This is what Barry Farber, 28 languages, said he did, before the internet. He would get a newspaper article or whatnot. Go through one paragraph at a time. Read it and try to understand, highlight the words he didnt, look them up, go onto the next paragraph. He liked it because the more you do it the fewer words you need to highlight so you can look them up, and you have a visual reference how you are improving.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@MisterGames Exactly! The more you read eventually the fewer you need to look up! Its cool to hear what people did before the internet!
@Belieberoxo97Ай бұрын
This is the most helpful video I have seen on youtube on how to read in a foreign language, thank you so much!!!!
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@Belieberoxo97 No problem! I’m so glad you found it helpful^^
@-nf9vtАй бұрын
I suggest watching movies in foreign languages with subtitles . It will help especially for beginners and eventually you will learn you don't need them. Immersive translate generates them better
@sigolgeeАй бұрын
This video is very helpful for me to understanding why my first foreign novel reading was hard! The book was for teens, but It was also filled with a lot of embellishing words. When I start to read the next book, I will follow your guidance. Thanks for sharing your tip for us.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@sigolgee I tried to read a teen novel as well and quickly gave up and switched to non fiction haha. I hope to come back to it eventually!
@allthekingsbooks14 күн бұрын
My process: - I read a children's book the first time without looking anything up and a second time in which anything I come across that I don't know I try to deduce from the context or accompanying pictures. - Afterwards I reread the book a third time, and make flashcards for every word that I either didn't know or wasn't even sure off and had to use contextual or visual clues to understand. - I spend a lot of time on these flashcards because I don't do simple word-word translations, those are quite useless in the long term. I include proper example sentences (which are relevant and "often" used in real life) in the flashcard in both native and target language and when going through my deck, I focus on translating the whole example sentence rather than just the word. - Once my deck contains no more blue (new cards) or red (difficult cards) I reread the book once in silence in which I focus on matching my memorized vocabulary with the story as I read, and once out loud for focusing on the pronunciation. Works quite well for me, especially with the example sentences as I try to keep them as relevant as possible. For example yesterday I was studying the verb "to fasten" in my target language (Polish), so rather than just learning "to fasten", I learn "Both children and adults have to fasten their seatbelt in the car". Anyway, just an example of what works for me, I'm still only at A2 level.
@okometosan274812 күн бұрын
Great advice! Thanks for sharing. Passive reading and exercises have unfortunately kept me stuck at the A2 level for longer than I’d like to admit. Time to take on a more active approach.
@SaraFlara6 күн бұрын
@@allthekingsbooks I love that you put together a sentence for the words you learn and get more words and context out of learning that one new word! It definitely sticks more when theres context or a story attached to it!
@SaraFlara6 күн бұрын
@@okometosan2748 yas! Do it! Rooting for you ^^
@ComprehensibleInput-px7vzАй бұрын
What a lovely, vulnerable, relatable video. Thanks so much for sharing this!
@hcm9999Ай бұрын
I hear people talking about intensive and extensive reading but I feel they fail to define exactly what those terms mean. Personally I use the terms "fast reading" and "slow reading". For any book or text, first I try to read as fast as possible without consulting the dictionary. I try to guess the meaning of any unknown word from the context. I simply ignore anything that I don't understand. Then I read again the same book or text, but this time consulting the dictionary for every unknown word I meet. The second reading is much slower but I only read the interesting or important parts of the book or text, I skip or ignore everything else. So the second reading may actually be faster than the first reading. They are not separate activities. I don't choose one kind of reading over the other. I use both kinds of reading for the same book. I read any book at least twice.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@hcm9999 I like the words you use for it - fast and slow reading haha. But it sounds like a great approach. I feel like rereading a book we always get so much more out of it!
@user-iu6wu3to7pАй бұрын
Thank you! I'm a Russian student and i have been learning English since I was six years old. And I still have a lot of difficulties like reading or speaking. Your video is really helpful 💗💗💗
@kolofonia13 күн бұрын
удачи, товарищ!
@hyesunccАй бұрын
영어원서를 읽고 싶어서 영어공부를 하고 있는 한국인입니다. 알고리즘에 떠서 우연히 보게 됐는데 한국어를 배우고 계신다니 반갑네요. 영상 잘 보고 갑니다!
@RotwoodАй бұрын
That's a great method. I had two different processes for the two languages I study. Japanese is a very difficult language to read at first, so I started with manga that had furigana before moving on to manga without furigana and then reading novels. I recommend contemporary manga stories -- I tend to enjoy SFF but SFF manga tends to use more obscure terms and dialogue than a slice-of-life manga would. For Brazilian Portuguese, I've been reading YA novels and Portuguese translations of Japanese novels. Both have a direct writing style that is compelling but isn't overly flowery nor complex (no way am I going to start reading Portuguese with Clarice Lispector). For novels, I've been reading on kindle with a similar method as you - reading, going back to words I don't understand and looking them up using the dictionary function. After reading a chapter, if I have the audiobook in portuguese, I re-read the chapter while listening to the audiobook.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@Rotwood reading along to the audiobook is a great idea. I don’t usually use audiobooks but thought of trying this with Korean to build listening comprehension on top!
@rockyraccoon126Ай бұрын
thanks for your video! it shall be helpful on my own language learning journey! :)
@eraeraeeАй бұрын
Thanks. This is a good video. And your hair is so cool.
@carc.sync0Ай бұрын
Interesting discussion. Recently, I began taking up German again, after having failed to progress beyond A1-A2 a couple of years ago. Since the closest languages I know to it are English and French, I am having trouble understanding texts due to insufficient knowledge of vocabulary. So far, I have been trying watching old 2000s Japanese animations in German, and the results have been good so far... after all, even when I don't know exactly what they're saying, with the images, I can reconstruct the meaning of what's going on.. more-or-less. With texts, it's been trickier. I tend to prefer fiction to non-fiction because, although I am not a literature person, I feel like fiction is more forgiving: With non-fiction, I feel like I don't enjoy the text unless I have a clearer grasp of what's going on, which means that I feel more pressed to use the dictionary. As for reading fiction, my experience has been that if a text is too easy (say, the fairy tales of the Grimm brothers), I feel like I don't learn anything, but if it's too hard or too psychological or too convoluted, I also feel like I don't learn anything. The sweet spot is hard to find: just hard enough to teach you something, but not too hard to the point where you feel 100% lost. Despite being quite above my current level, I will begin reading the Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown), and see how it goes. Since I watched the movie, and it's an engaging narrative, hopefully, I will make it until the end :D.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@carc.sync0 The pictures probably really help a lot. I always feel I learn new words quite well when watching a show due to all the visual clues. With fiction vs non fiction I think we may all have our own preference or one that seems easier. For me I found that there was a lot of descriptive vocabulary in fiction that I didn’t know and non fiction while at times has fancy words they were words I felt came up often in other texts, the news and sometimes in places like documentaries or tv where people tend to use bigger words. But hey if fiction is your sweet spot, go for it!
@user-xx6wn2qm2gАй бұрын
Great advice which I willnuse for Spanish and French books. I have a long way to go before I can do this in Russian.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@user-xx6wn2qm2g Awesome! Wishing you good luck in your French and Spanish reading!
@user-um7cf8nt1q27 күн бұрын
Thank you for an interesting, useful and positive video! Greetings from Ukraine!
@SaraFlara26 күн бұрын
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks from Korea^^
@HLD20217 күн бұрын
that's actually how i learned English, i wanted to read manga badly when i was a teen and at that time, there were very few available mangas in my mother tongue, therefore i was like ok, I'm gonna read these no matter what and it actually worked, and the thing is, exactly how you said it, reading is a combination of extended and intensive learning and generally extended tend to have more portion of the time around 80% or even more ( i mean, it kinda make sense as well when you look at it and realize, that you are learning couple of words per page and that's enough, after a book of 300 pages, with the approximate 3 Words per page, you've learned 900 words at the end; which is alot )
@SaraFlara17 күн бұрын
@@HLD202 I never thought of it that way because there’s many new words and many just won’t stick, which is normal. But you really do learn quite a lot of new words in one book!
@HLD20216 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlara as long as you keep that mind set that well sooner or later it gonna work, it will work
@SaraFlara14 күн бұрын
@@HLD202 Honestly thank you so much for saying this! I think this is something I really need to remember not just as a language learner but in life in general and this was really something I needed reminded of lately!
@HLD20214 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlara Glad that it was helpful, hope to see positive results
@cloudslady340020 күн бұрын
I AM OBSESSED with buying my favourite books in different languages…and sometimes reading it in the two languages at the same time…which is a huge jump between worlds while the text is the same the difference in language adds a wonderful flavour to any novel….everyone should try this method..! I went to the extent of having five editions in five languages of the same work of Dostoevsky…so my tip would be don’t change the style of books, try not to buy something unfamiliar on top of the unfamiliarity of the language you make it a double task..it is better to start with a simple famous literature that you already know…or you better try to swallow “how to win your boss” type of books ( self help )😅
@SaraFlara17 күн бұрын
@@cloudslady3400 I am so happy to hear that worked for you! I know a lot of people do this with especially with the Harry Potter books, but I just never got to into it.
@depotemkinАй бұрын
Good method, i will use it, spasibo
@McBruniinhooАй бұрын
Thank u for share your method😊
@SebastianGarcia-qo7wiАй бұрын
Omg the process you explain was the same I used when I learned English however when I started to learn Franch I totally forgot how overwhelming reading the first book was. I intended to do an intensive reading of Le petit prince but I ended up learning the hard way that it wasn't a book for beginners nor a book a kid could actually comprehend even though it's a "book for kids". Now I'm trying to pick up my first book in korean. The main reason I started learning korean are the fantasy novels of which I've already read a few in English so I know damn well there's no way I can read them in korean at my current level because of how complex they are. Do you have any books you can recommend me? Also It really surprised me how much I relate to your experience, even learning the same languages.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@SebastianGarcia-qo7wi Yea!! Getting started with Korean I forgot how hard it was because with French I was forced to keep going for my grades. For Korean I stick to essay books now because they seem easier to read than fiction. Plus they are set up where you could read each section independent of the others.
@satchycollins398518 күн бұрын
Thanks
@jaop528120 күн бұрын
I'm learning japanese but i'm low xp yet. I did the math and it would take me 1 - 2 months to read Harry potter 1 reading 2 hours per day. I wonder how long it takes to get good enough to be able to read a book a week, imma be challanging myself to read 52 books in next year.
@SaraFlara17 күн бұрын
@@jaop5281 I am also beginner at Japanese but no where near reading proper books level 😭 but I am wishing you all the best of luck 52 is a massive goal! I can’t even read that much in English haha!
@dshuffman32Ай бұрын
First comment!
@user-ty4nr8gz9v23 күн бұрын
You speak too fast and i almost do not understand, when I have a higher level I'll watch all your videos, I wrote this comment from my mind, please tell me if it's well typed ❤
@SaraFlara21 күн бұрын
Well understood! I’ll try to be more mindful of my speed for others who may be learners of English^^
@terrisseroseАй бұрын
How to find books in your target language for free? In America i use the public library, but the do not have and French books
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@terrisserose I am not sure if you will have luck finding free books anywhere. I wouldn’t know where to find any, but if money is a concern you could instead find blogs online in French or check out the French news and read articles instead ^^
@joannag1398Ай бұрын
check Abebooks, they have cheap french books
@steveshea6148Ай бұрын
France will have public domain ebooks for free on the internet. Wiki books or some such. They are typically reproductions of library books. Try Google books too. You'll want a dedicated e reader probably. You can also read news articles at Le Monde, France24, etc.
@steveshea6148Ай бұрын
the libraries in the US are generally useless except for English books, unless (possibly) it's at a university or a college. Plus you'll often want to mark them up , so it's much better to have your own paper book if a main purpose of your reading is learning to read in the language.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@steveshea6148 oh thanks for sharing I will also have to check this out!
@jnmldoАй бұрын
Hi! I love your video. What would you do if you were reading on a Kindle?
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@jnmldo If I was using a kindle whenever I didnt know a word I would save the entire sentence to my notes so later I could review all these example sentences.
@jnmldoАй бұрын
@@SaraFlara thank you so much for the tip
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@jnmldo Let me know how it goes if you try it! Ive been considering doing this but I prefer paper books 😭
@shil-e1cАй бұрын
This is good strategy. You have any recommendations for books to read in Korean?
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@shil-e1c I personally think 에세이 books are great because you can easily read them in small chunks, and they tend to be easier to read than a novel imo. The first book I read was 당신은 결국 무엇이든 해내는 사람, and now Im currently reading 여행의 이유
@shil-e1cАй бұрын
@@SaraFlara Thank you. Essays would definitely be easier to begin with. Getting books in Korean is not easy where I am, but perhaps when I travel to SK the recommendations will be helpful. :)
@user-fu4ek1mm2eАй бұрын
LingQ is a really good application to learn languages as it provides reading materials with audio.
@actuallyitsnoneofyourbusinessАй бұрын
👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@GustavoMontanha10 күн бұрын
Any suggestions on how to read a book in an electronic format such as pdf and how to annotate it?
@SaraFlara6 күн бұрын
@@GustavoMontanha tbh I am not really sure as I prefer to read paper. But if you can find a pdf reader that allows highlights maybe try doing that?
@GustavoMontanha6 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlara I mean, read a pdf on a tablet, highlight and annotate and have translation and AI tool to help you understand the text, find similar or relevant info on the notes you've taken before and on other texts you've read. Finding and linking your own knowledge and previous experience.
@SaraFlara6 күн бұрын
@@GustavoMontanha I have no idea if there’s anything out there that does that, but this sounds very similar actually with what linq does! I have not personally tried it but it may be something for you to check out!
@GustavoMontanha6 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlara just asking, that's the reason I watched your video. Thanks.
@malrichmand781525 күн бұрын
How do you find books to read in a different language?? I'm in the USA and I can't find anything I can buy in my target language. I can't even get anything off Amazon
@SaraFlara24 күн бұрын
@@malrichmand7815 what is your target language? I know Korean books can be bought on Aladdin and japanese books on kinokuniya website. I think if you have a kindle you can shop amazon.fr etc because it just downloads to kindle.
@malrichmand781523 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlaramy target language is German. I've seen that Kindle books are possibly an option, however I don't have a kindle yet. I was curious about physical books I could possibly get but I'm not sure how to do that without visiting Germany
@LUISUNBREAKABLEMUSICАй бұрын
i have read much more books in english than in my native language (spanish
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@LUISUNBREAKABLEMUSIC Oh that’s so interesting but very cool!
@pinkgirl110827 күн бұрын
Girl I am an A2 level and I wanna reach the B2 level in order to pass the DELF test can help me pleaseeee on how u did learn it ❤❤
@SaraFlara26 күн бұрын
For French? I honestly never took dalf/delf but I majored in French. But basically I learned French grammar etc for school for about two years then got thrown in the deep end and had to read a short novel immediately after and then slowly I had to read a lot of classical literature and write essays. I liked to watch a lot of French KZfaq and listen to music. Try to learn all the intermediate grammar and then read as much as you can and consume a lot of french content!
@pinkgirl110823 күн бұрын
@@SaraFlara can u give me some French KZfaqrs and what do u mean by writing essays ?
@McBruniinhooАй бұрын
Third comment
@PRINCESS-zz3wqАй бұрын
Hi i want to learn to speak and read in French and Portuguese.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@PRINCESS-zz3wq Hi! That’s awesome! Im rooting for you^^
@ars2604Ай бұрын
Hey what about if I understand more half of book does it worth to keep it going or maybe I chould choose another one? Im reading a comicbook.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@ars2604 Actually you want to read a book where you understand at least like 90% or more otherwise its super hard. But I recognized for many people including myself when they get started they’re somewhere between 75%-90% and just want to bridge that gap! I say if you like the book keep going! If you knew less than 50% I think it would be way too challenging and potentially discouraging.
@steveshea6148Ай бұрын
just go slow. you can't always easily find material that's just over your existing level , even though that's the ideal. recalibrate your frustration level and go by the amount of time you spend reading /decoding successfully instead of how many pages you can gulp down at a sitting. The dictionary will become a constant companion with this kind of reading. Thirty or forty five minutes is a complete sesssion for me., then it's time for a break til later in the day or even the next day. Just make your efforts patient, careful, consistent and regular and you will progress.
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@steveshea6148 Well said!
@DonaldMainsАй бұрын
Half a book is too low a comprehension rate. You should be understanding at least 80%. You need to find easier material.
@waelatfah1903Ай бұрын
thx it helped me can you recommend to me books in English that can beneficial to me
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@waelatfah1903 so glad it helped! Im not sure what books to recommend for English because its my native language.
@hotcrossbunionАй бұрын
Have you tried dual language books
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@hotcrossbunion I have but I just personally didn’t enjoy them. I feel like the stories are usually nothing that interests me and for whatever reason I don’t find the translation helpful, it feels instead I have to fight myself not to cheat and just read the English instead haha.
@user-lp8to4il8yАй бұрын
The best application to practice English for free?
@SaraFlaraАй бұрын
@@user-lp8to4il8ySorry, English is my native language so I don’t have much knowledge about what resources there are.