How to Read 1 Million Words a Year in Your Target Language

🔥 Learn languages like I do with LingQ 👉🏼 bit.ly/43DqGKW
CC subtitles available in multiple languages.
📚 Elon Musk allegedly reads 2 books a DAY! That's over 37 million words a year! (For comparison, the average person finishes only 14 books a YEAR.)
Most of us will never get to Elon's reading volume, but we language learners should at least aim for the attainable goal of reading 1 million foreign language words a year (or roughly 1 book a month).
In this video, I share why reading is so important in language learning and my best tips to get more (and BETTER!) reading practice.
⏲️ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Elon Musk & Warren Buffet's Daily Reading Rate
0:38 - Average Person's Annual Reading Volume
1:03 - Reading in a Foreign Language
2:26 - Read at Least 1 Book a Month
3:14 - Build "Phonemic Awareness"
4:30 - Connect Audio with Text
6:00 - Choose Interesting Content to Read
7:53 - Read Books in Multiple Formats
9:08 - Ignore the Words You Don't Know
10:22 - Advanced Learners Should Read a Book a Week
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ℹ️ ATTRIBUTIONS:
“Bookshelf Roald Dahl.jpg “ by solarisgirl is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

[@pomperidus]

Nothing related to this video specifically but I would like to thank you Steve for the inspiration. I'm a Frenchman learning German (and English), your tips and general philosophy help me a lot. At 27 years old, seeing an older guy being so optimistic and enthusiast about learning Persian is a great example of a healthy growth mindset. Many of us can feel old at even 25, 30, 40 to start learning a language, to play an instrument, pursue a new degree, limit ourself confusing late and too late, believing we either have the skill or not. You give us frequent reminders that this is not true at all. Every passing year means new words and new books, more practice, a lot of improvement, so time is an ally not an enemy. And you do not sugarcoat the process neither, you cannot learn anything hard in a few months, the later you begin a language the more your accent will be noticeable etc. So no toxic positivity, no fake promises, just a balanced and relaxed approach to acquiring difficult skills with time. It helps in a lot of areas of life. Merci pour tout! Have a nice day

[@transmathematica]

I have just started my seventh year of learning Mandarin. Yesterday I crossed the one million characters mark but I reckon I can comfortably read a book a month. A book is about 200,000 characters or 100,000 words so one million words a year is achievable. To encourage all the beginners out there, I would say this: the first million is the hardest!

[@fabiothebest89lu]

Have you used LingQ for long time for acquiring new words in Chinese?

[@masamangtao6417]

I can't believe that the average person reads 14-15 books a year

[@santiagogonzales946]

When I began studying English, I began with anki and watching contents with subtitles on, until I found your channel, I have been doing all of what you say in your videos, i dropped anki for it was so time consuming and not that useful The key is just like you said, a lot a listening and reading

[@Thelinguist]

Wonderful!

[@ryandjacobs1000]

I heard somewhere that if you read 30 minutes a day in your target language at a decent pace (i.e., not worrying about all the words you don’t know), you’ll read about a million words in a year.

[@pauld3327]

True even if you read slowly. 100 words/minute * 30 minutes * 350 day = 1 million words

[@estrafalario5612]

If you are learning a new language, during the first months you won't read 100 words/minute, so maybe you need one hour a day to achieve it (it's my case with german and was with Romanian too), but the overall message it's true. You don't need years studying 2 or more hours a day to get to the point!

[@eltonluz94]

And will understand shit.

[@uncreativepanda]

@@eltonluz94 Maybe at first, but your comprehension improves over time - at least that was my experience.

[@mattstone8111]

Thanks for the reading focus, Steve. Krashen really convinced me that reading (books that is, I think reading sloppy social media comments with mistakes over and over again probably hurts one's language abilities), is indeed a supranatural language learning tool! From the start my goal has been to read and fully understand 10k words per day. It has taken me over a year to conistently reach 6k words per day, and it gets easier and more fun every day, and I can feel my skills actually accelerating the farther I go.

[@channelnumber52]

Social media comments is how people actually communicate though. Reading books is obviously good. But, don't forget that in regular conversation, people do speak incorrectly and use slang you aren't going to find in a lot of books.

[@mattstone8111]

@@channelnumber52 I didn't forget. I think it's important to avoid casual, improper use of language and stick to consuming it primarily in its peak form if your goal is to speak the highly educated version of your target language. It's why so many non-native English speakers have way better English than your typical Jerry Springer guest. I've never heard a correct past participle spoken on that show, lol.

[@AlinefromToulouse]

@@mattstone8111 in the beginning, in particular, reading comments is useful, a lot are in the normal proper use of the language and we learn many words and idiomatic expressions. It is motivating because we want to know what they say, curiosity is one possible reason why some are interested in learning languages. I don't see any contradiction between reading comments by ordinary people and books, variety in the contact with the language and being open are positive.

[@mateusmontini797]

The edition and the structure of the videos is improving so fast! Congratulations 👏🏻

[@Thelinguist]

Glad you like them!

[@juliuscaesar1573]

@@Thelinguist My problem is that if I even read 1 page in English I easily get 6-7 new words , then on even reading 20 pages I acquire 130+ new words . How to memorize so much words ? What should I do ?

[@benja003]

​@@juliuscaesar1573you don't have to, when you see a new word, you search the meaning, then when you find the word again you try to remember the meaning, if you don't remember the meaning yet, search it again, there is nothing wrong with it, but try to remember it before searching for meanings, and like this you will see again the word and you will be going to get familiar with the word and you will REMEMBER it, not memorize it. I understand it like this, if I'm wrong please correct me.

[@rossmansfield4491]

1 book a week does limit you to short books. I recommend long books too if you are interested and enjoy reading it. Just finished a book in Chinese with 500,000 words and it took me 4 months. Far more than 1 week, but still completely on track for the 1 million per year goal

[@Dushyant-lc1mn]

You're my Idol, I'm learning Chinese only for the sake of reading a book in Chinese. It's about 5 Million words long. I hope to get to your level in 3-5 years :) where I can read other smaller books to reach fluency before moving on to the main thing.

[@rossmansfield4491]

@@Dushyant-lc1mn Good luck! I've been studying for less than 5 years so it's definitely achievable. You can normally find any book by searching the name with "第一章" or/and "在线阅读" and read it online or find an epub file. What is the book you're looking to read? I can recommend things that are similar maybe because I've read quite a lot.

[@Dushyant-lc1mn]

@@rossmansfield4491 It's named 蛊真人, but I don't think I'll need to read any books in the next few months or so. I plan on getting fairly comfortable with the characters (which I'm completely brand new to). Currently, I pretty much only understand the spoken language (to a very small extent). It'll probably take me til 2025 to even begin thinking about books. Thanks for your recommendations though :)

[@bzylarisa]

I usually read 12 to 20 books a year in three of my target languages. LingQ is so helpful when I want to read a book in my weak languages.

[@NaturalLanguageLearning]

I speak +10 foreign languages fluently. I learned them all mostly by reading and listening. Memorising vocabulary helps speed up the process.

[@loboguarana709]

I'm learning my 1st foreign language (English), I have been do for about one year, but it is hard for me to speak yet. Actually I never practice before , hence I start a few days ago speaking with chat gpt (cuz I'm a little bit shy and I feel more comfortable with it). Do you have some tips to me? I just focused on get vocabulary, listening and reading in my journey learning English. (I think about continue with this hobby and someday speak ten languages like you 😃. I feel to learn Japan's language or french after English) I'm 17 years and I'm from Brazil, nice to meet you!!

[@loboguarana709]

I'm learning my 1st foreign language (English), I have been do for about one year, but it is hard for me to speak yet. Actually I never practice before , hence I start a few days ago speaking with chat gpt (cuz I'm a little bit shy and I feel more comfortable with it). Do you have some tips to me? I just focused on get vocabulary, listening and reading in my journey learning English. (I think about continue with this hobby and someday speak ten languages like you 😃. I feel to learn Japan's language or french after English) I'm 17 years and I'm from Brazil, nice to meet you!!

[@wesleyoverton1145]

Happy to be a LingQ librarian for Greek. I'm trying to get to 60k+ known words in Greek on LingQ. I would already be there if you took into account my reading outside of LingQ since I read the entire bible paperback in Greek.

[@angelcake88888]

That’s impressive!!! I have such a hard time reading in Greek. I can read simple passages well but when it gets to actual books or the transcripts for the ted talks on there I feel like I have to look up every other word 😢

[@USHISTORYBUFF]

The Bible is a terrific language learning resource. I read mine in Spanish. What is particularly useful is to have an accompanying audio version (I use the version available through Bible Gateway). Take care. I wish you well on your language journey.

[@wesleyoverton1145]

@@angelcake88888 Yeah Greek is definitely an uphill battle with Vocabulary. I totally know the feeling, just keep with it and eventually it will get really fun. What stage of Greek learning are you at?

[@USHISTORYBUFF]

@@Daviddaze Thanks for the tip!

[@ingesprekmetjou]

Hi Steve, thank you so much for your opinions about learning a language. I use your strategy at learning English especially by reading books and listing to podcast on the roads. I'm so glad to watch your videos and learn about te language and the best way to improve. I'm watching your videos for 1,5 years, read books generally a book a month. I think I'm now at listening and reading between b1 and b2. I'm enjoying the process and hoping that I about 1,5 year reads level c1.

[@ntitpascal8413]

-Thank you for sharing.

[@carloseduardonaranjosuarez5917]

Thank you very much Steve

[@olivermiller2013]

This is very interesting. I must admit I like shorter text and I always like to understand the words. So online content fits better for me, because I don´t lose the time you mentioned for getting the translation. Me helped as well looking a lot of videos in English (I come from Germany) to get used to how the people are speaking, the differences between countries and how they use the language. It is a bit different to serious literature, where you have more formal words and sentences. But it is also useful to read books (I like them online because of the fast translations). I started some months ago Spanish and my biggest mountain are the conjungations, it is really hefty stuff to cope this and it is far away that I have a clue. I can do present well, but after this it gets complicated. If I take your short stories ( I´m a bit below 40) you have so many different times that I recognise the word, but in 50% I do not recognise is it past, future, whatever. I come more and more to the conclusion to spend a bit more time with the different forms. With only reading something I have not the feeling that I will ever have a chance to learn it good and feel save using it.

[@Capybarins]

Steve, you're my daily motivation, with your advice, your tips, I could learn English to b1 just for several months through watching your videos! thanks a loooooot

[@gabriellawrence6598]

I seriously doubt Musk and Buffet to read those amounts. Other than that, couldn't agree more with the rest.

[@carolmiranda6128]

I really like your videos, thank you for sharing. I will try to watch all of them! I’ve been learning English, and I gonna tell you, it’s not easy for me. I’m trying though.

[@Foolseverywhere]

Been learning Greek for 7 months now, in only 4 months using Lingq, 711435 words read. So yes, it's doable.

[@Thelinguist]

That's wonderful! Καλή τύχη!

[@angelcake88888]

You’re doing awesome!! I need to catch up

[@mathainoellinika]

Μπράβο σου!

[@Foolseverywhere]

Έχω ξεπεράσει το ένα εκατομμύριο λέξεις τώρα 😌

[@gamingwithpurg3anarchy157]

You are going crazy at it! You must have flourished!

[@esraamohamed3650]

Steve Kaufman I hope to become a polyglot like you, you are inspiring, I follow you Egypt ❤😊

[@Thelinguist]

That's great to hear! You definitely can if you keep at it.

[@estrafalario5612]

490.548 words after just 6 months and 1 week. Less than 1 hour per day on average. So yes, it's completely possible!

[@Tehui1974]

Good video Steve. I admire your tenacity and diligence in trying to learn Persian.

[@adam91jr]

I love the video. Is there much difference in effectiveness to reading aloud to reading silently?

[@Thelinguist]

📲The app I use to learn languages 👉🏼 bit.ly/43DqGKW 🆓My 10 FREE secrets to language learning 👉🏼 www.thelinguist.com ❓How many books do you read a year in your target language? What is your annual word goal? Write your reading goals below for accountability.👇🏼

[@barrysteven5964]

I really love Nordic crime books like Jo Nesbø, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Jørn Lier Horst etc. I don't speak any of those Nordic languages well enough to read them in the original but I've been reading them in Romanian. I thought as I have to read them in translation anyway I may as well read them in the language I'm learning rather than my own. I'm actually reading 'Sapiens' by Harari in Romanian at the moment. I read it first in English (my language) a few years ago. I find a lot of books in the Apple Book store and read them on my mini iPad.

[@JhoferGamer]

would you consider learning norwegian to get the full experience from some of these authors? Usually books are written better in the native language

[@rebelcat9956]

Right now I am reading Coraline, I'm doing this for myself and for my students, I think it's a very cool book but it's very difficult at the same time; I'm enjoying it.

[@rryase]

Over the past decade, particularly with online audio becoming available, language learning resources in the States has greatly improved in accessibility. I remember beginning to learn a language and text + audio were always seperate or audio non-existent. When I studied abroad in China, I was so impressed that every learn Mandarin book I could purchase had an accompanying CD. Nowadays I don't see the point of a resource that does not have accompanying audio.

[@LanguageswithErman]

Inspiring...

[@danaso2567]

Fully agree with this advice, I also told friends and people I interview for jobs if they struggled with fluency in English they should read every day before the interview.

[@EnglishwithSam685]

Steve u r a kind soul ❤

[@johnParis]

It's nothing new to me but it relates to what I'm doing now. I'm a big fan of Shakespeare. In fact, I'm a Marlovian, but that's another matter requiring a protracted discussion. Back to the topic. I'm attempting to translate Shakespeare into French. Not contemporary French but of Shakespeare's French contemporaries. I've given up on iambic pentameter translation (which is probably impossible) but still, my efforts are a bit, shall we say, comedic and tragic? My French is B2 which is problematic. I do know someone who teaches at the Sorbonne who claims it would also be difficult for an academic to translate. The one benefit is that my French is improving which has allowed me to read quicker.

[@simonr-vp4if]

For learning Chinese, is it beneficial to subvocalize when reading? I seem to be able to read well with no inner voice, but I'm wondering if I'm foregoing some of the advantages of reading, like phonemic awareness and getting practice with pronunciation of each word.

[@eduardoestrada4545]

I'm reading comics in english I think it could be helpful for me I'm picking up new words and I think now I'm able to understand some of the slang that they use on the comics

[@tobiasu1117]

For now I have been reading 1 book a month in Japanese. Will try to step it up to 2 books a month in the future. Thanks for the video!

[@zamooti4505]

If you don’t mind me asking, where are you getting the books from?

[@nr655321]

I speak 4 languages. My secret? Reading, every day, for 2-3 hours. Last week I did mostly Polish and some English. Next week will have to be a mix of French and Japanese. Coming up with things to read can be difficult, to be frank. It's especially tough with Japanese, as it's painfully set in its ways and values predictability over originality.

[@rryase]

Which languages? How long did it take? Have any resources to share?

[@michelgolabaigne595]

Merci Steve de nous encourager à continuer à lire toujours plus. Au fait, avez-vous lu ce livre de Stanislav Grzesiuk, qui est brièvement apparu à l'écran ?

[@eightyeightski]

It’s funny that you post this video today because I have been thinking about what will happen when I reach one million words in polish for the past couple of days now lol

[@Thelinguist]

Ha ha, fun timing! Great that you're learning Polish, too.

[@eightyeightski]

Polish was actually the first language I spoke, both my parents are from Poland, but I lost it when I learned English for school and never kept up with it. I decided to try relearning it 9 months ago and it’s been super fun!

[@user-qs1fq8zu3r]

I'm learning English, I really like reading. But I can read only adaptation books now.

[@martach.7605]

Grzesiuk - cudownie! 😊 You know, I have a problem with paper books... when I'm reading them I keep focusing on words I don't know and I start underlining, checking up in a dictionary and so on. It pisses me off everytime, cause it makes my reading hihgly unenjoyable 😢 That's why I switched to audiobooks. I'm not so fond to stop everytime I hear an unknown word and I just go with the flow.

[@steveshea6148]

Try underlinerlining or boxing words in for about a page or two, while continuing forward. You will find you sometimes can barely understand a sectionbut then in the next sentence or paragraph you may go good lengths understanding almost everything. Then read backwards and look up at least some of the words, as many as you have energy for. Or even just some of them . If you want to know 100 percent what is in every sentence and you don't have a large vocabulary reading will be exhausting. Try just looking up enough to where you can get the meaning of the sentence, and leave the rest. In literary writing, adjectives may be pulled one upon another to describe an item...understanding just one in the chain may be enough for you to understand the outline of the thought and may be enough for your purposes at the moment.

[@lucasmagalhaes3995]

I'm learning English, then I am reading something in English everyday. This is helping me to learn more.

[@elhammahintorabi3057]

Thank you for a helpful video 🙏. I'm Persian and graduated from the Persian literature. I'm all here if you need any help 🙌

[@PaleoalexPicturesLtd]

Currently in the 90-days intensive Spanish challenge. My goal is to read 20.000 words (~40 pages) a day at least for the first two months, which should add up to 1.2 million. I have held this pace for a week now. Then I intend to start activating the language, but I am still unsure how

[@jdamsel8212]

Where did you find books? I want to do the same with Portuguese.

[@namename2273]

That would be very impressive if you manage it, I was to reach 20k words yesterday but only because I had already read the book before and it still took me like 4 hours

[@xhv222]

​@@jdamsel8212there is z library and similar sites

[@Colorless2002]

😍😍خیلی خوشحال کنندست که در حال یادگیری فارسی هستین😍

[@dklee123]

I actually was using LingQ to read a million words a year in Swedish for a couple years. I would import ebooks. LingQ slices those into 2000 word lessons on import. I'd just read at least two lessons a day. Easily over a million words a year. I can speed read in Swedish now. Still having gaps in my speaking, though.

[@Doniyorbek7532]

Thanks for your attention 🎉

[@martakowal4768]

Hello from Poland❤ reading in Polish, German, English and Spanish. We have here a great app called bookbeat where you can listen to audiobooks in 28 languages. Using it everyday for my learning. Milego dnia❤

[@aciuschristophores7789]

Mr. Kaufmann - if we're dedicated to 1 language, and I'm currently at B1 or B2 level, would you recommend fully ignoring the words I don't know if I can still understand it overall from context clues? Or quickly looking up online built-in dictionaries? What is ideal?

[@putinisakiller8093]

How important is that word for you? I ignore most unfamiliar words, but sometimes I really have to understand what I am reading.

[@Jhordanshmu]

These are two different kinds of reading and both of these are important in their own right, but they serve very different purposes. The kind of reading that takes place when you're going through with a dictionary trying to piece the sentence together isn't so much about standard reading comprehension in my opinion, it's just a way to acquire new words based on context. This should be done very slowly and the bulk of your attention should be on how the new word fits into the sentence The other kind of reading (skipping over unknown words) isn't about discovering new vocab. Instead it's about developing your reading ability in your target language. The goal in this kind of reading should simply be to read, not necessarily to acquire any new vocab. Think of this kind of reading as if you're reading in chunks rather than individual words, piecing it all together to gauge some cohesive meaning from the sentence(s). Also consider how you read in your native language, you wouldn't go word-by-word and hit a roadblock when you see something you don't know. Instead, you're just reading it and able to piece it all together even if you don't know a specific word. This is the skull that this kind of reading is suppose to develope.

[@putinisakiller8093]

@@Jhordanshmu The kind of reading depends on how many words you "understand". If you know over 95% words in a certain text, reading is usually fluent. That's why you should read texts about your current level. It's faster and new words are being acquired gradually.

[@cesar.sandovalcolon]

Read Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time in your target language and you'll read 1.2M+ words a year for sure!! 😁😁

[@TboneIsRogue]

How do you find audiobooks that come with text? Do they normally come with the text version as well?

[@tommyhuffman7499]

It will depend very heavily on the language you're studying and the country you're in. For Russian in America, I toggle between Google Books and Amazon. It's annoying, but eventually I find something with both audio and text.

[@TboneIsRogue]

@@tommyhuffman7499 hey thanks for the response! I'll give that a try. Much appreciated 😊

[@freman75]

Do you know how to generate Arabic subtitles for Arabic tv series?

[@Mistcurve]

Steve, I don't know if you read these comments this late after a video is posted, but I have a question! Do you think listening to an audiobook "counts" as reading a book? I find it very hard to set the quiet time aside to read, so what I end up doing is listening to my audiobooks in the car, while I'm cleaning, etc. I have no doubt its helpful, but do you consider it a book read? Thanks!

[@Thelinguist]

Audiobooks absolutely count as “reading.” That said, languages ARE processed differently through vision and sound so it’s important to practice BOTH listening to audio and reading texts. The latter also helps build context and reveal gaps in your understanding you might miss while listening.

[@Mistcurve]

@@Thelinguist Thank you steve! That makes total sense. I think I need to step up my physical/ebook reading. :)

[@takooza]

The automatic translation is very random and often not accurate in LingQ. I use it for Japanese and it is really hard.

[@TheRedFoxMcCloud]

i thought we dont translate while we learn languages?

[@omochi-oishi]

こんにちは。 本を読む事が大事なんですね。 まずは洋書を買いに行こうと思いますが、この時に選ぶ本は好きな本で良いのでしょうか？ Hello. Reading books is important. First of all, I'm going to go buy a foreign book, but can I choose my favorite book at this time? ↑ This sentence is written using Google Translate, so it may be a wrong sentence.

[@Uhusofree]

Secret to Elon Musk success reading two books a day* (and having a dad who owned a emerald mine in apartheid South Africa) 😂

[@jazzerson7087]

1 million words a year works out at about 2730 words a day. You can read that in just a few minutes!

[@olivia5030]

I am surely a slower reader. 2700 words takes me around 30 minutes.

[@user-wu2sp5yp3i]

As a native Arabic speaker,Arabic is so sophisticated in terms of vocabulary.The Arabic language contains 12 million and 5 hundred thousand words,and native speakers utilize approximately 80 thousand words.

[@jere.nurkka]

Who counts the number of words they read?

[@sarac178]

Steve, danke für das inspirierende Video. Was LingQ betrifft, bin ich mit Hebräisch nicht so recht begeistert. Diese automatisierte Stimme liest zwar die Texte vor, wirkt aber sehr unnatürlich, und manchmal gibt es im Hebräischen Wörter, welche genau gleich geschrieben, aber unterschiedlich ausgesprochen werden... und das kapiert die Computerstimme nicht.

[@craigbowson3744]

Can I import books from audible and kindle?

[@Thelinguist]

If you go the import page you will see the kinds of files that are compatible.

[@basiCKschool]

I want to read more in Arabic and bulgarian...and discover hangul and Hebrew alphabet

[@romanromaniutenko6321]

Interesting for me, what you watch in Polish and what attracted you to Poland?

[@Thelinguist]

I don't watch much. I grabbed some ebooks and audio books on history from Publio.pl to import into LingQ and study. I was interested in Polish history and the language after learning Ukrainian and learning about the history of Ukraine. The two countries share a lot of history, for better and for worse. I was particularly impressed with how Poland supports Ukraine today and that is why I visited.

[@romanromaniutenko6321]

@@Thelinguist I agree that the two countries are writing a profitable history for themselves. I will say this about assistance for Ukraine, Poland is very close to war. If not for the Polish government, most of the Poles refused to help Ukraine and Ukrainians. Poland still has nationalism and medieval hatred of Ukrainians. "Poles love only Poles" - so they admit. With all due respect to these people with a big heart... But, this is my opinion, as a Ukrainian who has lived in Poland for 6.5 years. I hope this information is of interest.

[@mayongxz6095]

please to input indonesia language ,お願いします

[@evelioguaperas]

Regarding ignoring words you don't know, what about japanese if you are reading and find a kanji you don't know? You can't vocalize it

[@putinisakiller8093]

English words are the same. If you don't know a word you can't vocalize it. :)

[@evelioguaperas]

@@putinisakiller8093 If you know the roman alphabet you can guess. Maybe I will get the ability to guess kanji in the future

[@putinisakiller8093]

@@evelioguaperas I know the alphabet but it is still hard often. :) Can you read the word "read"? ;) Of course, hieroglyphics are even more difficult. Why don't Japanese change them to an alphabet?... I know about culture and so on but it's so unconvenient. :)

[@evelioguaperas]

@@putinisakiller8093 they have and use both, every kanji can also be written in their "alphabet" (syllabary). I'm playing pokemon in japanese and everything uses only their syllabary, it made me realize how useful kanji is in making sentences shorter and differenciating between similarly pronounced words.

[@lucyfromsiberia]

14-15 books in a foreign language is a lot. When you have an elementary level of the language, it is difficult to read.

[@putinisakiller8093]

Your level is not elementary. Books may be very different in their volume. Small and big and even huge. English books have more words than Russian. Reading is about entertainment not learning. Though it still teaches.

[@eltonluz94]

@@putinisakiller8093 Lol. Entertainment. Then why read? Reading is for UNDERSTANDING. That is all.

[@lucyfromsiberia]

Dear polyglots, what do you think about reading books based on the method of Ilya Frank? Does anyone read such books?

[@putinisakiller8093]

I don't think this method is helpfull. The best way is reading books of your level.

Hey steve, im studying english almost 1 year. I started from a2 and now im b1 or b1+ something. English is my first foreign language. But with this tempo i think it takes 4-5 years to reach c1 maybe more. When someone says i reached c1 in one year or two years, i think am i wrong? am i stupid? Im reading 1-2 hours everyday, 10-20 words memorized, ( last year 5-7 per day actually) What do you think? Whats wrong? Do i memorize not enough or is it take already years?

[@Thelinguist]

You are doing great! Reaching C1 in a language can take a long a time (very few can do so in just a year or two). 1 to 2 hours a day is a very healthy amount. Keep at it and try to focus on your own journey, not comparing yourself with others.

[@putinisakiller8093]

"When someone says" - what is someone's mother tongue? Where does someone live? How much free time does someone have? And many other questions. :)

@@putinisakiller8093 Most important thing, they are saying i did with 1-2 hours study. Sounds ridicoulus but i dont know maybe its doable, im not so experienced about learning language.

@@Thelinguist I'm so grateful thank you so much. My study method is, im reading 1-2 hour, including steve kaufmann videos ( 99% compherensible input for me) when i encounter a new words, i check on collins dictionary it's a great dictionary you can see the frequency easily. If the words are unfrequent ım not write to my list. if is freequent im write and memorize. i spoke a lot also but didnt think its very helpful for me.

[@putinisakiller8093]

@ I think you don't have to memorize words. :) You have to read and listen to comprehensible text that almost corresponds your current level (90-105%) and is interesting to you. There must not be many new words. Sorry for my English. :) I'd like to speak better but have what I have.

[@Santi_407]

Is that even possible? It is in fact easy. I am not a great reader, but manage around 16-20 books a year in English (being myself Spanish). As I only read epub ebooks I count the words. In 2022 I read 15 books totaling 2.2 million words, some of them big chunks by Stephen King. In 2023 I've read 10 books. That's 1.5 million words so far.

[@juliuscaesar1573]

My problem is that if I even read 1 page in English I easily get 6-7 new words , then on even reading 20 pages I acquire 130+ new words . How to memorize so much words ? What should I do ??

[@guillaumeleguludec8454]

I would suggest you don't try to memorize the words you don't know. When you read a book the same words keep showing up again and again so you will eventually remember them. If you find you are unable to understand most of what is being written unless you constantly look up words then the book is probably too difficult for your current level and I would suggest you choose one more suited to your level. I am not pro and this is only my personal opinion but that's how I currently proceed and I find it quite effective

[@juliuscaesar1573]

@@guillaumeleguludec8454 Thanks for your advice. No, book isn't too difficult, actually my English vocabulary is very weak

[@putinisakiller8093]

@@juliuscaesar1573 If your English is weak, most books are difficult to you. I also learn English. The biggest problem in reading is to find proper literature that equals your current level.

[@sajanaryal6932]

For a man in his late 70s, you seem like a really healthy person. How do you maintain your physical and mental health?

[@Optimista1234]

I’ll save you time : he wants you to buy his app subscription.

[@fathoodieforme]

can you put pdfs in that app?

[@Thelinguist]

Yes

[@fathoodieforme]

@@Thelinguist 👌

[@user-bd4mo1le5j]

استيو عزيز اگر مايل به داشتن دوستي فارسي زبان باشيد باعث افتخار من هست که امکان اين دوستي رو به من هم بدهيد باتشکر

[@straytonox1492]

but when you are reading your inner voice of a word of a language you are tryng to learn is not necessarily correct isn't it ? so IMO its better to listen audio and even better videos

[@Thelinguist]

Combine listening with reading

[@a-bas-le-ciel]

Elon Musk *does not* read two books per day, Steve, _and he never did:_ that was a flattering thing his own brother said of him _in describing his childhood,_ grow up as a kid alone with books -and we now know that he grew up autistic. Both the quantity and quality of reading entailed by _an autistic child_ reading "two books per day" is nothing like an adult reading serious works of non-fiction (they were probably adventure stories for kids, etc.). Even a third-rate newspaper would have fact-checked that claim (and identified the source and context) before "going to press" with it. I've read Elon Musk's courtroom testimony: he does not have a high level of reading comprehension in English -not even when millions of dollars are on the line and he's facing serious legal consequences. Elon Musk is not well read on any topic, not even the basic science required to understand his own proposals (e.g., the hyperloop proposal broke the laws of physics several times), and he is -on the contrary- a lifelong video game addict by his own description, and he routinely names the video games he's lost hundreds of hours playing in interviews, _but does not in this way mention books._

[@a-bas-le-ciel]

A quick google search into what Warren Buffett _actually said_ about "500 pages per day"… and guess what? To use Warren Buffett's own idiom, we're looking at a mix of "snake oil" and "jiggery pokery".

[@zuhrid3948]

Key takeaways I got: 1) Steve doesn't himself read a million words a year in his target language; 2) He didn't tell us to download LingQ, but what he is saying is alluding to this

[@davidbrisbane7206]

Why does it take 11mins 22 secs to describe how to read one million words a year?

[@RockChampEnglish]

I only read the things that I have to read... I watch instead of read

[@jaelob]

Ha, you mean the Persian writing system is more "abstruse" to me, not "obtuse." Abstruse means difficult, obtuse means stupid.

[@Thelinguist]

obtuse adjective ob·​tuse äb-ˈtüs əb-, -ˈtyüs obtuser; obtusest Synonyms of obtuse 1 a : not pointed or acute : BLUNT b (1) of an angle : exceeding 90 degrees but less than 180 degrees (2) : having an obtuse angle an obtuse triangle see triangle illustration c of a leaf : rounded at the free end 2 a : lacking sharpness or quickness of sensibility or intellect : INSENSITIVE, STUPID He is too obtuse to take a hint. b : difficult to comprehend : not clear or precise in thought or expression It is also, unfortunately, ill-written, and at times obtuse and often trivial. -Shirley Hazzard

[@jaelob]

@@Thelinguist Ah, there's many people confusing the words, but I didn't think it was so many that they justified putting it in the dictionary already! Gosh, dictionaries getting so descriptive these days. Words are useful when they mean something, and become less so when they can mean anything. For example, as a band director, I once asked the principal if I could have a podium and at once she brought me to a closet that had a lectern. I had to explain that the podium I'm talking about is to stand on. The British still keep the useful distinction. But after that, I became conscious that anytime I wanted a podium, I always had to explain it to fellow Americans, who began switching the words. I could never just refer to it as podium.

[@WolfusMandrago]

@@jaelob Languages evolve! "Ass" was commonly used for donkey, but now it can be used for KZbin commenters. 😂

[@jaelob]

@@WolfusMandrago Of course languages evolve, which both prescriptivists and descriptivists recognize. Most evolution adds spice and variety to language, (like your example). But not all evolution does, but rather can hinder clear communication, such as confusing podium and obtuse with other words. Our standard should not be to embrace evolution per se, but clear communication, which evolution can strengthen.

[@Thelinguist]

@@jaelob it is the purpose of dictionaries to describe how words are used not to dictate how they should be used. Were that not the case, the meaning of words would not have evolved over time as they have.

[@karpmonthou2177]

Hi, Steve. When you studied Mandarin full time, approximately how many words do you think you read? It would be interesting to know because there’s got to be a number that basically ensures that a person will have acquired the ability to read after having read that many words. That number would probably depend on a number of factors: for example, the learner’s native endowments and the degree of their motivation, the time in which the words are read (the shorter the time - or the more intense the exposure - would likely lead to better outcomes), the difficulty of the language, whether the learner does any deliberate learning, etc. In my own experience learning French, right about three million words was the point at which the effort of marking words in LingQ was not worth the negligible improvement in comprehension.

[@Thelinguist]

I have no idea. LingQ counts my reading now. I read a lot, though.

[@James-hs3tu]

I think NOT 🚫🚫🚫🚫. W.B. reads 500 pages a day 0:28

[@TELESPEK]

👍✌🙌👏🇧🇷

[@predicadefuegooficial]

GOD BLESS HOW ARE YOU TODAY😊😂

[@quietmusic808]

average person reads a book a month? guess i dont know any average people

[@AndrzejLondyn]

Read and listen audiobook simultaneously. Reading in English is not connected with speaking and listening...

[@patrickbonier327]

I'm sure that Elon Musk reads 2 books a day, but he keeps re-reading one over and over, and he is still surprised every time at the end when the protagonist actually likes the green eggs and ham!

[@_yinnyinyin]

I honestly cant do it😭 I love reading, but if it's in a language other than english im dumbfounded reading in another language sounds interesting tho, ill be sure to try it out! My mind is going to be headed into a wacky rollercoaster, anyone got any good Spanish books to recommend? Starting off small since I probably cant read in Korean and/or Japanese😅

[@Thelinguist]

It definitely takes a lot of practice, there are wonderful tools today that make reading in other languages much easier (e.g. online pop-up dictionaries, the built-in Kindle dictionary, etc.) We have a number of beginner Spanish books and graded readers in LingQ you can check out. You can do it!

[@putinisakiller8093]

@@Thelinguist Unfortunately, they are not graded properly. CEFR levels are too few. I'd recommend you to widen A1-B2 topics up to 8-12 smaller levels. I also really wanted to have full TTS at LingQ. Your site is very interesting but not complete. You miss many possibilities I think.

[@Thelinguist]

What do you mean by full TTS?

[@putinisakiller8093]

@@Thelinguist Someone has some text on LingQ. Captured or written. I want to hear not a separated sentence but the whole article or at least a whole page. It would also be cool if I could choose a voice (voices if it is a dialogue) and speed. Robots like speaking. ;)

[@Thelinguist]

Depending on the language you can select the voice for the TTS. You can also generate the whole lesson in TTS for lessons that have no natural audio.

[@peter9162]

Fun fact: Elon Musk also Tweets 90,000 words a day.

[@RRRazzzaRRR]

The statistics in this video is a little weird. I'm not sure, that average person read 14-15 per a year. Where did these statistics come from? However, thank you for your work. Your videos inspire.

[@kennethwdc]

One study of Americans done in 2022 has a key finding that more than half of adults (51.57%) haven’t read a full book in over a year.

[@putinisakiller8093]

We have two people. The first reads 30 books a year, the second doesn't read at all. They both read 15 books a year in average. :)

[@RRRazzzaRRR]

@putinisakiller8093 everything would be fine if there were more readers than anti-readers)

[@LearnEnglishWithBryan]

No way Elon reads 2 books a day. Comic books maybe.

[@estrafalario5612]

0:18 Elon Musk saying something that most probably is false. Why doesn't it susprise anymore?

[@eltonluz94]

9:06 Basically, read as shit.

[@macprog1994]

I strongly doubt an average person reads 15 books a year. If you talking about students then it is true because they need to study it in order to pass an exam. Even them would not read after they finish their education.

[@macprog1994]

Kids nowadays watch tik toks insted of books.

[@ruyaal]

I commend your commitment to learn languages, but I think you emphasize too much in numbers and statistics and intellectual clowns like Musk or Gates, you should focus in one language or a family of languages decore jumping all over the place. As a Spanish native that learned and use Arabic for reading and less for speaking, I think that you want instant results for a particular language gauge like Arabic. You don’t seem to have mastered the pronunciation that is essential for this particular language. The use of the harakat is there to help you not to hinder you and should not be dismissed or discarded. Just some observations and good look in your learning path.