4 steps to learning a language with books
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- Have you ever read a book in the language you are learning? I'm not talking about textbooks. I'm talking about novels, or the kind of books that you would read for fun in your native language. If not, you NEED to start. According to many prominent linguists, this could be THE most effective way to learn new vocabulary in the language you are learning.
In this video I outline my 4 step method for using books to learn a foreign language with free voluntary reading (sometimes called "extensive reading")
If you would like to support me on Patreon, you can do so here: / fingtam
I thought the thumbnail was a toothbrush and a book, I was intrigued.
I thought it was a joint and a book 😂
There are several components to speaking Spanish online . A place I found that succeeds in merging these is the Fergs spanish blueprint (google it if you're interested) definately the best remedy i've heard of. Look at the awesome information .
@@mitchellperilla739 Thats hilarious haha
The proper way to read
Me too
Harry Potter's book to learn are very good, since the language evolve at the same time as the children grow. When you take the first one, the language is really basic, good for 11 years old, really easy to read and follow, and the older they get, the more sophisticated the language is becoming.
really ? I just analysed the whole series with an text analyzer and it showed me just that i need to learn 6000 more chinese characters just to understand the basic meaning , not the detailled meaning of the books hhhh i assume there are too many "fantasy words"
@@richardhartung1576 Of course it will be difficult for the spells, the houses, the school, the places and the name of the characters, , there's a ton of made up words, but the context helps a lot with that, it's not a difficult world throw in the middle of nowhere, you'll know what it was as soon as it appear, they'll even explain most of the time, like when they explain what a "muggle" is.
(but I must admit I never tried with a language so vastly different like Chinese.)
@@LynMa80 sounds great, i really want to read the series. Just checked the first book individually and i am reaching ~70% +
not true but ok
Reading Harry potter in German and it's amazing how quickly the number of words I don't understand on each page reduces
How?
This actually works if you stick to it! This is how I learned English in school. I had average teachers in school and were a bookworm, so I took it upon myself to translate the first Harry Potter book from my native language in English. It was quite difficult to do so in the beginning because I knew almost no words in English. I did that for the whole series and it became easier with each completed volume. Fast - forward 3 years, I obtained a C2 Cambridge Certificate. Did the same with German, got to Level C1.
Thanks for the suggestion. Wondering if you have more tips in order to C2 Cambridge Level? Would much appreciate it. And if you have more tips for speaking or else?
So you Always looked in the dicionary for every Word that you didnt know
This seems to be a common method taught to kids in the U.S where English is their second language or ESL the teacher usually assigns them books and they implement this very technique
Hello, do you recall how long it took to get to German C1 level? Just curious. Also, do you have anyone to converse with, and if so, how are your listening and speaking abilities through this method?
Thanks !
I tried to do it a moment ago and it's really helpful. I'm going to continue with this activity... By the way, I'm learning German too...
1. Find the right book for you.
2. Read purely for enjoyment.
3. create personlized dictionary.
4. Read again.
This is what I have found very useful. A very simple recipe. When you are brand new to a language. First buy only very short children's primary books. one short sentence per page. Buy as many as you can (at least ten). These books were specifically designed to introduce very young children to their own native language.
1. For each page first score as a percentage how many of the words you know of the short one or two sentences (ie. the page text).
2. Then in a notebook write down all the words and look them up in your app or dictionary. Write down their meanings.
3. Then re-read the page again to understand it. Do this for every page.
4. Your note book should devote a page with scores per each page of the book. Index your notebook as you go. You then have a great look up facility. Also research has shown conclusively that writing down words you have looked up, will help you retain them in memory.
5. Don't worry about words or phrases you can't find. Just skip over them. As you only need 75% of your chosen language (plus your native speaker can help you with these anyway.)
Once book is finished (only a few days as books are very short) . Go through each page again as a second pass and score as a percentage again how many words per page you know compared to first pass. Do one more full pass and tabulate the scores again. Then move onto next book. Once reached 1st pass of next book go back to previous book and do another pass and tabulate scores. Then leave first book.
Do same treatment on all subsequent books. In this way not only will you get the thrill of discovering what the book is about but you will also get to see a real percentage score of how many words per page you have reached. Eventually you will reach the 75% score. Once you have reached 75% on the children's books only then move up to teenager books (Now with teenager level books, just do a single pass, as no need to do multiple passes once your reading books with more than 50 pages full of text). Once you are consistently reaching 75% per page on any of the teenager book's pages then any books can be read after that.
Forget about feeling foolish for buying nursery level books. These are the first books you should definitely stick to and read, as you are now effectively a small child in the new language. So these books will be ideal for you. Only move up in age when you are scoring 75% or more per page on your current age level books.
At same time as doing this, pay for an hours help once a fortnight to a native speaker, to clarify any words concepts you could not work out.
My lifelong goal is to own the Harry Potter series in 7 different languages, and be able to read them all. So far I have 1st in Welsh, 2nd in French and 3rd in Polish. 😁
Yohohhohohoho interesting. Are Welsh and Irish and Celtic same languages? Is Welsch still spoken in Wales?
@@Dave.Mustaine.Is.Genius Welsh and Irish are different Celtic languages
@@blueCatJugend hmm, I see. Which of them is still spoken? And does an ordinary Ireland citizen know English?
@@Dave.Mustaine.Is.Genius Almost all of the Irish people know English well and most of them know Irish as well. English and Irish are official languages of Ireland
I enjoy Olly Richard short stories. The same stories (science fiction, history, adventure) have the same enjoyable stories told in 15 different languages and include glossaries and questions. Some are beginners and intermediate.
I use a Kindle to help me read in Spanish. It has a built in translator and when I look up a word, it saves it automatically in a list for me. I like the idea about re-reading books, but it also helps to read a series of books by the same author, like Harry Potter, Percy Jackson and Hunger Games. The authors tend to have their own favorite vocabulary they consistently use. Then you don't have to get bored reading the same book 4 times. Just a thought. : )
So true! I am reading a Sherlock Holmes story in Spanish and I am enjoying it and learning some new vocabulary.
Jennifer Wilson awesome! Glad to hear it’s helping. Thanks for commenting! 😃
Hey! Thanks for wonderful tips. I personally start with reading combined with listening to audiobook at the same time, then I underline the words I don't understand, I make a list of them, translate them and use quizlet to learn them. Then I read it again and listen to it again. And it works. Everytime.
I started using this method a couple of days ago and I'm happy to see that it worked for somebody
I do a bit of the opposite. I read wikipedia articles about topics I like in a foreign language in which I am maximally A1. I create dictionaries from those and look up almost everything and directly put grammar notes and everything together. I can spend several hours with a few worfs and have my fun with it, but I like the basic concept here very much.
Great video. I started reading Harry Potter in french a couple of weeks ago and it really helps if you enjoy it and also have a knowledge of what the plot is.I also downloaded the french audio book so I can listen as well as read at the same time.
Hey! Thanks for commenting!
Yeah, listening to audiobooks while you read is a great way of learning the pronunciation. Especially for languages like French where the spelling of words doesn't match up exactly with their pronunciations. Good luck with your French!
Thanks for replying. I find that by downloading the book on my laptop as a PDF file, I can then copy and paste a page at a time into Google translate. This allows me to read the french on the left hand side with the English translation on the right. Then any words I don't know I can copy and paste them into the ANKI spaced repetition system and review them at the end of every chapter.
Alibobs Marland WOW, that seems like a lot of work! But if that is the method that works best for you, then by all means keep it up. How long have you been using that method for?
Alibobs Marland Can u pass me the link of the pdf book and the audios
I like your method.
I have been looking for the Harry Potter books in french but also at a good price. If you guys could help me out I’d appreciate that
Great tips! It really surprises me that many well known language learning systems don’t spend much if any time emphasizing reading and writing. Liked subbed and Thank you!!
Charles Goller Thanks for the comment and for the sub!
Probably the best overview I've seen so far!
This method works well with new articles too if you don't want to commit to a whole book.
Great tips, I've been reading books in English (I'm Brazilian), and I've been trying to not look after every word that i don't know, it's hard at the beginning, but now I can see that is the better way to read. I'm going to follow your tips now on, tks.
There is only one thing that I like to do different, instead highlighting the text I put a post-it. ;)
why do ye ever wanna read if ye do not know a hell lot of words in a language? It just doesn't make any sense First alphabet and phonology, then grammar, then at least 3000 vocab consisting mainly of verbs, then reading or writing or listening or so forth
You used to be able to just walk into a bookstore and buy any language Harry Potter, etc, before Borders went bankrupt. Barnes & Noble just doesn’t have the in store selection that Borders had. My oldest daughter got The Sorcerer’s Stone in French, when she was learning, and got it down well enough to be a volunteer teacher assistant in a 2nd grade French immersion classroom. (She did also spend an hour a day practicing speaking and learning vocabulary. It wasn’t just reading, but that’s what put her over the top.)
Awesome. I started readin the boy in the striped pajamas several weeks ago in german and i could never really get passed the first episode cause i stopped every single time i saw a new word. This method really makes sense, i’ll try it.
This video is very motivated. I decided to buy a new book after this video.
I love these tips! 👏👏👏
Hi Jadela! I'm glad you liked the video. Thanks for the comment!
Me too
@@WonderfulDay2023 Hi! Thanks for the comment. Glad you like it :)
That's such a great video. I started learning English on my own almost six months ago and now I feel like I was ready to start reading some book in English. I made sure to write the essential of what you said down and I'm gonna try putting it into practice from now on. You've got a new subscriber.
Omg you only started six months ago?! Your English is so good, I would have thought you’ve been learning for way longer. Must have been eager! :D
@@cyndaqueen6179 thanks, buddy. Now it's gonna turn almost one year hahahaha, but I don't consider myself as a speaker fluent yet.
I've started to read The Hunger Games in French a while back, and it really helps since I've read THG in English sooo many times so it's simple.
it was very useful thank u.
Thank you for your help so informational. I am learning German and I have maybe 30 German book in my house but till now I wasn't finished one of them. I hope your video will help me. 🤞
I reaaally love this idea of reading children's book. I give people the same advice! And definitely true that you need to be in that "comfortable but not too comfortable" balance when you read a book. That's what I tell my students. It's also good practice because when you learn a language, there's always gonna be times where you won't understand some words (in real life situations for example). So it's good to get used to not always understand everything!
I was studying German and bought a book in a German book store and bought a book by Herman Hesse. The book was above my level of comprehension, and it was in an older form of German, but i enjoyed it.
Great video and I am especially happy that we can not smell it! ;) ("Fingtam" has meaning in hungarian)
Yes, I am well aware of what that word means! 😅😂🤣
Others great short books . Mister God, this is Anna by Finn.
Jonathan Linvingston the Seagull by Richard Bach.
I like Agatha Christie, Enid Blynton. James Hadley Chase, Paul Auster .But I also like Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Emily Brontë.
Almost forget Asterix we all love Asterix in France. Gaston Lagaffe, Tintin, Black et Mortimer.
Yes plays are great as long as they are written in modern language because to read Shakespeare or Molière won't help a lot to someone who wants to speak English or French.
This is a great method to learn/practice a foreign language. I love and enjoy a lot reading in English, as much as I do in Spanish, which is my first language
I think that's a great step-by-step approach! The only thing I would add to what you said is to review the words every time you pick up the book, and get bilingual books, so you can see the English, and highlight the English and foreign language. However, unlike I've done, I think your idea of only highlighting two words is better. I was very impressed! This fleshes out what Steve Kaufmann was saying: making it practical. My problem is, although French and Spanish seem easy to find and pay for, Portuguese is steep. The 4-Hour Work Week was something like $65 on Amazon and about the same, all included, on eBay.
Anyone else from Hungary who had a hard time focusing on what he said because of the T-shirt? 😂
I have read Harry Potter in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Turkish,... And I also bought a, Greek and Latin copy, Netherland, polish, and a friend gave me the rumanian copy and another one portugise... So yes I love Harry Potter and Languages... Wish I could express in all of them
1: Find the right book
2: read purely for enjoyment
(Highlighter/don’t stop reading)
3: create a personalized dictionary
4: read again
I find this video very benefical. Thank you.
I've only seen a few of your videos but they are great! You have a knack for explaining things simply :)
Awe, thanks so much for saying that! I’m really glad my videos are able help people!
Brilliant! Thanks for the advice! I’ve been meaning to read Harry Potter in Spanish for month now but never really knew how to approach it. Will definitely be doing this ^_^
Hi Claire! Welcome to my channel!
Yeah, this is an approach that works great for me, but like I tell everyone, you should just try it out and make it your own. I love getting other people's perspectives on my techniques, so if you discover some variant of this that works best for you, be sure to let me know!
Interesting info for reading for pleasure.Julio retired teacher. DOLORES. ARGENTINA.
Nice video!! I finished reading hp a couple of days ago in english, and it was quite challenging bc my level of english is not the best, but i enjoyed it nonetheless.
I love the glossary idea! I will definitely be doing this!
Awesome. Hope it helps! :)
Man, That was AWESOME!!
When on a trip to Germany many years ago, I bought a handful of children's books. It was such a fun way to learn the language. It helps to have a basic understanding of the language first, but it's a great way to practise and build fluency. Also, reading aloud helps with speaking skills.
Owning a kindle is also handy because you can look up words automatically and also save some useful words for learning later.
Excellent video
I like this idea. Reading has helped me improve my Japanese vocabulary and has also helped me get comfortable with not understanding everything. But, the progress feels/is slow going. The Anki app was great for remembering the Kanji but I tried putting vocabulary from the book in Anki but every time it just ruined the reading experience and I never did it for very long. Maybe this glossary idea is “the one” method that I stick to. My only concern is boredom after the first read. BUT, I'll follow your method at least once and start with the book I'm reading now. Thanks for some new inspiration.
I agree with a lot of your ideas about reading. I have been using the program Lingq to do the same things. You can upload books, news articles and anything else you want and the program will both highlight and instantly give definitions to unknown words.
Jeremy Holt Hi Jeremy, thanks for commenting! I’ve heard Steve Kaufman talk about Lingq, but I’ve never used it personally. It sounds like a great program. Thanks for sharing!
I'm really sorry if this isn't polite, but I MUST recommend LingQ to everyone watching this. It's literally the same method but digitized. You can read every book he's talking about on LingQ and then when you don't know a word you simply click on it and it give you the definition. This is an excellent video, but if you want to supercharge it and go about 90x faster try LingQ. Sorry for promoting a product on your feed. Just trying to be helpful. Thanks for the great vid!
Thanks!
I read a book in a foreign language over and over (while learning the language) until the story I read is the same 2x in a row - then it is time to get another book. Sometimes I read a book over dozens and dozens of times.
I didn't understand why you insisted on paper books (rather than Nook for example) until you mentioned the personalized book dictionary. But then I realized, the notebook technique you discussed a few months later (March) can double as a work-around for this, especially since these days the touchpad and the cloud allow us to do everything paperless.
These are good things in my case, since I like to keep my books, and my current circumstances make it difficult for me to build a library of physical texts in my target languages.
Yeah, I published this video over a year ago, and since then I have really started to enjoy using LingQ. I believe there is still value to physical books, but a good argument can be made for both sides of the debate.
Thank you for this super useful video !
I was working in France and bought Harry Potter in French however I had not read it in English nor did I know the story and the words which I now know as "muggle" etc weren't naturally in any dictionary and so I was stuck with these neologisms in French until I saw the films.
The audiobooks also help, I find.
Hi John! Yeah, words like ‘muggle’ won’t help you that much, but fortunately, those kinds of words are a minority. And your right, audiobooks are great!
I also started reading the series in french and normally the new words are explained in the story so I prefer to go that way instead of directly translating it into its equivalent in english or in my case spanish which is my first language, it helps to start to read in the language rather than to read and translate.
I really like your enthusiasm in teaching
Thank you! :)
I bought the english harry potter 4 years ago to help with my english because i am originally from Russia, & it was tough but after a while i caught on & it was easy.
Excellent tips... I completely agree! One difference is that I use Amazon to get my books.
Yes, amazon is also a good resource!
Hello sir.
I'm mahamed hussien from somaliland and I'm new here so I'm thankful for your helping learning languages.
Thanks! Glad to help :)
I cant write in books except in pencil
Then you should write the word in a piece of paper.
Im the opposite i love having organized notes in books pr highlighted parts
I do that. I put a number by the word and then the same number at the top or bottom of the page with the translation. That way when I read it again I can try to remember what the word means, if I can't I can just look at the bottom of the page. It's so convenient because it's just right there.
Books are a tool. This method is using the tool. If you want a nice copy, keep that one on the shelf.
It hurts my soul
I like it 😀
your friendly helpful approach is wonderful. Thank you. I will try your suggestions )))
Awesome! Glad to see my videos are helpful :)
I recently bought a Kindle and have found it super easy to quickly check the meaning of words I’m not sure of. Whenever I come across a word I don’t know I simply press on the word and I get a translation and examples of the word in different sentences. I mainly read Spanish literature. I have tried reading both books that have been translated from English and books that were written by Spanish authors. I enjoy both but I find the books that were originally written in Spanish have a richness of language not found in translations. My favorite Spanish author is Isabel Allende.
A great method to carry HUNDREDS of books and do exactly what he says, is with digital books, that is, e-books, on your phone or tablet. With the tablet you can: highlight, look up the word and leave a note of the definition, which is a tiny blue mark in the right corner of the word. During the SECOND reading of the book, if you can't remember a word, just tap the "blue mark" you left and the definition pops up immediately! I usually leave a one-word definition, based on the context of the story, as words have different meanings depending on context. I try to select the one that best fits the context of the story. The same word may appear in ANOTHER context, in which case you can create another digital note with its meaning for THAT context. You welcome! ; )
thank you
Thank you for giving us a step-by-step guide! This info is gold! Merci!!!
Hey,that's a master plan,bro.Most practical video. 🙏🙏🙏
This was fantastically explained! I just need to get to the point where I understand that many words to begin with lol. Thanks a ton!
have you tried graded readers?
Dude I cannot wait to try this, thank you so much!
i have three versions of one book, one is in english, the other is in korean and another in japanese. i plan to travel to japan and south korea in the future so hopefully this will help me learn the languages more.
I think that reading the same book is boring. I rather to read many books which I’m interest with. I just look up the word I saw 2 or 3 times in the same book. My fluency came in my 10th book, I read 4066 pages. Obviously I don’t know every word, but today I feel how I’m reading in my native language, it’s not happen in every structure or sentence, but most part of them.
Thanks for sharing your tips on language learning. This video really helped!:)
이성봉TV SBTV Awesome! Glad to hear it helped! Thanks for the comment! :)
I reckon it is much better to underline those words with a pencil, and when you go back and translate them, you write de translation right there, so when reading again you have all the meanings right there.
Very usel tips! Thanks a lot! Greetings from Mexico.
Hère from the time of covid!!! Such an amazing video it helped me so much with French! I just wanted to thank you!
I love Le petit Prince ❤
Oh and learning with plays💕🕊
Thank you! These tips are great. I’ll immediately begin to incoporate them. Just ordered my first two books in turkish from ebay: küçük prens and üç kedi bir dilek 😁
why do you learn turkish? are you married to a turkish guy?
This video was all i need to rescue me from reading a big and hard book. Which made me disappointed...thank man for these tips ❤👁👁💕
thanks
VERY good video
I love learning languages;I am 16 years old and I speak French,english,arabic,and german but it's not enough I want to learn more 🤩
Lol I'm 13 years old and speak Russian,Kazakh, an d English fluency and now I'm learning Korean language
How you did it?! When have you started to learn language?
@@irinaiaiai His name sounds Algerian so most likely he is born either in France and learn algerian dialect at home with his parents or he was born in Algeria and learn french at school. Then he prolly learned English through school and also his personnal interest and german must be a second he also learned at school.
Considering the language he is speaking I assume he is french, as we have to take two languages in "collège" (Средняя школа) usually it's english or german then german or spanish.
I liked your video very much! I like reading books in English. I'll read them using your tips.
Glad to hear it :)
Thanks!
GOAT method
Really interesting, thanks for the advice! I'm definitely gonna give this method a go 👍
thanks!
incredible methodology,, really keen to apply these great ideas.. thanks:)
Great Video Fingtam
Wow I’m amazed and thankful for this brilliant video 💓
This is the most useful video I've watched today.
Thank u so much for this.
Hello my friend, how's it going? My name is Willian and I'm from Brazil. Tonight I'll do something different, I choose a book that I was looking for a long time and finally I was able to pick up. So I'm gonna read at least 3 pager per day and I'll record my voice in each page, and I wanto to make my own e-book that I can listen to when I'm doing my house hold chores or something like that. I think it will be a challenge for me, but I need to improve my English and increase my vocabulary in my area. I'm studying computer science and the book is about HTML\CSS I'm gonna learning English and IT in the same time. I have no idea when I'll finish this book, but I hope return in this comment and post my point of view about this journey that I'll start tonight. THANK YOU SO MUCH,
Totally agree! I am reading Harry Potter in Spanish and I really enjoy it. I already know the story and it's fun to notice the differences in the language structure. I am reading it in the kindle app, and on any given page there are usually about 4 words I don't know. I highlight them and create notes with the word and its definition and each time I pick up the book I spend some time reviewing the new words. This really has improved my vocabulary even though I don't usualky read more than a few pages at a time. I really liked your suggestion about taking a couple of minutes to try to dredge up the word even if I don't remember it immediately. I'm going to try that.
Good tip regarding reading on a Kindle. I'm reading the first Harry Potter book in German on my Kindle and find that the Kindle dictionary leaves MUCH to be desired. I usually end up looking up the word in my dictionary app anyway. I prefer children's books to so-called graded readers too, which were not discussed in this video
@@Nancy-sj7yg why the hell do ye ever wanna read if ye do not know a hell lot of words in a language? It just doesn't make any sense First alphabet and phonology, then grammar, then at least 3000 vocab consisting mainly of verbs, then reading or writing or listening or so forth
Muchas gracias Fingtam languages por el video excelente y claro con muchas ideas útiles para me y otras personas.
It helps a lot! Currently learn Greek and, btw, have started with Harry Potter :) but as a huge fan of romantic novels (😅) decided to motivate myself this way: if I want to read smth new, I’ll buy it ONLY in Greek or won’t buy it at all. So, enjoying and learning definitely :)
1. Find the right book for you (enjoyable and comprehensible enough);
2. Read purely for enjoyment, and highlight one unknown word every two pages that you will put in a personalized dictionary;
3. Read again and try to remember the highlighted words. Make a second dictionary.
One tip, if you can put what you just read into the translation so you can hear the words as you reread them, that would be very helpful. Give it a try. :)
Good. Wanna buy more books.
Finally, a video that is actually helpful !!
Great video! Those were some excellent, practical suggestions. Thanks!
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed! :)
Thank you so much for guiding us.....
Thank you. It’s really helpful.
This was very helpful. I'm Brazilian so my native language is the Portuguese... I remember that I learned a lot of Spanish reading texts of different subjects on web and reading books too, now I am trying hard the English which is obviously a challenge bigger then Spanish compared to the Portuguese by many reasons. I'II put your tips into practice!!
Thanks for the tips bro. I'm starting to read more books in my target language, so I'm still working out the best method for me.
Great tips, thank you for this video :)
Hi Karolina! Welcome to my channel, and thanks for the encouraging comment :)