Contents
You need a lot of output to improve your English conversation. However, in order to be able to say what you want to say freely even if you practice conversation hard, a large amount of input such as memorizing words and reading a lot is the key.
When it comes to "reading English," many people may start to feel that they are not good at it, but improving their English conversation skills and reading are deeply linked.
Reading English articles and books doesn't have to be difficult. If you want to be a translator, you need a high level of reading comprehension to understand specialized documents, but if your goal is to improve your daily conversation and overall English skills, try to touch a lot of things that you can read easily while having fun and read as soon as possible. Let's aim to be.
In this article, we'll discuss the benefits and ways of incorporating reading into learning English.
Why reading is important for learning English
There are three main merits of practicing reading English. By understanding the effect on learning English instead of blindly practicing reading, the purpose becomes clear and it leads to keeping motivation.
Massive reading practice improves output quality
Naturally, even if you try to speak an expression, word, or knowledge that you do not know, you cannot say it. A large amount of input is essential for high quality output.
Remember how you learned your native language, Japanese. By reading sentences in school education and daily life, I think that my vocabulary and expressiveness have become abundant, and I think I have become able to speak at a high level as well as read and write.
English is the same. By reading a lot of English, you will develop the ability to instantly understand English as it is and abundant vocabulary.
Currently, the conversation and vocabulary of beginner level people is at the level of native speakers from kindergarten to the lower grades of elementary school, but when it comes to English proficiency that can be used in business, a high level is required. At a level where you can freely exchange opinions with native speakers even in daily conversation, you still need to have a high level of English proficiency.
By touching many English sentences and gradually raising the level of what you read, you can expect to improve not only your overall English ability but also your conversational ability.
Increasing reading speed is effective in improving listening skills
If you want to acquire the ability to speak proper English, you cannot avoid learning grammar and reading and writing, rather than saying, "If you can understand anything, it doesn't matter if it's broken."
At the same time, many people may have a problem that they can read English but cannot hear it. As your listening level goes up, it's faster to listen than to read, but unless you're used to listening, reading speed is overwhelmingly faster and more accurate.
The problem is this "level of reading skill". If you always translate the sentences you see into Japanese, or if you look up the dictionary every time you find a word or phrase you don't understand, your reading speed will not increase. If you are in such a situation just by reading a simple sentence, listening and conversation without time to translate into Japanese or look up a dictionary becomes more difficult.
It is also useful for listening and English conversation by improving your reading skills and cultivating the ability to read smoothly without translating into Japanese or looking up a dictionary.
You will be able to obtain "raw" information that does not rely on translation
Articles on Yahoo! News are often translated from overseas, and because they are reused, the content is often biased. To get accurate information, you need to read the original text before translation, but if you can read English, you will be able to access raw information and acquire accurate knowledge quickly.
Also, when searching for something on the Internet, it will be possible to search not only Japanese but also English information, and the scope of research will be overwhelmingly expanded. By purchasing the latest information from overseas, it will be useful in a wide range of fields such as business and hobbies.
You can understand it by reading English subtitles and transcripts, so you can get the same information without any handicap even if you are not good at listening and difficult to hear.
Three points to succeed in reading English
I'm wondering what to read for reading practice, but let's practice reading by referring to the following points.
Read what you are interested in
What you are not interested in, regardless of difficulty, is only painful. Avoid anything that you don't feel like reading, no matter how simple it is.
On the other hand, if it's a topic you like, you can stay motivated even if it feels a little difficult. For example, information about your favorite artist, interview articles, businesses you are involved in, and content that digs deep into your hobbies. Learning English is not something that someone compels you to do, so it is most important to continue having fun.
Choose something a little easier than your current level
It's a good idea to choose a reading material that is a little lower than your level. No matter how much you want to read Harry Potter in the original text, it's only painful to suddenly try a thick book. We will gradually improve from short and easy ones.
First of all, it is best to eliminate the resistance to reading English sentences, so even if there are some words you do not understand, it is good to be able to read them in a short time. My first goal is to become accustomed to reading English and to understand it as it is without translating it into Japanese. Let's try to have fun without difficulty.
Don't look up words you don't know
If you have a habit of looking up a dictionary every time you come across a word or phrase you don't know, stop it. This is'very important for speeding up reading and building an English brain.
There are some words that I don't understand even in Japanese novels and articles, but I think it's unlikely that you will look up a Japanese dictionary. English is the same. Written language is a little different from spoken language, so the sentences are well-developed and sophisticated. Of course, there are some words that are rarely used in conversation. Unless it's an important keyword that you can't understand the whole content without knowing the meaning of the word, first try to guess from the content before and after.
This "guessing skill" is very useful for English conversation and listening. Some of my acquaintances are not good at listening, saying, "When a word you don't understand comes up, your thoughts stop and you can't hear the words after that." Some readers of this article may have the same problems.
If you don't know all the words, you may feel uncomfortable, but there are some words that you don't understand even in Japanese conversation. You'll probably hear some words you don't know in college lectures and business, but that doesn't mean you can't keep up.
Unlike listening, you can read at your own pace, so many people will have a habit of looking up a dictionary. It may seem painful until you get used to it, but it is an absolutely necessary skill to improve the score of qualification tests such as TOEIC. If you really want to look up a dictionary, just look up the words you need to understand the content after reading it.
Even in that case, if you try to use the English-English dictionary as much as possible instead of the English-Japanese dictionary, you will be able to understand the original nuances of the word and idiom properly.
How to learn to improve your English reading speed?
Here are some tips for speeding up reading English. Practice reading with the following points in mind.
Touch a lot of English sentences
This is a matter of course, but it is important to read a lot of English sentences anyway. Reading a lot of simple books will greatly improve your reading speed, rather than spending a lot of time reading a difficult book.
Native elementary school books may seem a little difficult even for lower grades, and their tastes are different, so English hobby blogs and news articles are easy to use.
If you don't know what to read, or if you don't have a particular preference, this reference book with all the university entrance exam questions nationwide is also good. It is very useful for reading practice even if you are not an examinee. There are private and public large editions, but we recommend the private large edition, which is often short and easy.
2022 National University Entrance Examination Correct Answer English (Private Large Edition)
Although it is thick and a little expensive, reading all the long reading comprehension will result in a considerable amount of English reading. If you try not only reading but also reading comprehension questions, you will be able to confirm your understanding of the content. If you finish one book in about a month, you should be able to realize that the reading speed has increased dramatically by the time you finish it.
Check the headline and table of contents first
Once you've decided what to read, let's take a quick look at the headlines. Since the heading describes the points of each chapter, you can grasp the whole point by looking at it, and you can grasp the contents vaguely. Understanding the points before actually reading will make reading much easier.
Especially when reading a business book, it is often not necessary to read all the sentences. Even in that case, by looking at the heading first, you can grasp the part that can be skipped and the part that should be read properly, and the efficiency will increase.
Dare to read the first and last part first
In most cases, the conclusions and points I want to say are concluded at the beginning, and the points are summarized at the end. And in the text in the meantime, there is support for the claim and concrete examples.
If you read the beginning and the end properly and try to read quickly in the middle, the reading speed will increase and you will gradually be able to read the name.
Focus on adverbs
Notice that the adverbs such as first, then, however change the content of the sentence or paragraph.
The longer the sentence, the easier it is to get confused, but if you note that the adverbs say "first, second ...", "next", "but", you can avoid confusion in thinking. I can do it. Also, since the important points of the paragraph are often written immediately after the adverb, you can read it carefully and let it flow quickly.
People who can read or browse English sentences quickly often unknowingly read in this way. In fact, I also browse in this way and read the part that says "It seems better to read here properly".
This is useful if you want to know what is written as soon as possible, or if you need to read a lot of English at work. Browsing is by no means reading a part. "How fast can we process and understand the written information?"
Increasing the speed of information that can be processed at one time, that is, the reading speed, is also useful for listening. If you feel that you can't keep up with your listening speed because it's the difference between doing it with your eyes and doing it with your ears, you should definitely practice increasing your reading speed.
Conclusion
To improve your English conversation skills, it is important to learn the output and input in a well-balanced manner. No matter how much you produce empty output, your level will reach a plateau and you will never feel that you can speak English. On the other hand, if you use only input, you may not have enough training to use it and you may not be able to talk as you wish. If you don't have enough input and want to improve your English by one or two steps, it is recommended to do a lot of reading.
When I was a junior high and high school student, I was not very good at memorizing vocabulary books, but at some point I changed to a method of throwing away vocabulary books and reading a lot, and I was able to improve my vocabulary without difficulty. rice field. At the same time, I've become able to read and listen at about the same speed, and I'm less likely to feel that the other person's speaking speed is too fast.
Of course, you can't say "I've read a lot and my listening skills will improve dramatically", but a lot of input and reading speed will be very useful for improving my English even if I don't feel it. It is important to improve your overall ability so that you can feel that you can speak English. If you have been focusing only on speaking English and haven't been able to improve, please try to focus on reading.
