How to Expand Your English Vocabulary with Reading

wanna speak real English from your first

lesson sign up for your free lifetime

account at English class 101 comm

reading in a foreign language is great

but a big challenge related to reading

is that you often need a high level of

fluency before it gets really fun and if

a book isn’t fun then you’re not going

to want to read it the entire point of

sitting down with a book is to enjoy it

and have a good time being absorbed in

the story or learning the information

and that’s just not gonna happen if you

need to look up every second word it’ll

take you out of the story and it will

feel like a chore like an assignment

from school where you have to read the

book for a class but there is a resource

that you might not know about that can

really help your skills bilingual books

in this video we’ll look at how to

supercharge your vocabulary with

bilingual reading this is a simple

solution that will make reading

especially at the beginner levels easier

and fun these are books that have your

target language on the left page and

your native language on the right but

how do you use it well it’s all in the

name you read a book in two languages at

once the language that you’re learning

plus the language that you’re fluent in

there are a few different formats for

bilingual books but the most common one

is the one previously mentioned you have

a book that has your foreign language on

one side and your native language on the

other it’s also possible to find stories

that are presented bilingually paragraph

by paragraph the principle is the same

but the information is just in more

bite-sized chunks so your eyes need to

travel less to read both text the great

thing about bilingual reading is that

you can quickly switch between languages

and the translation is presented to you

so you don’t need to try to distinguish

between the ten variants of a word that

your dictionary offers which brings us

to the main advantage bilingual reading

is great for building your initial

vocabulary when you first try reading in

a new language you’ll probably find that

you need a relatively high level of

fluency before you can make a strong

connection with the words on the page

reading is a lot of fun if you already

know about 80 percent of the words as

you can guess the meaning of another 15

percent from context and then look up

the remaining few words you do not

understand

but if you’re starting out you might

know only 10% of the words

that’s where bilingual reading can help

a lot here’s a way to use a bilingual

book read a sentence first in your

target language see if you understand it

if you do think about the meaning of

some of the key words then quickly

glance on the other side of the page and

check the translation this way you’ll be

able to have fun reading and learn

contextual vocabulary at the same time

let’s look at why it works well if

you’re learning a language at home if

you’re taking language classes then your

teachers sometimes supports you in a

similar way to the translated page when

you’re reading a text with your teacher

you can ask them questions whenever you

do not understand something they’ll give

you a translation quickly and can share

other ways in which a word can be used

but if you’re learning from home you

don’t have that advantage

bilingual reading offers the same

benefits as you can quickly check the

translation of a sentence and see what

each word means the main goal of

bilingual books is to bridge the gap

between the beginner and intermediate to

more advanced levels they can help set

you up to read real books without any

translations some language purists might

recommend you read only stories that

were originally written in your target

language but any book you enjoy is best

to encourage your studies use bilingual

reading to improve your vocabulary and

reading comprehension skills until you

get so good that you don’t need it

anymore it doesn’t matter what language

you’re learning bilingual reading works

for every language the principles of

language learning don’t change only the

implementation does you also don’t

really need too much knowledge at the

start if you like a real challenge then

you could even start reading some simple

bilingual stories without any prior

experience in a language however just as

with other language programs and courses

the more people who speak a specific

language the easier it will be to find

bilingual books bilingual reading can be

a great addition to your normal study

routine and it can give you an idea of

where you are in your studies and what

goals to consider but for even more ways

to learn a new language check out our

complete language learning program sign

up for your free lifetime account by

clicking on the link in the description

get tons of resources to have you

speaking in your target language and if

you enjoyed these tips hit the like

button share the video with anyone who’s

trying to learn a new language and

subscribe to our Channel we

new videos every week I’ll see you next

time might want to speed up your

language learning take your very first

lesson with us you’ll start speaking in

minutes and master real conversations

just click the link in the description