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7 Steps To Reading Fluently In A New Language
by Nathalie Fairbanks
What's the nightmare scenario of reading in a foreign language? You sit there with a text, a notebook and a dictionary, moving from word to word, translating... and thinking, "What is this saying?" With a lot of willpower, you'll last about an hour each day for a week, and then you'll likely be ready to quit!
Here are a few thoughts to help you turn this into a fun and rewarding experience.
If you start reading with the objective of expanding your vocabulary (not some specialized jargon you need for your job), pick something that has a lot of dialog. I wouldn't go for the play that's written in verse--take a crime story instead.
1. Start with a book
Each author has his own style, and a "preferred" vocabulary. It's been said that an author's expressions, favorite idioms, etc. will all appear within the first 30 pages of a book. So if you make it through the first 30 pages looking up a few words you don't understand, getting through the rest of the book will be a breeze. Most of the vocabulary will be repeated and you'll feel like you're getting somewhere.
2. Start with a crime story
A crime story has the advantage of containing lots of dialog, plus the content is pretty down-to-earth. Perry Mason works great, or Hercule Poirot. Agatha Christie is a little more challenging.
3. Start with a translated book
According to Vera Birkenbihl, one of the best ways to start reading in a foreign language is to go with books that weren't written by a native speaker. If you're learning Spanish, consider starting with something that was written by an English speaker.
Yes, you'll miss out on a lot of the wonderful idiomatic beauties of the Spanish language, and you might not get to the Spanish thought pattern quite yet--but your sentence structure will likely be simpler if it was translated into Spanish and you'll understand what's going on. It's a trade-off. It doesn't mean that your next book can't be by a Spanish author. I just wouldn't start out with one.
4. Start with a story you already know
If you can picture the characters in your head and know what's going to happen, you have a tremendous advantage. All you need is to know how it's described and said in your new language.
5. Get a translation of the book into your native language
This is optional, but it sure helps! The most irritating thing when you're trying to understand what you're reading is to have to look up words. I'm assuming you're using an online dictionary, but even so... it gets discouraging... which brings me to the next topic...
6. Don't look up every single unfamiliar word!
This takes forever and is quite frustrating. Although it can feel uncomfortable at first because you don't quite understand what you're reading, it's worth it: read through the entire page/text/chapter to get an overview. Keep reading even if you hit a wall of words you've never seen before.
Identify the key words that come up again and again. You won't make it through the text without knowing what they mean, so look them up. Then, read the passage again. This should feel a lot better already!
7. Decide how much detail you really want to know
Decide ahead of time how well you want to understand the text. If you're mainly after general expressions and general vocabulary, knowing what's going on might be enough. You can always refine your process and pick up more words that you see repeated, but at some point, you want to simply enjoy reading the story.
You'll get used to guessing the meaning of many words from context, which is far more efficient than looking all of them up, plus it trains your "intuitive feel" for the language. In the end, that's what you'll need to rely on anyway!
© 2008 Nathalie V. Fairbanks
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