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Viewing How to Read Spanish - or Any Foreign Language - EffectivelyHow to Read Spanish - or Any Foreign Language - Effectively
By Mark Hazard When you sit down with a book or article written in Spanish, do you first decide what it is you want to improve? Or do you just sit down and start reading with no clear goal in mind? While the latter approach is fine if you are reading for enjoyment and will definitely help your Spanish, there are two specific areas in which you can help improve your Spanish that require you to go through the text in a specific way. Reading Spanish to Improve Vocabulary The first, which is probably most common, is to start reading and to stop every time you find a word you don't understand and reach for the dictionary. This will improve your vocabulary as you go through the text, but if you're trying to read a book this way, it can become quickly tiring and you may lose sight of the story due to the number of words you look up as you go along. This approach really works better for news items, where you can go through a text, highlight the vocabulary you don't know, and then go through it again in one block to find the translations. Finally, go through the text one more time to see how your comprehension improves. Reading Spanish to Increase Fluency The second approach is to simply keep reading, as close to your normal reading speed as possible without stopping, even when you don't understand. This is closer to the way you read in English, with knowledge gaps being filled by other clues. This helps you to keep going, even when you know you don't understand everything, and aids in building a coping mechanism for dealing with those information gaps. While it is much easier to reach for the dictionary as you go along when you are reading, just imagine what happens when you are talking with someone in Spanish; you simply can't, so you need to try and get the complete information from the context, by asking questions or just waiting to see if the missing information appears at a later stage in the conversation. By doing this with your reading, you'll actually be able to enjoy the story if it is a novel that you are reading; reading the same book with a dictionary doesn't exactly make for relaxing reading and may put you off from picking up that book. About the Author: Mark Hazard has lived in Spain since 2001. His new website is about how to learn Spanish, based upon his own experiences: www.simplylearnspanish.com. Article Source: A Language Guide - http://www.a-language-guide.com More free articles: 1st Rate Articles - 1stRateArticles.com |
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