Shadowing Practice: The Best Books to Learn ANY Language FAST - Learn English Speaking with Video

Most of the time, people get into trouble with novels because they're just far too hard for them.

They end up spending their whole time with their head in the dictionary looking up words.

If you need a translation to understand, it's too hard.

Read something that's at your level and you won't need translation.

I've had a lot of questions come in about different ways to learn vocabulary from reading

and the best books to use if you want to read to learn a language.

I do quite a lot of episodes on reading.

This is going to be a rapid fire one.

I'm gonna very quickly go through a bunch of different types of books

that you can read and if they're helpful or not.

So, questioners in this order.

So Salomon asks, Holly, I'm really lazy and I want to avoid learning vocabulary.

Is it possible to learn a language solely through reading?

For example, building up rudimentary vocabulary through reading children's books or comics.

Then Restless Falcon asks, would comic books be more effective than a novel?

And would reading a favorite book in your chosen language help?

And then Gary Miller asks, It sounds familiar.

I've been attempting Duolingo for too long.

Okay, finally, you're ready to be converted.

And it feels like I'm getting nowhere.

Yeah.

How would I know what level of book do I need?

Do I need to try a children's book, or should I move up to another age group level?

Help!

All right, Gary, we're going to help.

So, what types of books should we read?

Should we be reading children's books, comic books?

Okay, let's go through this step by step.

First of all, if you do any reading, you've got to make sure that you are following a process that makes sense.

I have a very specific six-step process for reading.

There's a link in the description.

You can download the whole process in one PDF for free.

Do read that.

Make sure you understand how to read properly because there's really no point.. well, there's always a point.

Reading is always good, right?

But you're going to learn so much more if you just read according to a specific process.

So before we get into the rapid fire, what do the experts say?

So So there's a big meta study that was conducted in 2025, so last year as of the time of recording,

from Sanger's Vandersander-Vellier, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce that, et al.

Learning a language through reading a meta-analysis of studies on the effects of extensive reading on second

and foreign language learning from the Education of Psychology Review.

So big meta studies, a serious study,

and they found that encouraging learners to engage in individual silent reading of longer target language texts of their own choice,

but attuned to their proficiency level, promoted a variety of second and foreign language skills.

Okay, so we know that reading helps you get better at foreign languages.

What has been found in this meta study, which is a study of studies,

is that the key here is that it's text of your own choice and it's attuned to your level, right?

Which means to make this really, really simple, you've got to choose what you want to read and it's got to be at the right level for you.

And long-time listeners will understand that this is basically compelling input and comprehensible input, meaning that we have to read stuff we're interested in, not what our teacher gives us to read,

and it's got to be not too easy, not too hard.

If we do those things and we do it by ourselves with quiet so we're focused, then we will improve.

So can I read children's books?

Generally, I would say no. Avoid children's books.

Why?

Because so much of the vocabulary is just irrelevant to you.

If you have kids and you've read storybooks to your kids, you'll know what I'm talking about here.

You don't need to know about super worms and squiggly, wiggly worms and all these crazy, useless vocabulary.

Best to avoid that.

Now, when we get onto things like Harry Potter, I think it's a slightly different story.

Harry Potter is like, is it a kid's book?

Yeah, maybe.

But there's also plenty of adults that enjoy that, right?

So I know lots of people that have learned foreign languages using Harry Potter.

I met one lady in Japan, she was English, and she spoke fantastic Japanese.

She told me how she learned Japanese by having two versions of Harry Potter, the English book and the Japanese book, side by side.

And she just literally read through the entire series and taught herself Japanese that way.

The point about Harry Potter is that if you love it as much as many people do, doesn't matter, the difficulty doesn't matter,

you will find a way to learn it and read it and learn a language from it.

So if you love something the way that many people love Harry Potter, absolutely go for it, knock yourself out.

Comic books, nothing wrong with comic books other than the fact that there isn't actually that much text in there.

If you think about how much text there is on the page of a comic book versus an actual narrative book, there's just a lot less stuff.

And so, by all means, but just be aware that there's less text, and also it can be very, very truncated, people speaking in very short sentences,

power language, it's not particularly natural.

So comic books wouldn't be my first choice, but hey, if you love comic books, like Japanese learners love manga, for example, then by all means go for it.

What about graded readers?

Graded readers are fantastic because they are written specifically for the language learning purpose.

Now, obviously I'm biased, I publish books of short stories, in fact, I just published, here's my latest one, Ukrainian, just recently came out a couple of weeks ago.

Actually, I don't know if it is out, I think I just got an early copy myself.

I really like this one with the cover.

So Grady readers are...

I'm sure you don't need me to repeat at this point, but the thing about Grady readers is that if they are interesting stories and you pick the one at the right level,

then that's all you can ask for, really.

Parallel texts.

Now, parallel texts are where you've got the target language on one side

and then on the opposite page you've got the English translation.

Don't read those because.. so people like to use parallel texts because they say, well, it can help me understand.

To which I would say, well, that means you're reading something that's far too hard for you.

If you need a translation to understand, it's too hard.

Read something that's at your level and you won't need the translation.

And it's far better to operate purely in the target language because that way you're having to struggle.

And struggle is what promotes learning, so ditch the parallel texts.

What about non-fiction?

Yes, non-fiction is fantastic.

Non-fiction can actually be easier than fiction because the language tends to be simple.

Again, the key here is read something that you are interested in.

If you love reading about medieval torture, I don't know how this came to mind.

I was looking at something recently.

Then read about medieval torture.

Oh, my God.

100

Pick something you're interested in.

101

Can I read novels?

102

I guess by this we mean native speaker level novels.

103

I would say avoid unless you're at the level where you can really understand and appreciate it.

104

Most of the time, people get into trouble with novels because they're just far too hard for them,

105

which means that they just end up spending their whole time with their head in the dictionary looking up words.

106

Or they just, there's so much they don't know that they're unable to just glean much benefit from the process.

107

It's far better to read at your level, and that way you can just soak up a lot more.

108

With that said, again, I know many people that have learned a language by reading Harry Potter in parallel texts,

109

which is like a native speaker level parallel text, like breaking all my rules.

110

Like, if you love something, that trumps everything.

111

You can disregard all of my rules if you're reading something that you love, right?

112

So I'd say native-speaker novels, no, unless you just can't help yourself, in which case go for your life.

113

What about screenplays or books with dialogue?

114

Yeah, I really like these.

115

I mean, I've got in my bookshelf behind me, I've got a lot of books of Japanese screenplays, so to be clear, that's books where you have,

116

like it's taken from a movie and you just have script of the movie, the dialogue, so there's no or very little narrative text in there.

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It's all just what the characters say.

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In fact, we have some books called 101 Conversations, we'll put a link in the description, which are exactly that.

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Stories told through dialogue formats.

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So yeah, dialogues, I think, are great.

121

And then lastly, can I read translations of books I've already read?

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Yes, that's a really great thing to do, actually, because when you're reading a translation of a book you've already read, so let's say you've read a book in English and now you're reading the translation in Japanese.

123

The big advantage you've got in this scenario is that meaning is taken care of, which means that you understand what's going on.

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That's going to help you interpret the target language a lot more easily.

125

Now, it's still going to be very difficult for you

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if you are at a lower level and the book is at native level.

127

That's not ideal, but it's better than picking up some random novel

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that you've never read before and trying to read that for the first time.

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Now, what if it's boring?

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If it's boring, you're reading the wrong thing.

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Read something you enjoy.

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How do I know that it's time to move on to something harder?

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I'd say if you're getting bored because it's all a bit too easy and you understand everything, then yeah, you can probably move on to something harder.

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But generally though, do remember

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that the ideal spot to be reading in is where you understand 80 to 90 percent of the text that's already there.

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So even if you understand, nine out of every ten words, that doesn't mean it's too easy.

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In fact, that's ideal for you to be able to pick up a bunch of new stuff.

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So I think you'll know when it's time to move on to something harder.

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Honestly, as long as you are reading to your interests and you're engaged by what you're reading, then the level, I think,

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is probably less important just because you're going to naturally know.

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So anyway, I hope that is useful for all of you guys, Salomon Restless and Restless Falcon and Gary Miller.

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Again, for my six step reading process, check the link in the description.

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That will be helpful for you.

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And I'll see you back in the next episode of the podcast.

✨ Video Öner

426 cümleler

Bu dersin kelimeleri ve konuşma notları

Bu videoda gölgeleme çalışması için 144 cümle ve 1910 kelime var. Konuşma bölümü 9:56 sürüyor. Konuşmacı hızlı konuşuyor, dakikada yaklaşık 192 kelime; bu yüzden birbirine bağlanan ve zayıflayan sesler duyacaksınız. Kelimelerin %86’i İngilizcede en sık kullanılan 3.000 kelime arasında; geri kalanına başlamadan önce bakmakta fayda var.

Bu videodaki önemli kelimeler

Videodan öğrenmeye değer 15 kelime, telaffuzu ve anlamıyla:

Kelime	Telaffuz	Anlam
translation isim	/tɹænzˈleɪʃən/	çeviri, tercüme
parallel sıfat	/ˈpæ.ɹəˌlɛl/	paralel
vocabulary isim	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	kelime hazinesi, kelime kadrosu
fiction isim	/ˈfɪkʃən/	kurgu
reader isim	/ˈɹi.dɚ/	okuyucu
dialogue isim	/ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/	diyalog, sohbet
bore fiil	/boɹ/	burgulamak
torture isim	/ˈtoɹt͡ʃɚ/	işkence, eziyet
dictionary isim	/ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/	sözlük, lügat
worm isim	/wɝm/	kurt, solucan
screenplay isim	/ˈskɹiːnˌpleɪ/	senaryo
encourage fiil	/ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/	teşvik etmek, cesaretlendirmek
silent sıfat	/ˈsaɪ̯lənt/	sessiz
skill isim	/skɪl/	beceri, maharet
script isim	/skɹɪpt/	hat

Duyacağınız deyimsel fiiller

Kelime	Telaffuz	Anlam
look up fiil	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	yukarı bakmak
come out fiil	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	çıkmak

Dikkat edilecek telaffuzlar

Konuşmacı you're, you've, I'm gibi kısaltılmış biçimleri 63 kez kullanıyor. Bunları duyduğunuz gibi kısa söyleyin.

“sh” ve “zh” sesleri: translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, bookshelf /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/
Uzun kelimeler — vurguyu doğru yere koyun: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, irrelevant /ɪˈɹɛləvənt/

Bu videoyla nasıl çalışılır

Videonun tamamını konuşmadan bir kez dinleyin ve bilmediğiniz kelimeleri not edin.
0,75× hızla başlayın, cümle cümle tekrar edin ve kolaylaşınca normal hıza dönün.
Kendinizi kaydedin ve orijinaliyle karşılaştırın; translation, parallel, vocabulary gibi kelimelere özellikle dikkat edin.

Bu videodaki dil bilgisi

Konuşmacının en çok kullandığı yapılar, videodaki sözcüklerin aynısıyla:

Yapı	Videoda
Present perfect have/has + fiilin üçüncü hâli — geçmişte olan ama şimdi de önemli olan bir eylem	has been found · you've read · have learned
Edilgen yapı be + fiilin üçüncü hâli — kimin yaptığı değil, ne olduğu önemli	be converted · was conducted · has been found
İlgi cümlecikleri who / which + cümle — bir kişi ya da şey hakkında ek bilgi	study, which is · description, which are

Gölgeleme Tekniği Nedir?

Gölgeleme, başlangıçta profesyonel tercüman eğitimi için geliştirilen ve çok dilli Dr. Alexander Arguelles tarafından popüler hale getirilen, bilim destekli bir dil öğrenme tekniğidir. Yöntem basit ama güçlüdür: ana dili İngilizce olan bir sesi dinler ve hemen yüksek sesle tekrar edersiniz — konuşmacıyı 1-2 saniye gecikmeyle takip eden bir gölge gibi. Pasif dinleme veya dilbilgisi alıştırmalarının aksine, gölgeleme beyninizi ve ağız kaslarınızı gerçek konuşma kalıplarını eşzamanlı olarak işlemeye ve yeniden üretmeye zorlar. Araştırmalar, telaffuz doğruluğu, tonlama, ritim, bağlı konuşma, dinleme anlama ve konuşma akıcılığını önemli ölçüde geliştirdiğini göstermektedir — bu da onu IELTS Konuşma hazırlığı ve gerçek dünya İngilizce iletişimi için en etkili yöntemlerden biri yapar.

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