the simple system I use to read in 5 languages
So far this year I have read over 50 books and only 3 of them were in my mother tongue1, so I thought I’d share the simple system that allows me to do that.
What you want to do essentially is to play with three parameters, which are content, format, and existing knowledge.
Content basically corresponds to how difficult the material is. Of course, if you are a beginner anything is going to be difficult, but it’s also true that there are books that are objectively harder than others. I know that for me, a novel written in a very flowery language is going to be harder compared to, say, a self-help book. Reading a book that was written in the last 10 years is usually much easier than reading a book that was written 150 years ago. Reading most children’s books is going to be easier than reading, say, Crime and Punishment. I think you get the idea.
What we want to do here is decrease the difficulty. I usually start with graded readers written specifically for language learners, read a couple (or a couple dozen, depends on the language really), move on to children’s books or short stories, or graphic novels, whatever feels like a little bit of a challenge but still doable. And the more you read the closer you will be to the point where you can read most things you want.
Next: format or how the information is presented to you. Here we need to make sure, especially in the very beginning, that the format you’re reading in makes the job easy, or at least does not make it more difficult. Let’s look at some examples.
Reading a physical and having to look up words manually? Hard. Reading on an e-reader or tablet where you can look up words and translate sentences in a couple of clicks? Much more doable.
Listening to an audiobook when your listening skills are still lacking, so apart from not knowing some words you sometimes can’t even hear the ones you do know? Hard. Going through a written text where you can clearly see every word? Easier.
Reading walls and walls of text? Hard. Reading a graphic novel and using the illustrations as visual cues to help you understand the plot? Doable.
Again, there are so many ways to make the task easier for yourself: read an abridged version instead of the original, increase font size for languages like Arabic or Japanese if that’s something you feel you need.
Finally, something that’s going to be your friend is background knowledge. Basically anything that you already know that will also make reading easier. To give the most basic example, the higher your level is in the language (so, the more knowledge you have of vocabulary and grammar), the easier it’s going to be to read across a variety of genres and formats. But thankfully it doesn’t stop here.
Reading a book that you’ve already read in your mother tongue is going to make it easier. This is actually one of the most popular tips about reading in other languages, and as much as I personally don’t like rereading books, it works! Reading about a topic you are already familiar with is also going to be very helpful. I feel like this one is not being talked about enough, but I encourage you to pick a topic you’re knowledgeable about (say, house plants and how to take care of them) and try reading about it in your target language. I’m sure you’ll be surprised at how much you can understand.
So there you have it: three aspects that you can play with to make reading more doable, even as a beginner. Reading something that’s more difficult? See if you can read digitally, using tools like LingQ (that’s what I’ve been using throughout this video) or Readlang. Want to listen to an audiobook in your target language? Maybe you can start with a book that you’ve already read or listened to before. Here’s what it might look like (these are actually examples taken from my own experience):
As an advanced beginner in German who’s also tired of children’s books and graded readers, I’m currently trying to start reading novels. This means I’m going up in terms of difficulty, so I choose novels that are shorter, action-packed (as opposed to novels that focus on character development, for example), and I will read them using LingQ — an app that allows me to go at it sentence by sentence, translating unknown words and difficult phrases.
As a pretty advanced reader in Italian, I am now at a stage where I am very comfortable reading using my e-reader (again, it makes looking up words so easy!), but I’m trying to push myself to read more physical books. But even with my current level of Italian I still have to be somewhat picky: a 20th century novel? Sure, why not! A book written in 14th century (I’m low-key dying to read The Decameron)? I think that one will have to wait a bit (and when I do get to it, I’ll make sure I read it digitally!).
One last thing I want to mention though is that motivation is another huge factor here. Even if we consider all of the parameters I’ve mentioned before, reading can (and most likely will) still be challenging and what often moves me forward is my desire to be a reader in a certain language. Likewise, I sometimes (not too often) will go for a book or a format that I know I will struggle with, just because I think reading it is going to be worth the struggle.
To be more precise, I've read 55 books, out which 3 were in Russian (my mother tongue), 5 in Spanish, 25 in Italian, 6 in German and 16 in English.↩