How Can Reading In A Second Language Improve Your Overall Language Skills?

Reading in your new language can be very beneficial for your overall language ability. Reading is a very powerful form of immersion and anyone who reads a lot generally finds that they make a lot of progress in their language.

I will go through some of the ways that reading can cross over to the other areas of your language and help raise your overall skill.

If you are not reading a lot in your target language, it is something you should start doing.

Reading Is A Form Of Immersion

Reading is a form of immersion, you are literally seeing the language in a written format and this is great for your overall skills.

If you have read anything else on this site you will now I am a huge believer in the immersion process when it comes to learning languages. The more of the language you can absorb through immersion, the better, and reading is a great way that you can do this.

I will go through in a little more detail below what exactly reading can improve, but in general it is just going to expose you to a lot of the language. You are going to see the same words and phrases time and time again and your subconscious is just going to start recognising and remembering these, which is just going to bring your overall level up.

If you speak to anyone who has reached a pretty high level, they will all tell you that they read a lot and they will also tell you that their general ability skyrocketed when they started taking reading seriously. 

(You can read more about – Is Immersion The Best Way To Learn A Language?)

Reading Will Increase Your Vocabulary

Reading is a fantastic way to increase your vocabulary, you are going to come across a lot of new words and seeing them on the page will cross over into other areas of your language.

If you have started seeing new words in your reading material, you will of course look them up and now understand them which will allow you to notice them the next time you are listening. Eventually you will get comfortable with these words, and you can start using them yourself. 

The new words will also be in context, which means they actually have some sort of meaning and understanding around them, which is a much better way to learn words, rather than just looking at a list of them.

You can also see that reading will increase your vocabulary in your native language too. If you look at anyone with a large vocabulary, they will tell you that they read a lot. If you want to know more words, in any language, just read more. 

Reading Helps You Grasp The Grammar

Reading is also going to help you get a better grasp of the grammar. Every line you read will have some form of grammar and this is all going to be absorbed by your subconscious.

You are literally showing your brain what correct grammar looks like and it will be taking note of all the different patterns and you will be building up a baseline understanding. This is going to directly cross over to other areas, such as your listening, speaking and writing.  

You can tell that this is happening as you will start to notice when things are wrong, your subconscious will be screaming at you that the usual patterns that you have seen thousands of times, and are now expecting, are not there and you get the feeling that something isn’t right.

The more you read, the stronger this skill will become.

Reading Will Help You With Your Writing

Reading and writing are very closely linked, you can’t have one without the other so it is only natural that doing a lot of reading will help with your writing.

You are going to be seeing a lot of sentences and you will start to get comfortable with how they look and how are structured and this will in turn give you more confidence when you are writing your own sentences. 

Reading will also help with your spelling, since you will be constantly seeing the words, you will start to just naturally get a better feeling for how you should be when writing the words yourself. This can be especially true for languages and words that have accents. I have really noticed my ability to remember which direction the accents go on some French words as increased, simply by just seeing the words over and over again through reading.

Reading Can Help With Speaking

Reading can help with speaking, in a way. Really to get good at speaking you need to open your mouth and actually get those muscles working.

However, the act of reading uses a lot of the same systems. You are kind of speaking inside of your head and doing a lot of reading will get you more comfortable with this internal dialogue.

When you actually go to speak, the system that produces the internal dialogue is the same system that produces the external vocalisation. This means that while reading doesn’t train your mouth …it does train the brains ability to get the words to your mouth as such.

It sort of trains the first half of the process of speaking, the more cognitive side of it, which is still very important. Then all you have to do is focus on the actual mechanics of moving your mouth and you will be great at speaking.

Reading Can Help With Your Listening Skills

Reading can also help with your listening still, but to be honest, only a little bit.

You will be reading inside your head, so it can get your brain used to “hearing” the words as such, but of course it is not quite the same. You can also read aloud, which again will help you “hear” the language, but again this isn’t perfect.

Really the big issue here is that this all comes down your ability to pronounce words as well as things like your pitch, tone and even accent. 

I still think it is much more beneficial to listen to someone else, such a native speaker, but listening to yourself read isn’t a bad thing, it can still help a little bit.

Reading Will Speed Up Your Brains Processing Ability

Reading is also going to just generally speed up your brains ability to process the language, which will directly affect your other skill levels.

You are just going to start getting more comfortable processing the language when you read and this will start to become automatic and you will notice that this will also happen when you are listening, or when you go to speak, even if you have been focusing more on reading than these other areas.

Once your brain can process things this quickly and easily, you will really see your overall ability in the language increase.

(You can read more about – Is Reading The Best Way To Learn A Language?)

Conclusion

Hopefully you can now see how reading can really help a wide range of your language abilities. While reading is of course going to make you better at reading, it really can do so much more than this.

If you spend a lot of time focusing on reading you will see your general ability in the language go up, and this makes it a great form of immersion, so if you want to read …read a lot, it will really help your language skills on many levels.

(You can read more about – Frequently Asked Questions About – Reading In A Second Language)