Why Books are the Key To Learning A Language On Your Own
Whenever I am asked how I was able to succeed in many languages in a relatively short period of time, I always make a bow in spirit to the source of all knowledge: books
Kató Lomb
Learning a language is challenging. It takes a ton of time and consistency, and even then it is really easy to feel stuck. You can spend hundreds of hours doing Duolingo or taking classes only to still feel like there is this giant gap between you and actual fluency. It only becomes more difficult if you are trying to learn independently. Many spend a lot of time trying to discover how to learn a language on their own and end up feeling very lost.
It can start to feel like there’s a divide that’s impossible to cross. You may know how to say some basic expressions but the second someone starts to speak, everything you know seems to disappear.
It’s not uncommon to feel stuck at some point in your language learning journey. You may feel like if you moved to a foreign country, and you had the immersion you would learn but short of that it feels impossible.
But there are ways to learn a language quickly at home. All you need to do is simulate immersion by consuming content you love in your target language. One of the most underrated ways to do this is by reading novels.
Now if you’re like me I know what you’re thinking: “oh someday that would be amazing! I just need to get to the point where I can even begin reading”.
Maybe you have even tried picking up a book like Harry Potter in a language you’re learning. “This will be great! How hard can it be?” You say. But then you open it. “Wow, that’s a lot of words. And I know like six of them”.
That first feeling of being overwhelmed is often enough to scare people away. Looking at that first page is just intimidating. So why is reading worth your time?
Experts Recommend it
I want to introduce you to two very effective language learners who are widely known polyglots.
The first is Kató Lomb. Kató Lomb graduated with a PhD in Chemistry in the 1930s. However, she did not remain a chemist. Instead, she became interested in languages. And boy did she learn languages. By the time she died, she could understand 28 different languages, and professionally interpret in 10 of them.
Now you may assume she just had a natural proclivity for learning languages. But in fact, as a child, her parents completely wrote her off on language learning. It was a testament to the methods she discovered and her own interest that she learned so many.
She didn’t start by taking a lot of classes. Instead, she started learning on her own. So what tool did she use to get started? Novels. In learning English she jumped immediately into reading:
I started by intensively studying a novel by Galsworthy. Within a week, I was intuiting the text; after a month, I understood it; and after two months, I was having fun with it
She did not wait for someone to teach her how, she just started. And it paid off. She would go on to teach languages while just being one step ahead of the students. She fully embraced the idea that the best way to learn was to teach.
In her later years, she would reflect back on the best ways to learn and she would say this:
I have said numerous times on the radio and on TV that books, which can be consulted at any time, questioned again and again, and read into scraps, cannot be rivaled as a language-learning tool.
The second polyglot I want to mention is Gabriel Wyner. He is the author of an excellent book, which I suggest every language learner read, called Fluent Forever. This book is about hacking your brain to make language learning efficient and enjoyable.
He describes his own journey into language learning and shares his method for how to learn languages. I won’t go over his whole method here but it involves using spaced repetition with visual flashcards. He suggests working towards making those flashcards from content you would naturally consume. Novels, in particular, come up several times in his book:
Every novel-length book you read — whether it’s Tolstoy or Twilight — will automatically increase your vocabulary by three hundred to five hundred new words and dump buckets of grammar into that language machine in your head.
He suggests reading along to an audiobook and making flashcards out of words you don’t know.
Tools Can Simplify the Process
There are plenty of tools that can make your reading easier. Simply using the kindle app with the built-in translation features can make word translations quick to find. Tools like Forvo for pronunciations and Anki for flashcards go a long way towards learning. Audiobooks can lead to an even more productive experience.
If you are looking for a more advanced tool, we have been hard at work on Unchart, which makes reading easy by providing instant translations and access to a dictionary. We then make it easy to remember what you read by creating high-quality flashcards from books.
Progress Comes Rapidly
Books naturally contain a great deal of commonly found words. These common words will be picked up rapidly due to repetition. Each one that you learn makes the subsequent paragraphs and chapters easier to read. This has a compounding effect that makes a language easier to understand quickly. The first chapter may seem impossible but each chapter you complete makes everything easier.
This leads to an extremely satisfying feeling of progress. Where you feel like each day brings new levels of understanding and comprehension.
Vocabulary is Gained Efficiently
In addition to the common words, there are many words that will only show up only one or two times throughout a book. While you may not retain all of these, this provides a more broad survey of the language where you can learn vocabulary that is more specific.
Even if you don’t remember all of these right away it can start to build that first seed of recognition. That way when you see the word again you will feel a certain sense of familiarity that starts to build connections in your brain.
It Serves As Natural Recall Practice
When doing something like Duolingo you are seeing a small number of words at a time and quizzing over them. With books, you have a lot of vocab and grammar that you can process at your own pace. As you progress many of the words you will have seen before. This works to reinforce words in context much more frequently than quizzing would.
Rather than spending your time quizzing or reading textbooks, you are instead learning a language through pure exploration. As you see a word you look it up and learn what it means, this means you can replace your intense study with something more enjoyable. You are just having fun, and learning new things in the process.
Want to get started reading? Check out the Unchart website, download the app, or reach out and get in touch.
