Can Reading in English Help You Improve Your Fluency? Kate Explains

Denise is here.

Good to see you, Denise.

"What do you think about reading "classic books to improve English?"

This is your topic.

- Yes, this is something I'm really passionate about because I was an English literature

teacher for several years.

And I think that reading is a really interesting way to improve your vocabulary because there's

just so much richer language in novels, so novels are generally a much higher Lexile

level than we speak in conversation.

However, that can be a little bit of a trap in terms of your conversational English because,

a lot of times, there is vocabulary in literature and grammar structures that we don't actually

use in everyday speech.

- Fantastic.

- So, I think that reading is a wonderful way to improve your vocabulary, but it doesn't

always translate into speaking.

One way to kind of get around this when you have enough of a level in English is to look

into audiobooks, and the Lexile level is obviously the same, but you'll actually get a sense

of the rhythm of the language when it's spoken, and so that can help.

Yes.

- Sorry, Lexile level?

- Yes.

- Explain.

- It's just basically, it's kind of an arbitrary-- Not arbitrary, but it's a measure of the level

of vocabulary, the complexity of the language, and the way that it's used.

- It's just like how hard the book is.

- How hard it is, and higher is not always better.

- I agree, I agree.

I made a video on comparing...

I think it was maybe Pride and Prejudice with the original version and the graded reader,

and a graded reader is an adaption of a book for English learners.

- Yeah, so an adaptation that's made just for English learners?

- Exactly.

And a lot of the time, if someone is an English learner...

And maybe you have felt like this too that, "Oh, I don't want something that is adapted,"

but it is very useful for English.

- One thing, which is actually...

I will completely admit this.

I read a lot when I was younger, and so I had a vocabulary level that was a lot higher

than my speaking level, if that makes sense.

- It does.

- And English is one of the only languages where we borrow from so many different languages,

and there's no standard English pronunciation, which I'm sure you have figured out, so when

an English person or a native English speaker reads a word for the first time, they don't

know how to pronounce it, necessarily.

- Exactly.

- So, it's interesting because we take pronunciation rules from so many different languages, which

I think is really fascinating.

So when I was little, I would mispronounce words a lot, especially longer words that

I'd never heard used before, and so that's one way to tell that people have learned a

lot from reading, even native speakers.

- Very good.

That's such a good point on audiobooks.