Luyện nói tiếng Anh bằng Shadowing qua video: The Best Books to Learn ANY Language FAST

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.

117

It's all just what the characters say.

118

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

119

Stories told through dialogue formats.

120

So yeah, dialogues, I think, are great.

121

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

122

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.

124

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

126

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

128

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

129

Now, what if it's boring?

130

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

131

Read something you enjoy.

132

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

133

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.

134

But generally though, do remember

135

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

136

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.

139

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

140

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.

142

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

143

That will be helpful for you.

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

✨ Video gợi ý

273 câu

Từ vựng và ghi chú luyện nói cho bài học này

Video này có 144 câu và 1910 từ để luyện shadowing. Phần lời nói dài 9:56. Người nói nói nhanh, khoảng 192 từ mỗi phút, nên sẽ có nhiều chỗ nối âm và nuốt âm. 86% số từ nằm trong 3.000 từ tiếng Anh thông dụng nhất; phần còn lại nên xem trước khi luyện.

Từ vựng quan trọng trong video

15 từ đáng học trong video, kèm phiên âm và nghĩa:

Từ	Phiên âm	Nghĩa
comic danh từ	/ˈkɑmɪk/	truyện tranh
translation danh từ	/tɹænzˈleɪʃən/	sự thông dịch, phiên dịch
vocabulary danh từ	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	từ vựng
dialogue danh từ	/ˈdaɪəˌlɑɡ/	(cuộc) đối thoại, sự hội thoại
bore động từ	/boɹ/	khoan, đục
helpful tính từ	/ˈhɛlp.fl̩/	hay giúp đỡ
narrative danh từ	/ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/	kể chuyện, tường thuật
torture danh từ	/ˈtoɹt͡ʃɚ/	nhục hình, sự tra tấn
medieval tính từ	/mɪdˈi.vəl/	trung cổ
dictionary danh từ	/ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/	từ điển, tự điển
worm danh từ	/wɝm/	giun, trùn
screenplay danh từ	/ˈskɹiːnˌpleɪ/	kịch bản
format danh từ	/ˈfɔːɹ.mæt/	khổ (sách, giấy, bìa)
encourage động từ	/ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/	cổ vũ, khích lệ
silent tính từ	/ˈsaɪ̯lənt/	yên lặng

Cụm động từ bạn sẽ nghe

Từ	Phiên âm	Nghĩa
look up động từ	/ˌlʊk ˈʌp/	ngước
pick up động từ		nhặt, lượm

Phát âm cần chú ý

Người nói dùng 63 dạng rút gọn, ví dụ you're, you've, I'm. Hãy nói theo dạng ngắn đúng như bạn nghe.

Âm “sh” và “zh”: translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, publish /ˈpʌblɪʃ/, bookshelf /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/
Từ dài — đặt trọng âm cho đúng: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, irrelevant /ɪˈɹɛləvənt/

Cách luyện với video này

Nghe hết video một lần, chưa cần nói, và ghi lại những từ bạn chưa biết.
Bắt đầu ở tốc độ 0,75×, nói đuổi từng câu, rồi quay lại tốc độ bình thường khi đã quen.
Ghi âm giọng mình rồi so với bản gốc, chú ý các từ như comic, translation, vocabulary.

Ngữ pháp trong video

Những cấu trúc người nói dùng nhiều nhất, kèm đúng cụm từ trong video:

Cấu trúc	Trong video
Thì hiện tại hoàn thành have/has + quá khứ phân từ — việc đã xảy ra nhưng còn liên quan đến hiện tại	has been found · you've read · have learned
Câu bị động be + quá khứ phân từ — nhấn vào việc xảy ra, không phải người làm	be converted · was conducted · has been found
Mệnh đề quan hệ who / which + mệnh đề — thêm thông tin về người hoặc vật	study, which is · description, which are

Phương Pháp Shadowing Là Gì?

Shadowing là kỹ thuật học ngôn ngữ có cơ sở khoa học, ban đầu được phát triển cho chương trình đào tạo phiên dịch viên chuyên nghiệp và được phổ biến rộng rãi bởi nhà đa ngôn ngữ học Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Nguyên lý cốt lõi đơn giản nhưng cực kỳ hiệu quả: bạn nghe tiếng Anh của người bản xứ và lặp lại to ngay lập tức — như một "cái bóng" (shadow) đuổi theo người nói với độ trễ chỉ 1–2 giây. Khác với luyện ngữ pháp hay học từ vựng bị động, Shadowing buộc não bộ và cơ miệng phải đồng thời xử lý và tái tạo ngôn ngữ thực tế. Các nghiên cứu khoa học xác nhận phương pháp này cải thiện đáng kể phát âm, ngữ điệu, nhịp điệu, nối âm, kỹ năng nghe và độ lưu loát khi nói — đặc biệt hiệu quả cho người luyện IELTS Speaking và muốn giao tiếp tiếng Anh tự nhiên như người bản ngữ.

Phương pháp shadowing: đọc hướng dẫn từng bước đầy đủ →

Luyện nói tiếng Anh bằng Shadowing qua video: The Best Books to Learn ANY Language FAST

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