Does Reading Help You SPEAK English? 📚

Hi!

I'm Emma from mmmEnglish.

Now you guys are always asking me

how to expand your vocabulary,

improve your grammar and just

sound more natural when you use English.

So today we're going to talk about how

reading English texts can help you do that.

Reading helps you to improve your English.

It sounds simple but reading can actually have

a huge effect on your language learning

and it can be really enjoyable as well.

I mean really, what's better than curling up on the couch

with a cup of tea and a good book?

For many of my students, reading English texts

is seen as a bit of a chore.

It's just something that you have to do

to study English, right?

Or perhaps the only texts that you read are the ones

that are in your grammar books.

Well I want to shake things up a little bit today.

But first I have a couple of disclaimers

that I'd like to make here.

The first one is:

If you don't really enjoy reading books in your

own language, then forcing yourself to read in English

probably won't be enjoyable either.

So if reading is not your jam, generally,

then don't force it.

But that said if you enjoy reading in your own language

but you don't enjoy reading in English,

well that's something that we can work on because

I'm going to take a guess and say that you're probably

reading the wrong texts.

Perhaps you haven't really found a book

that really interests you.

Or perhaps the books that you're reading are just

too difficult for you.

Reading as an activity is supposed to be enjoyable

so if you're sitting there with a dictionary beside you,

looking up every second word, spending five minutes

trying to understand a paragraph,

that's not fun.

That's studying.

So my point is don't let your pride force you

to try and struggle through Shakespeare

or even Jane Austen.

If you're just not ready for those books yet,

you're not ready to enjoy them.

Children stories or books for teenagers can be

just as entertaining and much more enjoyable if you're a

pre-intermediate or an intermediate level student.

So don't be ashamed of reading books that were written

for younger people. They're actually a brilliant way to

improve your English reading skills and to advance

your vocabulary

whilst actually genuinely enjoying yourself.

Reading English books

is not just for advanced English students.

But reading can help you to become

an advanced level student.

Now I've added a list of books that I recommend

in the description below

and I've separated them by English level

so hopefully that gives you some new material to enjoy,

some new books to read, right? Whatever your level.

And if you have a fabulous book that you've read

in English and you want to recommend it

to everyone who's watching, then please do.

Add the name of the book and the

author to the comments.

And if you're willing to share your English level, then

please do because it will help everyone else to know

what level of - what type of person can enjoy that book.

So I'm going to spend the next few minutes

trying to convince you about the ways that reading

can actually help you to improve your English.

And I'll also help you with a few fun ideas of what

you can read because I bet

that by the end of this video,

you'll be looking for something to start reading.

Now don't forget to subscribe to the channel

just down there. Click that button there

just so that you don't miss out on any of the lessons

that I make here.

This lesson is about to get started.

The first thing that reading will do

is help you to improve your vocabulary, right?

The truth is that trying to learn new words during

a spoken conversation,

especially with a native English speaker

can be really challenging.

It's difficult to understand everything and recognise

the individual words that are being used, right?

And native speakers don't always use the best

vocabulary when they're speaking, right?

They might naturally start using slang words or

words that just might leave you

sweating a little bit because you don't recognise them.

They might even just get a bit lazy and say:

"Can you get the, you know, the thingy?

Just pass it to me, the thingy over there."

They're hardly words that are going to help you

to improve your vocabulary, right?

And definitely not useful for writing emails at work or

taking exams or speaking in public, right?

Where you might need a higher level

or a more advanced level of English.

But in a book, the author thinks really carefully about

each word that they write.

They want to describe a situation in an interesting,

in a really specific way which really does push

your vocabulary further and it'll give you

access to a much more varied and vibrant vocabulary.

Now I'm pretty sure that most of you

keep a vocabulary journal somewhere.

Maybe you keep a notebook with you while you read.

That's a really great tool so that you can write down

any new or interesting words that you see

but don't let it disrupt you unless you really can't

understand the sentence without looking a word up.

Just try and understand the meaning,

write the word down and then look it up later on.

Practise using it in sentences,

read back over the text again.

All of these things are going to help you to remember

that word, remember the meaning and how to use it.

Don't forget that building your vocabulary

is a lifelong journey for you and also for me,

I'm still learning new words every day. You won't just

know all English words at one point,

you'll continually keep adding to your vocabulary

throughout your lifetime.

And reading is a really great way to do that.

Now for most of us, the brain remembers

more when it sees something.

Having a combination of visual and audio

is really important.

So without getting too serious or too technical here,

because I'm not a neuroscientist,

but the brain stores things in different places.

So audio information - that sound - is

usually stored in your short-term memory.

So things that you hear are stored in a more

temporary place. And visual information,

so that includes memories and pictures,

this is stored in a way that makes it

easier for your brain to remember it

over a longer period of time.

So seeing things on a page

can help you to remember them better than just

hearing the words. But doing both is great!

So reading an English book and listening

to how the words are spoken,

it ticks both of these boxes.

Now I've mentioned my good friends

at Audible before,

they've got thousands and thousands of

English books that are recorded in audio format.

Your favourites are probably there waiting for you.

Now the great thing about Audible is that you can

try it out for free using the link

in the description below

so you can get your first audiobook completely free.

And even if you decide that you don't

really want to continue with your Audible membership,

then you still get to keep the book that you downloaded

so I really recommend that you sign up and try it out.

Listening whilst you're reading

is like super-powered English practice.

Another benefit to reading English books

is that you're learning English in chunks.

So if you've already been studying English for a while,

you've probably noticed that it's full of

collocations and idioms and slang expressions.

Words that commonly appear together or even

change meaning when they're used together.

That is why you love English so much, right?

But these expressions and these word combinations

are so important to sound natural when you speak

or when you use English

but it's an impossible task to try and memorise them

or learn them on your own.

Impossible!

But reading lets you see and experience

how these words are used together in chunks

and in context, right?

Seeing these different uses over and over again

will help you to get used to them

and become familiar with them.

And you'll learn what sounds right and what doesn't.

It's a much more natural way of picking up the language.

The more you see different collocations,

the more comfortable you'll feel with

using them yourself, right?

Now another benefit is full immersion.

So think about a grammar lesson or even a vocabulary

lesson, you don't always get the full picture

of what's happening, right?

It's a little snapshot and you're probably learning

new words or grammar rules but you're not

usually getting the chance to experience them

within context and within culture, right?

Whilst those lessons are incredibly important

to learn and to understand the rules,

reading shows you what kind of people

use certain words and in which situations they use them

So it helps you to understand the nuances of tone

and formality.

You'll get to learn the culture that goes with

the language, right? It's an immersive experience.

Now for a more practical reason

to read English books,

let's talk about easier logistics.

You can read anytime anywhere,

you don't need to coordinate across time zones to see

when your book's available.

And your book

doesn't need to have a Wi-Fi connection either

unless you're downloading a new one from Kindle.

But you don't need a lot of money to read either.

You can carry your book anywhere.

I mean, I read my books on my phone now.

Books are always with me,

I've got a whole library of them, right?

I can read it for a few minutes while I'm riding the bus

or I'm waiting at the doctor's, I'm in the bath, whatever.

I mean you could even

read your book on the toilet if you liked.

I don't mind as long as you're doing it somewhere.

You're filling in that dead and wasted time in your

daily schedule and you're making all of those little

time slots worthwhile.

Now I actually gave some tips to help you

take advantage of this sort of

dead, empty time in your schedule

during this lesson right here where I talked about

creating your own English study plan so

definitely check that one out.

So I hope that this lesson convinced you to

pick up a book

and get back into the habit of reading in English.

Stick at it for a few months and I guarantee

that you'll notice the improvement in your English.

So the next question is: What should you be reading?

This genuinely is a question that you need to answer

for yourself because we all like different things.

You don't always have to read something

that's serious and educational because

all reading in English can help you to learn and improve

in one way or another.

In fact, reading different types of texts, some formal,

some serious, some fun, this is only going to help you.

So

to help you I'm going to give you a few little suggestions

You could try reading the news in English online.

Subscribe to an English newspaper

or something like that, just so that you're constantly

receiving the same text.

You could also take out a subscription

to an online magazine.

You could also find a blog about a topic

that interests you but I recommend that you sign up

to their newsletter so that you receive their blog posts

each week by email, okay?

You could even choose one of your favourite books.

Maybe one that you've read in your own language

and then read the English version.

But even better, get the audiobooks so that you can

listen and read at the same time.

Don't forget that the link to Audible is

in the description below so that you can try

getting an audiobook for free. Try it out, see if you like it.

But whatever you read, wherever you read,

you are improving your English

so just make a habit of it, okay?

Of course, I would love you to share any of

your favourite books or magazines or blogs

that you read in English in the comments below.

Share them with everyone who's watching

and tell us why you love them.

That's it from me today but make sure you

check out that lesson there if you want to

keep improving your English skills with me.

Or if you're looking for something else,

then check out that one right there,

I've picked it just for you.

So happy reading!