The famous linguist Stephen Krashen published a book called Free voluntary reading and he
claims that reading for pleasure in a foreign language may be one of the single most effective
things that you can do in that language to learn the language better but it's not gonna
be effective if you don't do it in the right way so in this video I'm gonna give you four
steps that will allow you to take books that you actually want to read read them in your
foreign language and make this an effective way to build vocabulary and learn your language
this channel is all about helping you learn how to learn languages in a way that's fast
fun and easy and I think that reading in a foreign language is definitely gonna make
learning languages easier and way more fun so the first thing you need to do if you're
gonna use books as an effective tool for learning languages is you need to find the right book
for you that means you're gonna have to find books that are enjoyable to read here I have
A game of thrones in spanish which I read because I like Game of thrones maybe you like
non-fiction books so I bought the four hour work week in spanish we also need to find
books that allow us to use comprehensible input which means that you should be able
to understand about seventy five to eighty percent of what you're reading but not everything
because if you already understand everything you're reading, it's not gonna help you learn
that much.
If you're a brand, brand new beginner to your language, you might want to pick up some children's
books because the vocabulary is super easy.
It's not difficult at all to understand that this says one fish two fish red fish blue
fish.
There is a gradient of children's books.
This is The Little Prince, which is originally in French, but you can get this in any language,
and I highly recommend it because even though it's for children and it uses very basic vocabulary,
it's actually really deep and adults can enjoy it a lot as well.
I also suggest graphic novels because they give you pictures, and you'll never be lost
as long as you can follow the pictures and it's a great way for being able to follow
along and learn in a foreign language.
A few weeks ago I talked about using plays or any kind of theater because they use very
short phrases and you always know exactly who's speaking and you can watch that video
I posted a few weeks ago.
I'm not gonna go into detail here, but plays are a great way to learn.
And more than anything else, the best kind of book that you can read are books that you're
already familiar with.
Here I have Harry Potter in French, Greek, and Spanish because these are all languages
that I'm learning, and I loved the Harry Potter books growing up, so I already know what's
going on.
And I can really understand from context, or just from memory what's happening, even
if I don't understand every single word, and that's a big help for comprehension, and for
building vocabulary.
And another important thing to remember is that shorter books are usually better.
You'll be more motivated when you see yourself progressing really quickly through the book.
And then you can go back and read it again, or you can move on to the next book, and this
is a big motivating factor.
And the last step in finding the book that's right for you is where you're gonna get it.
I find Ebay to be the best place for getting used books because they're really cheap.
I usually use Wikipedia to find the name of that book in the foreign language.
Then I go to Ebay and find the book.
And they can get shipped right to your door.
And you can't always go to the book store and find the book that you're looking for
in the foreign language unless you live in that country, but on Ebay you can get pretty
much any book in any language.
The second step in using books to learn a foreign language is you're just going to start
reading purely for enjoyment, just because you like reading.
And because it's a story that's interesting to you.
Then you're going to get yourself a colored highlighter.
And every time you run into a word during the story that you don't understand, you're
gonna highlight that word.
It's very important that you do not stop to look up the meaning of that word.
All you're going to do is highlight it.
That way you can come back later to look up the definition, but you're not gonna stop
and take the time to do it while you're reading.
You don't want to break the flow of your reading.
And this is a really important exercise that's gonna help you be comfortable with not understanding
100% of what you read.
I mean you have to get comfortable with that because you're not always gonna understand
everything.
And try to just highlight one or two words per page maximum, and preferably one word
every two to three pages.
You don't want to highlight or underline every single word you don't understand.
That's gonna take too long, and you're gonna get overwhelmed.
Once you finish reading through the book one time just for enjoyment, we're gonna make
a dictionary that is specific to you and to the book that you're reading.
You're gonna get an index card, and then you're gonna make a glossary that you tape right
to the front of the book so that it's always there for you to reference every time you
read the book from now on.
So to do this, you're just gonna flip through the book, you're gonna find every word that
you've highlighted.
Then you're gonna go to word reference.com or whatever website or app that it is that
you use for translating words.
You're gonna look up the highlighted words and then you're just gonna right them on the
index card along with their definition.
Then you just tape it right to the front of the book, and you'll always have this here
as a reference every time you read through the book from now on.
And the final step for learning a new language with books is you're just gonna repeat steps
two and three.
But, this time you have a quick reference to go to every time you run into a word you're
not familiar with.
And every time you get to a new word, you're gonna remember that this is a word you're
trying to memorize.
Now, don't go immediately to the dictionary that you taped to the cover of the book.
What you're gonna do is use this as a sort of mini quiz that you can use to test yourself
and see if you can remember that word.
These few seconds where you're actually exerting yourself, trying to remember the meaning,
it's proven that this short period of time is actually very beneficial in helping you
remember that word in the future.
So you're gonna take a minute and try to remember the word and if you absolutely can't, then
you flip to the beginning of the book, and that's when you look at your dictionary.
And of course, as you read through the second time, you're gonna get yourself a different
color highlighter, and when you're done with the book, you're gonna make yourself a second
dictionary that you'll also tape to the cover.
Read through this book three or four times, and you should be able to understand every
single word in the entire book.
And if you think about it, this book took me several months to read, and there's a lot
of words in here.
And I'm able to understand all of them now because I use this method.
So thanks a ton for watching my video.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or any suggestions for the other language
learners on this channel, please feel free to leave me a comment below.
Otherwise, be sure to like and subscribe, and thanks for watching my video.
We'll see you guys next monday.