Hi!
I'm Emma from mmmEnglish.
Now you guys are always asking me
how to expand your vocabulary,
improve your grammar and just
sound more natural when you use English.
So today we're going to talk about how
reading English texts can help you do that.
Reading helps you to improve your English.
It sounds simple but reading can actually have
a huge effect on your language learning
and it can be really enjoyable as well.
I mean really, what's better than curling up on the couch
with a cup of tea and a good book?
For many of my students, reading English texts
is seen as a bit of a chore.
It's just something that you have to do
to study English, right?
Or perhaps the only texts that you read are the ones
that are in your grammar books.
Well I want to shake things up a little bit today.
But first I have a couple of disclaimers
that I'd like to make here.
The first one is:
If you don't really enjoy reading books in your
own language, then forcing yourself to read in English
probably won't be enjoyable either.
So if reading is not your jam, generally,
then don't force it.
But that said if you enjoy reading in your own language
but you don't enjoy reading in English,
well that's something that we can work on because
I'm going to take a guess and say that you're probably
reading the wrong texts.
Perhaps you haven't really found a book
that really interests you.
Or perhaps the books that you're reading are just
too difficult for you.
Reading as an activity is supposed to be enjoyable
so if you're sitting there with a dictionary beside you,
looking up every second word, spending five minutes
trying to understand a paragraph,
that's not fun.
That's studying.
So my point is don't let your pride force you
to try and struggle through Shakespeare
or even Jane Austen.
If you're just not ready for those books yet,
you're not ready to enjoy them.
Children stories or books for teenagers can be
just as entertaining and much more enjoyable if you're a
pre-intermediate or an intermediate level student.
So don't be ashamed of reading books that were written
for younger people. They're actually a brilliant way to
improve your English reading skills and to advance
your vocabulary
whilst actually genuinely enjoying yourself.
Reading English books
is not just for advanced English students.
But reading can help you to become
an advanced level student.
Now I've added a list of books that I recommend
in the description below
and I've separated them by English level
so hopefully that gives you some new material to enjoy,
some new books to read, right? Whatever your level.
And if you have a fabulous book that you've read
in English and you want to recommend it
to everyone who's watching, then please do.
Add the name of the book and the
author to the comments.
And if you're willing to share your English level, then
please do because it will help everyone else to know
what level of - what type of person can enjoy that book.
So I'm going to spend the next few minutes
trying to convince you about the ways that reading
can actually help you to improve your English.
And I'll also help you with a few fun ideas of what
you can read because I bet
that by the end of this video,
you'll be looking for something to start reading.
Now don't forget to subscribe to the channel
just down there. Click that button there
just so that you don't miss out on any of the lessons
that I make here.
This lesson is about to get started.
The first thing that reading will do
is help you to improve your vocabulary, right?
The truth is that trying to learn new words during
a spoken conversation,
especially with a native English speaker
can be really challenging.
It's difficult to understand everything and recognise
the individual words that are being used, right?
And native speakers don't always use the best
vocabulary when they're speaking, right?
They might naturally start using slang words or
words that just might leave you
sweating a little bit because you don't recognise them.
They might even just get a bit lazy and say:
"Can you get the, you know, the thingy?
Just pass it to me, the thingy over there."
They're hardly words that are going to help you
to improve your vocabulary, right?
And definitely not useful for writing emails at work or
taking exams or speaking in public, right?
Where you might need a higher level
or a more advanced level of English.
But in a book, the author thinks really carefully about
each word that they write.
They want to describe a situation in an interesting,
in a really specific way which really does push
your vocabulary further and it'll give you
access to a much more varied and vibrant vocabulary.
Now I'm pretty sure that most of you
keep a vocabulary journal somewhere.
Maybe you keep a notebook with you while you read.
That's a really great tool so that you can write down
any new or interesting words that you see
but don't let it disrupt you unless you really can't
understand the sentence without looking a word up.
Just try and understand the meaning,
write the word down and then look it up later on.
Practise using it in sentences,
read back over the text again.
All of these things are going to help you to remember
that word, remember the meaning and how to use it.
Don't forget that building your vocabulary
is a lifelong journey for you and also for me,
I'm still learning new words every day. You won't just
know all English words at one point,
you'll continually keep adding to your vocabulary
throughout your lifetime.
And reading is a really great way to do that.
Now for most of us, the brain remembers
more when it sees something.
Having a combination of visual and audio
is really important.
So without getting too serious or too technical here,
because I'm not a neuroscientist,
but the brain stores things in different places.
So audio information - that sound - is
usually stored in your short-term memory.
So things that you hear are stored in a more
temporary place. And visual information,
so that includes memories and pictures,
this is stored in a way that makes it
easier for your brain to remember it
over a longer period of time.
So seeing things on a page
can help you to remember them better than just
hearing the words. But doing both is great!
So reading an English book and listening
to how the words are spoken,
it ticks both of these boxes.
Now I've mentioned my good friends
at Audible before,
they've got thousands and thousands of
English books that are recorded in audio format.
Your favourites are probably there waiting for you.
Now the great thing about Audible is that you can
try it out for free using the link
in the description below
so you can get your first audiobook completely free.
And even if you decide that you don't
really want to continue with your Audible membership,
then you still get to keep the book that you downloaded
so I really recommend that you sign up and try it out.
Listening whilst you're reading
is like super-powered English practice.
Another benefit to reading English books
is that you're learning English in chunks.
So if you've already been studying English for a while,
you've probably noticed that it's full of
collocations and idioms and slang expressions.
Words that commonly appear together or even
change meaning when they're used together.
That is why you love English so much, right?
But these expressions and these word combinations
are so important to sound natural when you speak
or when you use English
but it's an impossible task to try and memorise them
or learn them on your own.
Impossible!
But reading lets you see and experience
how these words are used together in chunks
and in context, right?
Seeing these different uses over and over again
will help you to get used to them
and become familiar with them.
And you'll learn what sounds right and what doesn't.
It's a much more natural way of picking up the language.
The more you see different collocations,
the more comfortable you'll feel with
using them yourself, right?
Now another benefit is full immersion.
So think about a grammar lesson or even a vocabulary
lesson, you don't always get the full picture
of what's happening, right?
It's a little snapshot and you're probably learning
new words or grammar rules but you're not
usually getting the chance to experience them
within context and within culture, right?
Whilst those lessons are incredibly important
to learn and to understand the rules,
reading shows you what kind of people
use certain words and in which situations they use them
So it helps you to understand the nuances of tone
and formality.
You'll get to learn the culture that goes with
the language, right? It's an immersive experience.
Now for a more practical reason
to read English books,
let's talk about easier logistics.
You can read anytime anywhere,
you don't need to coordinate across time zones to see
when your book's available.
And your book
doesn't need to have a Wi-Fi connection either
unless you're downloading a new one from Kindle.
But you don't need a lot of money to read either.
You can carry your book anywhere.
I mean, I read my books on my phone now.
Books are always with me,
I've got a whole library of them, right?
I can read it for a few minutes while I'm riding the bus
or I'm waiting at the doctor's, I'm in the bath, whatever.
I mean you could even
read your book on the toilet if you liked.
I don't mind as long as you're doing it somewhere.
You're filling in that dead and wasted time in your
daily schedule and you're making all of those little
time slots worthwhile.
Now I actually gave some tips to help you
take advantage of this sort of
dead, empty time in your schedule
during this lesson right here where I talked about
creating your own English study plan so
definitely check that one out.
So I hope that this lesson convinced you to
pick up a book
and get back into the habit of reading in English.
Stick at it for a few months and I guarantee
that you'll notice the improvement in your English.
So the next question is: What should you be reading?
This genuinely is a question that you need to answer
for yourself because we all like different things.
You don't always have to read something
that's serious and educational because
all reading in English can help you to learn and improve
in one way or another.
In fact, reading different types of texts, some formal,
some serious, some fun, this is only going to help you.
So
to help you I'm going to give you a few little suggestions
You could try reading the news in English online.
Subscribe to an English newspaper
or something like that, just so that you're constantly
receiving the same text.
You could also take out a subscription
to an online magazine.
You could also find a blog about a topic
that interests you but I recommend that you sign up
to their newsletter so that you receive their blog posts
each week by email, okay?
You could even choose one of your favourite books.
Maybe one that you've read in your own language
and then read the English version.
But even better, get the audiobooks so that you can
listen and read at the same time.
Don't forget that the link to Audible is
in the description below so that you can try
getting an audiobook for free. Try it out, see if you like it.
But whatever you read, wherever you read,
you are improving your English
so just make a habit of it, okay?
Of course, I would love you to share any of
your favourite books or magazines or blogs
that you read in English in the comments below.
Share them with everyone who's watching
and tell us why you love them.
That's it from me today but make sure you
check out that lesson there if you want to
keep improving your English skills with me.
Or if you're looking for something else,
then check out that one right there,
I've picked it just for you.
So happy reading!