What do you read to learn languages?

[Jamie (K)]

What kind of reading material do you use for learning English or some other language?

I notice that some people read thrillers or mystery novels to improve their language, but, believe it or not, those types of books bore me. Sometimes I read instruction books with a lot of pictures, for example about how to use certain computer programs or how to fix something around the house. Sometimes I use children's books about science or art (I don't usually read children's storybooks). I also read books on subjects I already understand, such as investing or linguistics.

What do you use?

[Torsten]

Hi Jamie,

I guess I'm one of those who read thrillers in English because they usually illustrate all types of human behaviour and they also contain vocabulary you might not find in textbooks. One of my favourite books in 1984 by George Orwell as it shows the thinking patterns of people in a totalitarian society. I also enjoyed Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World".

In addition to thrillers and dystopian novels I like reading about the history of certain countries and organizations. I also enjoy reading books about self-management and success principles. Sometimes I read descriptions of technical inventions such as the direct shift gearbox or the iPod.

And of course I read Alan's newsletter and follow our forum discussions.
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[Jamie (K)]

I also like dystopian fiction, and I like the memoirs of soldiers and pilots in the two world wars. You're right about fiction, though. It gives you vocabulary on behavior and emotions that you wouldn't get anywhere else.

One I was in the middle of my second reading of Brave New World (the first time was when I was about 15), when two goofy-looking identical twins came into my office for a business meeting with a beautiful, intelligent colleague of mine. My brain immediately thought, "Two beta minus males calling on an alpha plus female," and I immediately knew I had to put the book down for a while.

[hopeless_girl]

hi,
I'm reading now "Great expectations" by Dickens but not exactly to improve my vocabulary but rather to shorten my reading list from history of literature classes. From time to time I read for pleasure blogs or articles from CNN and The Guardian web sites.

By the way, what does "he was brought up by hand" mean? I'm confused with Dickens right now

[lost_soul]

I like watching movies, cartoons (in English of course, what the hell would I watch cartoons in Russian for ) and I totally get the kick out of it. They speak a simple language and the only problem I got is to make out the words. But here the internet comes in handy (recently, I found a site with the scripts to all the episodes of South Park for example - my favourite cartoon.) watching these is giving me vocaburary on how to deal with eveyday situations. (It sucks/it kicks a$s - the most memorable useful collocations)
Reading books gets boring when I have to look up words too many times. If I know the words and the plot is interesting I can read with entusiazm - I love reading. I'm especially keen on Stephan King's horror stories - when I was a kid some of them (which had been put on the stage) used to scrare the heck out of me (The thinner for instance).
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Alex

A native speaker of Russian

[Jan]

I read all books about history , a thing is a lot of good stuff is written over Atlantic in States, and American accent ( audio books only audio books with paper edition attached ) is a bit of unwanted in my case.

Regards

Jan

[Jamie (K)]

[princess]

I read this website for preparing my GRE test ever..

http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/1200.html

I think it would be somewhat available. But I prefer to read more English articles concerned in my major, like humanities. But now I can't find out many of them in China. To the contary, there are quite a large number of English fictions and novels. But I guess I won't catch the accuracte meanings of the English literatures because the words they used usually tend to ... how to say.. I don't know how to explain this feeling of mine. Anyway I just want to state that I am not skillful enough for handle the English literature translation. Either it can't brace me in daily life using English, so I rarely read it.

All in all, based on the shortage of vocabulary and the times, I don't have a broad range of choice in reading English. But I totally support the reading can improve our English, and it is the best way to attain it. Now only we can imitiate to the author, but also we were influented by a lots of different logics of observing to this world, analyzing ways to the problems and other insteresting viewpoints and knowledge. And thus is the foundation to enhance our English. Whatever which language we are using to show our minds, the importance is our insights but the language served as a tool for us. When you had addressed the basic problem in the Language, you'd better to consider about how to translate your minds into another language. It will spend a little times to rebulid this kind of system actually but really worthwhile.
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Life is milk and cookies.

[michauek]

Hmm the biggest problem for me is vocabulary, I suppose. I have not found any good method to improve it. I try using the Internet everyday and using some new words sending by some english web-pages to my email, but it's not so sufficient.

I like reading books in english as well (espacially R.Ludlum, S.King and other thrillers) and it's a good method to find new words there, but it's annoying when I need to check some words in the dict plenty of times while reading a chapter What's more, english books (books in the original form ) are quite more expensive than these written in my homeland language, so it's often a problem
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absens carens
Michal. I'm an english student

[Torsten]

Hi Michal,

In addition to reading books you should also listen to audio books. This is very important if you want to increase your vocabulary, it's at least as important as reading. Also, when you look up a new word in your dictionary, do you use an English/English one or an English/Polish one?
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Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[michauek]

[Torsten]

Michal,

The more you listen to English, the faster you will learn. As a matter of fact, listing to English on a daily basis is the only way of learning English. If you don't listen to English you will never really learn it. Yes, of course you can listen to the BBC in addition to other broadcasters such as CNN, VOA, Fox News, etc. On top of that you should listen to stories which contains dialogs that deal with situations you encounter on a daily basis. Watch DVD's in the original and listen to audio books every day. You can sign up with a service like Audible to save money. Remember that when it comes to listening, the "quantity of your input" is as important as the "quality". In other words: especially at the beginning it's not so important what exactly you listen to as long as it is authentic English.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[princess]

[Torsten]

Hi Princess,

Yes The Teaching Company is an excellent resource for educational audio books and if you are interested in a particular science or subject you should get some products from them. In addition, you can listen to anything you are interested in. Do you like fiction? If so, get audio books with stories you enjoy listening to. As for making notes -- this is really up to you. I have found it much more effective to listen to an audio resource several times so I can get in as much information as possible. What's more if you listen to the same phrases over and over again your subconscious mind absorbs them and they become part of your vocabulary. At some point you will notice that you have phrases in your head you don't remember learning.
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[princess]