Once you’ve finished choosing a foreign language novel to read, next is getting to it and sticking with it.
I am a great lover of books, and believe strongly in reading through to the end of any book you start. There’s something to be learned from books you don’t enjoy, and it’s often a good exercise to turn off your reader-brain and turn on your editor or writer-brain to work out exactly why the book doesn’t appeal to you. Your inner editor can think of ways the plot or character development could be improved. Your inner writer can gain confidence, because let’s face it, reading nothing but timeless international classics by masters of the craft can be inspirational, but daunting as well. It feels good to read a book every once and a while and think, I can do better than that. (Then do it!)
This all changes when reading a foreign language, especially at the beginning. When reading a foreign language is still a part of the language learning process, I think it’s OK to cut bait on a book that bogs you down, or otherwise loses your interest. If you want to fight through to the end, you can always make another go at it in your native language. However, it can be counterproductive if your language learning materials don’t keep you invested and interested.
Until you can read effortlessly, it won’t be very motivating to trudge through a kanji swamp if you don’t even care what the protagonist is going to find on the other side.
Here’s my advice for enjoying the book and getting through it with your confidence and motivation intact:
- Skip the hard words – It may go against what some people have been taught about understanding every word in a sentence, but we are looking for reading fluency, getting accustomed to the natural literary flow of the language, and cultural enrichment when we read foreign language novels. It would be a waste to be bogged down with a dictionary rather than skip a few harder words that appear once in a chapter. However, if there are hard words that appear often or seem to be important to the meaning of a section, by all means whip out your dictionary or ask a friend.
- Many people learn well by teaching. Sometimes explaining something to someone can really help you grasp it. If you have someone to talk to about the book your reading, especially in the target language, it will give you a chance to use some of your new vocabulary, and practice producing some of the language skills you had been taking in passively.
- Stick with it! It’s easy to put a book aside when something more pressing comes along (or an easier to read book in your native language), but it’s not easy to get back into the flow of the narrative if you take too long a break from foreign language books.
- Start small but not too small. Childrens books may seem like a good way to start out, but can you imagine trying to keep track of all the difficult names, spells, and places in Harry Potter reading it as a second language learner? Sometimes the easiest books to read are those that are set in familiar surroundings. Children’s books may use wacky words or settings, as well as plays on words.
- Don’t be afraid to make notes. If you are a natural born note-taker, and notes help you remember, by all means use stickies, keep a journal, or mark up your books as necessary. The important things are the having fun and language acquisition.
- Flip back and reread as necessary. The first few times I read novels in Japanese I found myself looking back in the book to check on characters I hadn’t seen in a while. I’m glad I did because your mind has enough going on processing the language than to also pick up on subtle gestures and understated characters who come back with a vengeance later.
- Check your understanding when you can. If you can find someone who is reading or has already read the book, it can always be helpful to check your understanding using your native language. This is an especially good thing to do when you get deeper into the book and want to make sure you still have a handle on the plot.
It is absolutely worth it to make reading fiction a part of your foreign language studies. It can give you some of the cultural background and real life dialogue that some textbooks may lack. It can give you some good conversation starters to use when you meet other people who speak the language. Most of all, fiction writing gives readers exposure to written language, as well as written exposure to conversational language. A win-win situation for advanced foreign language learners.
One more bit of advice:
- When you finish reading your first foreign language novel, celebrate! Reading a whole novel in a foreign language is a fantastic accomplishment. Revel in how great it feels, and then start looking for your next book.