You have been learning a language for a while already, but in many opportunities, you get tired of grammar books, and reading them can be very tedious. Although learning and practicing the correct use of grammar for the language you are studying is important, it is an excellent idea to supplement your learning in ways that you find more entertaining and less repetitive, such as reading books that you like. Therefore, today we will give you several tricks to practice languages by reading; surely, in addition to having fun, entertaining, and enjoying, you will be gaining important knowledge for your language learning process.
First of all, our main advice is that you go and choose a book that you want to read in the language you are studying, without paying too much attention to the level at which you are now; remember that the context and the facts in the narrative you have chosen will take you in chain to the next page and, little by little, the path will become easier for you. We recommend you choose a book that you have already read in Spanish, since you will already know the story and the plot. You can even choose comics, storybooks or short stories, or a book of your choice in audiobook version. So, once you’ve picked your book, pay attention to the following tricks:
- Set an amount of text that you will read per day
Whether it’s a minimum number of pages or a short chapter, or perhaps a minimal number of short stories, narrow down the amount of text you’ll read each day. Once this is done, have a notebook in hand so that you can take note of the vocabulary that has caught your attention or that you do not know. This will bring us to trick number two.
- Use a dictionary at the end of your daily reading
Although it is a leisure activity, reading in another language will probably leave you with some doubts, mainly about vocabulary. Then, when you finish the amount of text you will read, use a dictionary to consult the list of words that you have already written down in your notebook. Then, you can check that list when you see that word that you did not know again, you will see that little by little you will have to translate less, and the knowledge will be fixed in your brain.
- Write sentences with the words learned
Once you’ve finished your daily reading and already have some new words added to your list, we invite you to write at least one sentence with each one. Take a few minutes to make up a few sentences with those words in your mind and then go to paper and write them down. It can be an excellent exercise to establish and fix the meaning and spelling of the words you have been learning.
Undoubtedly, there are several ways to learn languages, but surely adding the studies of grammar and reading for entertainment is a very good combination to master the more formal aspects of the grammar of that language, vocabulary and fluency when expressing yourself in another language.