really quit the language, just the stressful classes. I learned it by needing it. I love movies ( any sort of story really, be it in books, movies, or games) and I am someone who really enjoys rewatching or rereading the things I love. For example, to this day, I think I have read Harry Potter books more than 50 times in total. So I was watching and rewatching the movies I loved, to the point of memorizing the dialogues. I naturally shadowed the actors, ( Why so serious? ) So I learned vocabulary with pronunciation. The turning point for me was the Inheritance Cycle books. Now that I'm older I can see how they kind of suck, but I was a fan of them when I was in high school. And when the 4th book of the series came out, I couldn't wait for the translators to do their job. I went straight for the English version, reading it with my iPod touch. It was pretty hard for me back then, but I was determined to know what happens. Now, I read more than 100 thousand words a day on average ( thank you fanfiction) and I am trying to use the same method to learn french. Hopefully, I would be fluent in a year and be able to read all the French I want.

It's been a year since I started learning Norwegian. The truth is I still haven't really figured out the best ways to learn. But one thing I can say definitely works is reading. Short Stories in Norwegian was a major helping hand - I hope there's an intermediate one on its way!

I started learning English at the age of 28. The last three years I started studying German. I'm now 51. I had read the Arabian Nights in English about 8 years ago. I enjoyed the stories tremendously, maybe also because I'm Turkish. When I started German I bought the 1001 Nacht, which is the same book. It was way above my level (I'd spoken German 0-7 yo). But I kept at it. I didn't care about the books' high grammar and vocabulary. I'm on the second volume, page 1100, and have no difficulty understanding it. I worked up to it, I did not worry about finding books my level.

I am a high/advanced intermediate in Spanish. I can read the average novel with difficulty. I've been reading and listening to The Da Vinci Code (el Codigo Da Vinci) and listening along with the audiobook. It really helps. I underline the words I don't know and come back to them later.

Thanks for your all efforts Olly Richards. Why didn't I watch your video 7 years ago. Because I memorized 10 thousand words in a year with difficulty and couldn't use even 1 percent of them freely, and because of that I concluded that learning language isn't for me and gave up to learn it. And recently I suddenly find out about Stephen Krashen and you, and as you said I am reading and listening all the time , I have planned 100 days challenge for myself and I am now on 60 day th, maybe you can't believe in me, I can easily understand what are you saying without subtitles almost, and express my thoughts without difficulty. Power of reading and listening is just INCREDIBLE. I advise all to follow this rules.

Interesting video :) I have to add a step, since I am learning Japanese : looking up the pronunciation of kanji based words. I am reading a novel without furigana. I don’t do it everytime, only when I see the same word 2-3 times in a row, I check the meaning and pronunciation. Also, i have another tip : reading the book of a story you already know (for instance, you have seen the movie). Then even if it is not told the same way, you already know the setting and can understand the places, the things described, and guess the emotions of the characters without searching for every word.

Dude, today i was searching how to learn vocab from stories and you made the video at the right time😁 gracias amigo💖

I started reading El Principito in Spanish yesterday, and today was the first time I felt emotion about the way the prince speaks about how the million stars in the universe wouldn't mean a thing to him if he loses the flower that he loves so much. Feeling that emotion from reading in a language which I'm just starting out with again after 3 years was something truly special.

What you indirectly address but do not really mention is word frequency. Thus the more frequent words used in a language should theoretically be learned first. If you read stories, this process becomes natural. More frequent words are used more often in any story. If you read 30 stories, following your method, you will definitely acquire high frequency vocabulary, see how it is used in context and begin to get a feel for the 'flow' of the language. Thank you for the video.

Finished your French book Olly. It was fantastic. Moving into other books now. People read books and listen to shows/music in your target language. This is the Krashen method essentially. Your brain will figure it out. It actually works.

As a comic book nerd, I find them ideal for holding interest and contextual input. Also importantly, in my opinion, the style is often crafted as dialogue, which would have a higher transfer to speaking ability than say the style a novel is written in. Currently using your process to read French versions of Batman comics that I've actually already read in English, which also helps me to already understand a lot of what's going on as I read through the French separately.

Now that I have gotten to almost an intermediate level French all of the sudden it is so much fun. I use a little bit different method but I have found it very satisfying. 1) Find interesting material where I can get the gist of the story with struggle. Read a paragraph of several paragraphs through several times. Note the words mentally that I am not quite getting. Then I move that paragraphs or section of the book into Google Translate. I reread the paragraph but when I stumble now I look over to Google translate. I might note the musicality of the phrase, the surprising word choice or perhaps a similarity between the French word and a similar English word. If the word sparks interest I write it down in what is called Gold List Method. I am not working so much on listening quite yet. But I will listen and read as the final review. I have a low frustration tolerance so I need to understand the content better then 60/70%. Now I can do this reading method for about an hour. I can listen to the words being read for about 10 minutes. I hope to build all these skills. Thanks for sharing your methods and techniques.

I've read several of your Spanish short stories. I appreciate the structure of the chapters. I've learned so much more than reading traditional books. Keep up the great work!

Comprehensible Input is even gaining traction with learning the Latin language! I really appreciate how you break down the process into steps and emphasize re-reading. I have been trying to convince my Latin students to re-read the sentences and paragraphs!! They are always in a hurry to turn in the assignment after simply translating them. I am new to your channel, but love your content so far! Thanks!

I did something similar to learn english. I also foud that having the english definition was better then the translation. At first it might not work, but when you have a basic level, the english definition didn't break the flow and thinking that you were already on. By lookig the translation, I found it was harder to go back to the story.

Hey Olly! I've been using your Story Learning approach for about 50 something days now and I've really seen some amazing progress. I would absolutely LOVE to see you make a short story book for Japanese learners! I'm also interested in the historical/WW2 stories you were talking about in a video with Steve Kaufman. Thank you for sharing all of your knowledge with us!

I bought your two Spanish books and it’s amazing how much I’ve improved my vocabulary and comprehension. I’m trusting the process and know I’ll keep improving! Thank you! I also bought my favorite book, The Great Gatsby, in Spanish and one day I’ll be ready for it.

I started the way you've said with the language of the Caraïben. I got a children-book for very little children parents use to read for their children with pictures :-))) Every day I read the same book/story. I need around 45" to read it trough and most times I understand more words/more about the story ... but first I had to start with some words I already learned just to get started. I'm listening to all the video's of you I can find to learn more about this topic. Thanks

Reading is great, I started with children's stories as some stories for foreign learning can use quite "unnatural" language, and reading it more than once, first time for plot and then for a grammatical aspect and/or voc. Its how i teach my pupils. And reading along while listening to the audiobook then you have pronunciation too.

I think the part where you mention the gradual shift from lots of repetition to more extensive exposure for pleasure is explained very well, great video Olly. Out of curiosity what is the most memorable book you have read so far in a foreign language?

Josh Groban sings a song “Hay si volvieras” (something like that, not sure of the title). When I first heard it I thought it was a beautiful, sweet love song. After hearing it several time I wanted to know exactly what he was saying. I looked up the translation and it was a heartbreaking love song. The love of his life left him. It was incredibly sad!

Thanks for this video Olly!! I currently have 4 of your readers with another one on the way!! Struggled with learning "the old fashioned way" ( yes---I'm not young) and really had to get my head around your approach! For anyone interested----OLLYS' METHOD REALLY WORKS!! Keep the books coming!! and---Thank you!!

I’m reading juvenile to adult at this point. Very fun. And my ear learning has been so much fun with youtube, documentaries, news. Thank you for sanity in learning. This is the most effortless way because motivation is built in.

Olly you are the best motivator for language learning. When I am a little bit down and loose motivation, because of the difficulties in language learning process, I go to your videos to keep the motivation on. Thank you!

I am watching Lupin with subtitles for French. The story is very good and I am engaged. I randomly look up words. But only when I really can't understand. Finding good material to keep you engaged is so important.

One of your best videos! You can’t imagine how helpful this is especially when there is not a lot of material in the language for self-study (Romanian). The stew analogy makes complete sense.

Been studying vocab with novels in my target language for a while now and it’s so much fun. Went from 0 understanding to being able to read crime novels!

Great video...I just ordered your Spanish book and am looking forward to diving in. I have benefited so much from reading in my native language (English) and I've always felt that reading was the key to also unlocking a second language.

Hi Olly, I bought your short stories in Spanish book (intermediate) a few weeks ago at first I had to read the stories 2 or 3 times to get a good understanding of the plot but now I'm on story 6 and I can understand it all after 1 reading although it doesn't feel as if I'm reading at below my level.

Cool video. I've employed the reading repetition method over the last 6 weeks, and my improvement in my target language has escalated very quickly. Words just stick better when you repeatedly read them in context.

This was so helpful because I was reading Jared Turner’s explanation of extensive reading, and he suggested understanding maybe 98% of the reading, which totally discouraged me. Now I feel relieved as I am getting the gist of your Short Stories in Spanish but definitely don’t understand many of the words.

It helps if what you're reading is something that interests you. So if you're interested in baseball, read about baseball in your target language if you can. I'm interested in history and science, I was pleased to see some of your books covered those subjects. I'm learning Spanish and Italian, I'm intermediate at least in Spanish, not so developed in Italian but I've gotten the basics. I'm interested in other languages as well, like French, Japanese, Swahili and Polish. But they are much more difficult to tackle, Japanese because of the writing system, Swahili and Polish because of the lack of learning material.

I have just bought the Spanish stories for beginners . It's amazing method . Thank you Oilly

Awesome advice, Olly! The bulk of my time dedicated to learning Russian is spent on extensive reading supplemented by flashcards, and I totally agree that adding and managing flash card decks can eat up time that one could spend actually reading and learning. I'd been trying to keep this to a minimum, and a couple months back I found a method that adds swathes of cards in under a minute that could be useful for any people here who aren't expert Anki users like me: 1. As I casually check things on Google Translate during my reading, I save phrases I want to remember via the star symbol at the top right of the translated box. 2. On my weekends I open my Google Translate phrasebook containing these saved phrases and export them to Google Sheets, and then clear my Google Translate phrasebook. 3. In the Sheets I tweak the entries a bit and add tags to the column on the right (usually just the date I added them, or the book, youtube video, or person that introduced the word to me), then I copy and save the columns containing the Russian entries, English translations, and Tags onto a new text document file. 4. On Anki I then import the document into my Russian deck under the File tab. I'm really bad at remembering the words I'd picked up from context while reading, but Anki helps me loads in memorizing them long-term. Re-reading a chapter a couple of times with different foci sounds really good though, thanks for the insight! Looking forward to trying it out.

Thankyou for this video. This is exactly how I learned to read English as a child and I just carried it over to my foreign language learning.

I loathe flashcards with every fiber of my being. I've taken your method from your books to anything I read, to highlight a limited number of words and phrases. I spend about 15 minutes every day reviewing words that I had already gone over in the context of a story(I write these vocab sentences and phrases in the physical book and I make sure to have a limit per page of vocab so as to not over do it). So everything I read builds on itself to review. As I can review anything in chunks. Like read over random pages or vocab. So much more helpful than anki for me

Very thorough, and so encouraging! Thanks Olly!

I love the stew analogy. A professor of German in University used a vending machine analogy (with vocabs being the coins you put in to get something out).

You are an extraordinary teacher! Keep up the good work. You are an invaluable asset.

Thanks Olly for this video! Excellent advice. I bought my first Italian novel and I started to translate word for word which I have started to absolutely hate doing. Usually, I read Italian news free flowing like you suggest and I enjoy doing it with topics that I’m interested in. If i focus on reading things I enjoy then I don’t think of it as study but when I was translating the text I found it extremely boring, time consuming and probably not beneficial in the long run. Thanks again for your great advice I will go back to reading for enjoyment 🙌🏻🇮🇹💚

When I was 12, I really wanted to read the new twilight book - it came out in English first obviously and I did not want to wait for the translation (my first language is German). So my dad got me the book in English and I basically used this method without knowing. The intrinsic motivation really did it for me ❤️

I’m up to the the intermediate Italian book in your series and I can say the stories are so enjoyable and it doesn’t feel like “ studying “, and you really absorb the language . Is there a similar process you suggest for tv shows or movies ie.. watch them a few times, maybe without subtitles and then with ?

Regarding reading and listening, I think of it as every word having two representations: A written form and a spoken form. And that you have to learn both in order to know the word.

Your best video re reading Olly. This one has the best description of the process

Thanks for this video. Every question that popped up in my head you answered!

what an outstanding video! love it so much. the story learning method is the best method for me. thanks so much!

Another tip: if you can't listen to what youre reading (like a physical book without an audio thingy) read aloud. It helped me tremendously, and you get to practice your accent😁

I remember getting lists of 20 or so French words to memorise in school. Weekly, if I remember rightly. Later I talked to a man who had been taught Russian while serving in the Royal Air Force - he told me that they too were given vocabulary lists but the rather intensive programme amounted to learning about 200 words a week. I have been fairly successful in language learning - I tend to see stories, factual books and newspaper articles in foreign languages as vocabulary depots.

I think its the best video about this topic and i watched alot of them. Finally i have the answers on all those questions. Thanks for your great work!

Great topic. I think you're my favorite language channel rn.

This installment in your video series, Mr. Richards, is yet another of your excellent presentation filled with practical ways for us to go about improving our paths to new-language acquisition. I myself've studied several languages over the last (mumble mumble) … okay, over the last few 56 years (But who's counting eh?), and I still learn things from videos. You have my sincere thanks! That said, I hope you will read & take seriously the following. Having *any* music in the background, no matter how softly it plays, is a sound disturbance to your viewer/listeners. (Well, at least to *this* viewer/listener!) Thus I respectfully ask that you leave background music out of your future presentations. Toward the end of this current video ("The RIGHT Way to Learn Vocabulary from Stories") you refer to the way that hearing the sound & rhythm of words-whether the learners are themselves are producing the words while reading aloud or are hearing them as produced by a recording of the book-strongly reinforce the ability to remember the meaning of those words. How very true, to the point that *any* concurrent sounds that are *not* solely the book's text both distract from & compete with learning. As a musician with several decades of training and even more decades than that of being a university professor of music, I know full well what happens to the human brain while listening to (and even while "merely" hearing faint) music. Unless a word+music combination is *intended* by a composer-such as in compositions that specifically combine instrumental & vocal sounds-the mind's focus is inevitably split. That, of course, is not a situation conducive to learning. And because you have so obviously devoted your thought & time to help people *learn,* I hope you will consider my request to omit from your future videos any background music. Please, Olly, let the your spoken voice be the *only* sound component of your videos: I, for one, will consider that plenty enough of music for my ears. Again, I thank you.

Really nicely explained, thank you! I'll pass this on to my students.

key here is mass reading on particular subject, great advice

Great video Olly - really well thought out and very useful. Also, I'm happy to see the audio for 101 Russian conversations is finally available. Hope you choose to release a Russian intermediate 101 conversations book some time soon.

The biggest gap for me with this method is where to find comprehensive input. I am at A2/B1 level in French. Although it's easy to find books in French or French/English, it difficult to know whether the book is at the right level. I have purchased a lot of books that have turned out to either be way too low or too high.

Thank you, these tips helps me a lot with my beginning level of learning German. BTW I like your accent a lot. :D

Great video Olly! Packed with useful advices.

Criminally underrated omg

Yesterday I found a girl reading sttories in basic german and explaining them after every sentenve,ifound that very helping fpr me, todayi was looking for mpr of those and your video is just on point

Thank you for another great video, Olly. You covered this very thoroughly and I greatly appreciate that. I wish I would have taken this kind of advice sooner. I have now read you short stories in Russian and am looking to find some more intermediate reading in Russian. Any recommendations, maybe from some native books?

I agree about the flashcards. The best flashcards (almost the only ones worth making) are ones that are not words in isolation, but words in a sentence. Anki is great. you can put in pictures, whole sentences, and audio. And can keep cards monolingual.

If there isn't already, I would love a video in the whole a1 b2 etc Cambridge language grades and if they are useful to gage your language progress! Thanks Olly for the great content! I have 3 of your books so far!

Thank you for the video. I have your short stories in Dutch.

This video was very helpful. Thanks

I would really love it if you were to publish a beginner-level short stories book for Japanese. I am an absolute beginner trying to teach myself. One of your books would be better than a kiddie's story book from the language store. I am enjoying reading the beginner Italian book and have bought the intermediate one in anticipation.

I'll definitely pick up this process to interleave my language learning!

I LOVE your books. I underline words I don't know and every 2 chapters make flash cards with my iphone's dictation and the spanish dict app Then practice speaking them while I walk my dog. It works insanely well and takes no time to make the cards!

I love your videos. They have taught me so much. I have been learning French and would love it if you could write some short stories in French.

Fantastic video, thank you 👏

Brilliant, thank you

How often should you repeat reading the same chapter of a short story book? Once a day or 3-5 times within the same day? Thanks for another awesome video Olly!

1. Thank you, your books have helped me immensely. 2. There is a vocabulary list at the end of each chapter. How would you recommend listing down and studying these vocabulary so one doesn’t forget to them

I have started using the Short Stories book to learn Russian and I find it very useful, fun and engaging. It really helps and motivates me to read more. And it's quite surprising how much I can understand without necessarily knowing all the words. But I'm curious about using the same technique to learn another language. I have found out that the 8 stories in Olly's Short Stories for beginners series (Russian, French, Turkish, etc.) are essentially the same stories regardless of the target language, except for some minor details reflecting the cultural and geographical context of the said target language. So, after completing the book in any language, I was wondering whether the method would be as effective with another language since I would already know all the stories very well. So, the language acquisition technique would be significantly different and also, there wouldn't be the extra incentive to keep reading to see what happens next which is an important factor, I think, in this method. No doubt that it would still be useful in many ways, but would it be as "effective", or less effective, or perhaps even more? I'm curious if anyone has had that experience already. 🤓

Hello Olly! Thanks for this! I'm thinking of buying your Spanish Uncovered course because I love learning through stories. I know the story audio is available in both European and Latin Spanish, but I'm a little worried because the pronunciation teacher Angela seems to teach European Spanish (whereas I want to learn Mexican Spanish)? Perhaps you can alleviate some of these concerns that perhaps other potential students may have too? Thanks!

Great advice. I do that in technical reading.

You gave very nice advice here. Even if I studied languages my whole life some tips are really good. Thanks ...I'll start to use some of them in my Japanese reading practice!

Wow I have that short stories in Spanish book, saw this video on my recommended and didn’t realise it was the person who wrote it! I’ve hit a bit of a standstill with my Spanish so I’m going to try this method and see how it goes!

My question is in regards to reading a story that you’ve already read. Like you find a book that you’ve read in your native language, and to read it in the language you are learning and you find the book that is translated into that language. Do you recommend this or would you suggest for us to stay away from this?

Great video, just what I needed! Thanks so much! Would you mind commenting on the importance of reading material originally written in your target language ... how much emphasis should we place in this? I am a Spanish learner but happen to come across more material originally written in English that I am drawn to. Any problem with reading the translated to Spanish version?Thanks in advance for your reply!

It helps having a kindle or such where you can simply tap on the word you want to know about.

This video is next level helpful. I’m so glad I found your channel, and your books... which I bought yesterday... which took me till 20 minutes ago to realise that you wrote it lol.

I love your video and your concept. I teach Latin and I would love to implement this in my classroom. Any suggestions on grading? Assignments? Your input would be greatly appreciated.

I have a different approach but have immense results.. I translate the sentence as I go and do go for a higher level of understanding and I've tried your method but it doesn't seem to work me as well..I'd recommend translating as you go and trying to remember some words because that's challenging and strains your brain too..then when I can read it the next time I just breeze through

And yet there is value to that, good vid

I just ordered my first two Spanish books of yours on Amazon 📚

thanks for share this "tips" more like a guide to read jajajaja suuuuper helpful man. thankyou!!

Your book just arrived at my house! I'm excited 😀

Amazing video, man! Helping me a lot in french. Can u make videos on how to learn a language on your own from zero? Thanks!

Love your videos Olly, all you say makes so much sense to me! Just had to subscribe to your channel, keep up your great work! Greetings from Bavaria 🙂

I started Dutch years ago by using the book Minoes. I started with no previous Dutch. All I did was translate as I went. Not trying to memorise words. By chapter six I was 80 % free reading. Amazed myself. 😉. I had an audiobook as well and was able to understand chapters I had not translated yet. My subconscious did this by itself.

Hi Olly, I have been reading you short stories for intermediate learners (Spanish). At the same time I talk to a Colombian girl every who is learning English, we alternate days between English and Spanish. I'm now on the 6th story and I now feel like I'm understanding nearly everything and I'm able to understand it first time round and I can answer all the questions correctly without too much effort, where at the beginning it was a bit if a struggle. I will keep reading and do all 8 stories in the book but I was wondering if you could suggest what I should read next in Spanish?

I’m currently trying to learn Italian and this is exactly what I needed!!! Thanks so much!! Also for others, a really good website that can translate stories, match it w audio or a video and make flash cards is readlang !

i'm reading the alchemist in portuguese right now. it is so rewarding being able to read and follow the plot even though i'm not understanding every little detail and word. i've been understanding the plot the whole way and summarizing it to my brazilian girlfriend. it is truly satisfying. Once I finish reading it i'm going to try listening to an audio version.

Thanks for giving a lot more detail about your reading method. I think listening while reading is especially important in languages with non-phonetic alphabets, like Chinese. If you just read, you have no idea if the word is "fu" or "shi" or "tong". You need to learn the picture, the sound and the meaning. For me, the combination of listening and reading works best. For example I hear a paragraph and understand nothing. I hear it again along with seeing the writing and the whole thing makes sense. Or at least I understand a lot more of it.

I find it easy to learn every word in the story. I don't memorize, but I do know what every word is saying. To me, this is the comprehensivle input that Krashen, Kaufman and others talk about.

One thing that I have been wondering is how often should I pick up the book and read? I have a lot of free time, so I could basically finish half the book in a single day if I wanted to but I'm sure that wouldn't help me too much with progression in my target language. One chapter every day? One story every 4 days? What would be the most optimal for reaching fluency in my target language?

I love this concept! Before diving into one of your Short Stories for Beginners books, is there a minimum number of words that I should memorize? Perhaps the 200 most common words in the language? In particular, I’m keen to learn Brazilian Portuguese. I haven’t purchased the book yet - but I assume I shouldn’t launch into reading those stories without at least some rudimentary knowledge?

I like the stew analogy very much. Is that a fish stew? Looks delicious too; thank you. I ordered the primary readers for Spanish and French nearly a week ago; wish they would be delivered; I can't wait to start this