How To Improve Your Reading Comprehension

🔥 Learn languages like I do with LingQ: bit.ly/3DeWpb5
CC subtitles available in English.
Reading comprehension is crucial in language learning and in life. The faster we can read, the more quickly we understand what we’re reading, and the faster we learn. There are tricks we can use to improve our reading comprehension. I discuss them in this video.
0:00 The rich get richer and the poor get poorer with reading comprehension.
1:17 To improve your reading comprehension you need to read a lot.
2:14 How I'm improving my reading comprehension in Arabic.
3:42 For me, 15% unknown words in a piece of content is ideal.
5:32 Don't neglect your listening comprehension!
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#reading #readingcomprehension #polyglot

[@Thelinguist]

The app I use to learn languages -> bit.ly/3DeWpb5 My 10 FREE secrets to language learning -> www.thelinguist.com What helps you to improve your reading comprehension?

[@haitiancreolewithluciano]

I think with reading specifically, practice is key. Pattern recognition is what fuels the improvement.

[@ddmkvlog]

Good, it's very praiseworthy.. Do you know Hindi( National Language) of India ? I have already subscribed you Plz, reply. From Bihar, India.

[@johnharutyunyan2901]

In order to improve my reading comprehension skills, I learn a lot of vocabulary. I use vocabulary reference books. I pick up the ones with vocabulary presentation and practice tasks with answer key. I also use reading comprehension books with "before-you-read", "as-you-read" and "after-you-read" practice tasks, which help me improve my reading subskills, such as understanding the gist, details, references, inferences, the connection of ideas, and so forth. Certainly, I read a lot of fiction and non-fiction books with audio recordings, if available. I usually reread the same part of the text a couple of times, if it is hard to understand the first time around. The more I read it, the better I comprehend it without referring to any glossary books or dictionaries. Thus, I sharpen my word guessing skills too.

[@bed7610]

According to some neuroscientists; when you read, your brain is shooting signals to your vocal chords and the muscles are moving as if you are speaking, just at a level that cannot be heard. So people who are well read tend to be more articulate. I guess this applied to language learning means that when you finally get to the output phase, you can improve at speaking quicker than you might expect due to plenty of reading input beforehand.

[@Thelinguist]

Thank you for this. I even consciously sub vocalize when reading in a foreign language which is like speaking. Of course we do eventually have to start speaking and we struggle at first but the reading helps a great deal.

[@sk8_bort]

You are right, but that's a double edge sword, because you are subvocalizing with your foreign accent, which means that you're very likely to develop bad pronunciation habits. Some language learners have native pronunciation as their main goal and are obsessed with it to the point of avoiding reading alltogether until they've spent a great amount of hours listening to their target language and are very familiar with the phonetics of it. Most people do not believe in that approach though, as it slows down the language learning process tremendously, and makes it way more frustrating for most people. After all, you can always hire a vocal coach to work on your accent if that's something that worries you. Reading is an extremely powerful tool for immersion, so even if spending too much time doing it might have some slight disadvantages, it's still worth taking advantage of.

[@oswaldocaminos8431]

@@Thelinguist Yes, that's the way it works. Greetings from the underground.

[@eugeneproff5404]

@@sk8_bort I have a solution to the "reading with your native accent" problem. I read books while playing their audio version at the same time. I read half of a sentence ahead of the narrator, and when hear his correct pronunciation. It's like my reading is instantly corrected in proper pronunciation. Although, honestly I don't know to what extent does it help. Yes, my pronunciation gets better and better, and I get praised for it alot. But it is still not native-like pronunciation. Doesn't matter though. I don't have a goal to have a pronunciation indistinguishable from natives. Just want to speak clearly and coherently.

[@Bol61191]

Its a fact. When you noticed about the things, i realize thats there is available connection between inside voice or thought with outside voice. And when we read we not only also bold inside voice but also improving outside voice by moving the muscle. Reading is so powerful. Keep praticing.

[@jsjourney3295]

I’ve struggled with reading all my life. At one point I just avoided reading because the comprehension would confuse me and I would get irritated with myself. As an adult I realized I learn better by listening and seeing . Audible and speak text have really helped me. I forgot how much I actually enjoy reading when I don’t have to keep going over the same paragraph over and over again 😅.

[@jpknijff]

Great talk as always. As a language teacher working increasingly with reading over the years I see all the time how crucial it is, but also how important it is for students to hear me read (or speak freely) in the target language. Even people who believe they need grammar grammar grammar calm down when reading a nice book at their level and simply start to enjoy learning the language.

[@FOXMAN09]

I love how Steve answers the question in literally under the first 2 seconds

[@tedc9682]

Thank you. Very helpful. When I practice reading (Mandarin), I've been reading a sentence and then listening to it. I'll try listening to it first and then reading. That might help a lot -- if nothing else, it will help me remember those "I've seen it before, what does it mean?" words. As you said in another video, vocabulary is learning, forgetting, and seeing again.

[@AHMEDAIDROUS-rr7hj]

Good morning from Saudia Arbia right now, Let me say thanks God bless you for everything you do for us, You are amazing teacher ever

[@brettchristopher7589]

Thanks so much Steve - helping us all - you're awesome. - helping us all - Brett from the land down under!

[@rubentriana1151]

Dejo constancia que este es el primer video que pude escucharlo sin la nesecidad de subtítulos. Por fin siento que estoy progresando con mi inglés

[@Tehui1974]

I've been learning Spanish for just under 4 months, and I'm pleased to say that I understand what you wrote. 😃

[@haitiancreolewithluciano]

Love your videos. You're an inspiration for the community!

[@ShamsDawran]

Hello Mr. Steve I hope that you feel fine and great. I always appreciate your ideas and information about languages as well as your flair in a variety of languages. Thanks from your effective videos.

[@mojganzzarif5195]

Very informative, especially I like that 15% . BTW, it’s interesting that you are learning Farsi and I am a Farsi speaker. بسیار ممنون از ویدیوهاتون

[@pauld3327]

I think the best way to start reading in the target language is to read graded readers. And because they come with the audiobook, you can listen while you are reading.

[@anajaqueline8594]

Thank you for the video Mr. Kaufmann, it’s very important !

[@user-wj5tf5fy4v]

You are addressing the heart of my problem. That is amazing. Thank u

[@luzimarmendessouzavisintin9466]

Thank you for the video, you made me realise that I'm in the right way.

[@Tighris]

I find like 10% new words in LingQ to be my sweet spot. So I can guess a lot of words by context while still finding new words to learn. And I can actually enjoy the reading instaed of it being like a chore.

[@gamenailed9604]

Great advice. I suffer from exact problem with German. I can read relatively well now, but my speaking and listening skills definitely need a lot of improvement.

[@countryballspredicciones5184]

DUUuude how you will struggle with reading German if they have the same alphabet (latin) as your native language ? I struggled with Russian because it was another alphabet but I became fluent. Well take this comment as something positive to feel braver!

[@gamenailed9604]

@@countryballspredicciones5184 Thanks! To be clear, I didn't say that I struggle to read German. I mostly have trouble speaking and listening. In the video, Steve talked about how there are a lot of people who have that exact problem, which is something I can definitely relate to. Seems like good reading comprehension doesn't always translate to equally good speaking skills unfortunately, but I'm going to keep working on it!

[@austinlang6946]

@@gamenailed9604 listening speaking and reading are all different skills that have to be developed through hours and hours of practice. You’re good at reading bc you’ve read a lot. If you start listening a ton, all that vocab you have will start to clear up in the language. It’s the whole English example of going to and gonna. Ppl don’t say going to they say gonna. Once you get use to the blends in German and get better at listening it’ll hit you how much the reading actually helped. Good luck!

[@user-qo4fl3lc5m]

スティーブさんのyoutubeをよく見てたのですが、カナダ出身だからフランス語は自然に覚えたのかと思ってたら、高校の時話せなかったときいて意外でした。ワタシはフランス語が好きでずっとやってますが、なかなか話すのは難しいと思ってましたが、こちらの話を聞いてフランス語のyoutubeをたくさん聞くようにしてたら、いつの間にか言ってることかわかるようになってきました😃すごく嬉しいです。このまま話せるレベルまでいけるようにがんばります。

[@TheAlbaTr0ss]

Helpful! Thank you :)

[@fatp1987]

Thanks Mr Steven You have changed my lire

[@rosp8375]

Thanks so much Steve 🤩

[@JA-jh5gr]

Thank you so much for your time and educational information. I wanted to know would you recommend using the subtitles of your videos in my target language will it be beneficial?

[@sarahibrahim5748]

I'm glad that you're learning Arabic 😍

[@tomaslaskovsky722]

It's amazing that we live in a time when there are so many audio books available. And I have one question: What's stopping me from reading a chapter first and then listening to it at the same time I'm watching the text? :)

[@khalilahd.]

I just bought LINGQ to help with this in my Japanese studies and it’s already helping so much! 😊

[@douglasmendes6934]

How much ?

[@cadian101st]

My only problem with Lingq Japanese is the parser is atrocious, by far the worst of the major Japanese learning programs I use. I really hope they implement a new one

[@MarkKaufmannlingq]

@@cadian101st What are the biggest issues you find with the parser especially relative to other tools you use? We have tried different things to improve it but it's not that easy. All parsers seem to have their faults, but they each have different ones. Curious to hear what you think are issues.

[@cadian101st]

@@MarkKaufmannlingq it is way too overeager to split up words into meaningless gibberish. Not sure if it splits up verbs based on their morphemes (stem + auxiliary/helper verb) which would be fine, or if it just happens to do that sometimes, there doesn't seem to be a consistent way of doing it. Some hiragana words get split into their syllables completely destroying the word in the process. Generally speaking every page if not every sentence will require me to go into the sentence editor and fix things, even in the official lingq lessons

[@cadian101st]

@@MarkKaufmannlingq For example 食べましょう is split into 食べ ま しょ う, which is gibberish. I have not seen a single other program I use do this (Migaku, Language Reactor, Yomichan, etc.). I could understand or maybe even prefer 食べ ましょう, as that would be splitting the verb into useful parts.

[@Haydn109]

Thanks for all your help. I'll buy more books and e-books to improve!

[@valdirbergamobergamo5396]

Muito bom. Podera ajudar-nos muito. Muito obrigado. Alto nivel.

[@dewrimsirine]

We do need comprehensible listening to be better at language. There is no short cuts for sure but comprehens,ble input is key to open the door and learn faster and in a quality way.

[@Tehui1974]

I've been learning my target language since the beginning of 2019, and since 2020 I've done a lot of reading in that language. One thing that is difficult about learning my language, is that I've not found any resources where you can read & listen at the same time. It hasn't prevented me from consuming books in my language, but many polyglots, Steve included, recommend reading & listening at the same time where possible.

[@serhiileshchinskyi4058]

What language are you talking about?

[@Tehui1974]

@@serhiileshchinskyi4058 Māori, New Zealand. It's the native language, but not the dominant language.

[@mrschwinn4211]

Well said sir........ I noticed words influence your perception.... And guess what??? I need to read much more🔭🌌😉

[@AyanAli-vm9hl]

wow My teacher i really love your way of teaching.

[@hendrickx88]

I have found when it comes to languages with phonetically written languages like Spanish that watching with Spanish subtitles is a great way to do exactly what he's saying; when I do this generally I'm focusing on listening comprehension more but even so this is a good way to improve reading comprehension as well. Mandarin is a little more complicated but even this will help a bit.

[@sumangaming3338]

Sir I am from India. Take a bow from me 🙏🙏

[@rodrygo440]

Thank you 🇧🇷

[@thequinnsfamilyvlog6551]

Thank you

[@BARBITURICI00]

By now knowing languages, not only English has become necessary and it is also very beautiful and interesting. What is the right approach, how can I do to better study a language, step by step? I ask to the expert. Thank you.

[@acquirearabicbylistening]

Thank you very much.

[@Thelinguist]

I had a look at your channel. Very interesting. Are you interested in sharing some of these on LingQ with full credit to your channel. Please let me know at [e-mail].

[@haroldoseverinomiranda1424]

Obrigado

[@quiveryhurdle7175]

Es importante que uno está pensando y bibujando las cosas que leyes.

[@yagmurcamd]

The brain wants understood content to process. The more information goes in through the ear, the more sentences come out of the mouth. That's why we need to listen to our level. There are levels from level 0 to level 6. It is necessary to do conscious listening exercises, the text of which is in front of us.

[@quiveryhurdle7175]

Yes, the brain wants to understand any content that is useful to know. This is why people should read books they find interesting.

[@Learnwithrupesh961]

The more you read the more words you acquire the better you read ❤

[@austinlang6946]

I think reading also helps the learner learn to keep a longer narrative string. Which in turn will allow you to understand more nuance inside of the main points. That’s really the question you’re asking yourself when you ask “did I understand”. If the string of the narrative was never broken you know you understood it at least enough to have the right picture. So back to the point, reading does sooooo many positive things…..level 2 and 3 nat geo for kids are great, to have on hand. Learn a lot, lots of pictures and can get through a lot in an hour. Then obviously work into reg nat geo. Stories etc.

[@jeanwashington307]

Nat geo?????

[@austinlang6946]

@@jeanwashington307 National Geographic. It’s a magazine that’s has articles about tons of interesting stuff

[@johnsey2625]

Can someone please help explain the meaning of "static fortunes into the hands..." as noted below? The art may disappear into private hands, but its transfer will disseminate once static fortunes into the hands of various investors, collectors, and occasionally the artist.

[@patfromamboy]

I’ve been studying Portuguese for 8 years now and I’ve visited Brazil 18 times and I practice almost every day with my girlfriend who only speaks Portuguese and we’ve been doing it for over 5 years now but I still can’t read or converse because I have to translate everything into English to understand. Even the words that I know have to be translated. Vocabulary tests say that I know 13,200 words but I have to translate them into English to understand. Even “agora” and “aqui” need to be translated. How can I learn and understand without translating? Thanks

[@arjunsingh-so4jx]

Hi sir im watch your all videos

[@maufernandez4270]

thanks for listening, bye for now it's my mantra.

[@ariohandoyo5973]

could i read manga in english to start read? i'm not really a reader boy but i will try best to read on pokemon online,read any books or article that we love, i've read an article on pokemon it was awesome article the article is named CBR..😁

[@timothydouglas9474]

Have you tried reading the texts of theatrical plays?

[@solarpoweredafricanvegansp178]

My biggest issue is reading a paragraph and not remembering most of it. Or sometimes when I read, my mind is literally somewhere else. I want to be able to get to a point where I can read and digest 90% or more of what I’ve read. I’m hoping that reading is like a muscle I have to train. I just need to stick with the process and it will get better with time.

[@youtubeguy4539]

Same

[@HelenD-zr5kg]

I like your video 😄

[@razorrabone4098]

Steve, a dilemma I have when use LingQ is how much should I listen and read in one go. For example, if the text is challenging do you suggest doing one page on an iPad solely listening and reading without selecting every blue / yellow word? I find stopping to see the meaning of every word, interrupts the flow and I end up finishing an article and I don’t always get the overall ‘gist’. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks Paul

[@Thelinguist]

I doesn't matter. Whatever you do is good. I tend to go in sentence mode for difficult texts, saving words as I go and then I go back and read the whole lesson. Meanwhile I will listen to the lesson many times.

[@imoliver2822]

It's necessary to learn every single word or just words that occur more? please anybody help me.

[@captivatedlunt1895]

How should I be using LingQ??? Because when I’m using it I always have to tap the meaning of the word before listening to the next page.

[@KamolovNizomjon]

Great

[@Learnwithrupesh961]

The more you read, the better you read❤

[@Mr.S65]

My problem with Lingq is the scarcity of content and quality. Otherwise, it’s a very clever program. I study French.

[@Thelinguist]

If you are too advanced for our basic content you should be looking for content on the internet to import, easily done with the LingQ browser extension. If I can find content for Arabic and Persian you can certainly find content for French. Ask on our Forum for suggestions.

[@Thelinguist]

Here are some podcasts for French. www.lingq.com/blog/french-podcasts/

[@danrubin7261]

Oh my goodness there is SO much content in French. I'm jealous. I'm learning Hebrew and was very early on it with LingQ. I learned how to import a lot great content and I created--and shared--many courses. Some of these courses were from stuff I found and imported. Other content was from native speakers I hired to write and record short (4-7 minute) interesting content--and even include circling questions. However, when I recently went to help a friend find appropriate content in French was shocked by how much good stuff is there. Just takes a little while to get use to how/where to search! Good luck!

[@ashleyl3699]

i struggle to remember what i read in my target language even if i understood it 100% while reading it. i will almost completely forget almost everything that happened a chapter earlier. it's really discouraging.

[@jackuzzi5251]

I've always said if you can't read a foreign language without mentally translating as opposed to just knowing what is being written, there is no way you will understand the spoken word. My experience is read first then listen to the content for pronunciation purposes .

[@yagmurcamd]

If you think about grammar in the language you are learning, you cannot speak. You cannot think of grammar while speaking. If you want to speak, you have to improve yourself by practising enough. Talking is a reflex action. When using one's native language, one acts without thinking about grammatical definitions. The person speaks without thinking about the structures such as adverbs, objects, complements, subjects, predicates, and adjectives in the sentences he/she makes.

[@vikkiyates1934]

Reading seems more like a Chore to me.. Like too much work for my eyes..Any tips you can give me to like or enjoy reading?

[@jimmg4585]

Well, learning a foreign language seems like a chore for me, but try to read things that you like

[@Ygghkkjg]

Bach tsahel 5edmet el tamarin , a9ra el eslé7 , wala encore mieux , eketbou w eketbou men jdid version séhla

[@lorenzobenedusi6352]

Thanks for your tips :)

[@Trnaif_]

Guys , i am an english learner. I read for about 4 / 5 hours per day. I read Japanese (manga) and korean (manhwa) in english, is it suffice to improve my language and my reading comprehension?

[@user-fz8fp4nf6t]

As long as you’re reading you’re reading skill will improve gradually. However if you feel that reading those contents isnt challenging your comprehension skill enough you may want to find something more difficult or simply put more conscious energy into analyzing the sentence structures as you read.

[@Trnaif_]

@@user-fz8fp4nf6t thanks🙏

[@HelenD-zr5kg]

I clicked. on notifications

[@_Username__]

use your good skill to elevate your weak skill

[@oswaldocaminos8431]

Bed: You are absolutely right.🍀🤚

[@norabalogh5910]

I’m learning Hungarian which is one of those languages like Japanese that is structured quite differently than English. A different problem with Hungarian is that there are limited amounts of quality A2/B1 level material, so I’m finding myself reading material that’s definitely above my level. I’m finding specifically with Lingq that I struggle to understand and therefore have gotten into the bad habit in sentence mode of jumping far too quickly into using the translation. I’m tempted to ask for a translate immediately as soon as I see a new sentence rather than taking my time to really try to understand without using translation. Obviously it’s good to avoid this!!!

[@danrubin7261]

Don't feel bad at all! I think for difficult content this is completely fine--some of the time. However, I after do this ("ask for a translation immediately") for a few (or many) sentences, I then go back and try to read it again--sometimes in sentence mode and sometimes in page mode. If it's hard enough that you need sentence by sentence translation--then it's probably worth re-reading.

[@Felipesuv]

Is truth that when you reading so much, it better you English completely?

[@jimmg4585]

Yeah that's true

[@HI-et9bu]

Ich bin das hundertste Kommentar Lol Hallo Klasse 7a von jkg, bin Valeria Bei ms odza. Ich weiß das ihr da seid! Wegen KA morgen hahaha

[@pedrocavalcante5822]

My biggest challenge is reading in German.

[@_._.-]

To become good reading Read a lot Good vocabulary Listen more Listen to audio books

[@tarunarachmad3976]

1:06

[@tarunarachmad3976]

2:34

[@tarunarachmad3976]

0:39

[@tarunarachmad3976]

1:47

[@tarunarachmad3976]

2:50

[@tarunarachmad3976]

3:05

[@taiquangong9912]

Chinese reading is difficult. Don't know all the kanji.

[@falco123123]

What is your native language?

[@taiquangong9912]

@@falco123123 English

[@user-fz8fp4nf6t]

Don’t get discouraged, I can read thousands of characters now and I still have *a lot* of trouble reading content written for adults. Just trust in the process.

[@taiquangong9912]

@@user-fz8fp4nf6t hell I have a hard time finding a Chinese language partner.

[@user-br2dy7sp4h]

You learning Egyptian dialect

[@narsplace]

Try to get a friend who is willing to read out loud to you.

[@natasha6431]

Woaw, the more you get old the more you become handsome .

[@Zhalghas-YZ]

We Need Ukrainian 🇺🇦 & Kazakh 🇰🇿.

[@dgmario]

⛑️⛑️⛑️Hi there, SOS: i have a level where i understand 90% of news in english, but i don't retain the info, can you help Steve, maybe some others have this problem, bless you and yours.

[@tchernobalde8106]

Thank you