How to read a book?Answered
I'm not good at English. I need to read an English book to improve my English skills.
I always translate all the words I don't know, but it takes too long and is boring. So, I want to know how to read an English book like a native English speaker.
Should I skip the words that I do not know?
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3 answers
Hi, non-native English speaker here. If you struggle with so many words in a book that it's hard to grasp the story, perhaps it's a bit too difficult for you. It's ok to take it slow and start with something easier. Also, learning vocabulary is an essential part of learning English, so you better get used to that dictionary and keep it handy at all times. It can be boring at first, but it's a necessary process for you to improve and enhance your English skills.
P.S. Speaking from experience here, if you're a beginner, don't use an English-to-English dictionary. Find one in your native language and start with that. It's not fun when you search up what one word means and the definition is riddled with more words you don't know so you have to spend hours flipping through pages.
I would say to build up to the level of whatever you are aiming to read. Reading works designed for younger audiences might help such as novels. Familiarize yourself with many common words so that you can always rely on context to infer the meaning of the word. In addition, watching any television shows with subtitles in English will also be helpful. It is your choice what language the audio is in. If you listen with your native language, you could understand the meaning more. On the other hand, listening in English also could help with speech recognition. Lastly, pick themes/genres according to what you want to read. There are some books I could pick up and also not know many words and couldn't infer meanings. Have fun reading!
im a native English speaker, but i do this when im trying to learn spanish! what i typically do is when i don't understand. word or phrase, i try to make an educated guess on what it means. so like, if i understand the sentence save for a word or two, ill try to use the remainder of the sentence and other sentences to figure out what the word means! youve prolly done this before in your native language to gain vocabulary. if youre still unsure, just translate it. what i do after i translate it is i highlight it and write the word i learned a few times on a seperate peace of paper so i dont forget it. hope this helped :))
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