Well, I recommend that you do both.

(upbeat music)

Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Now, in this lesson, you're going to learn all about books, and how you can improve your English through reading.

I have a very powerful method to share with you, and at the end I need your feedback.

But first, let's talk about a problem that many of you face when it comes to reading in English.

The problem is this: when you are reading and you see a word that you don't understand, should you stop reading and look up the definition of this word or, should you just continue?

When you stop and look up new words, or you analyze the language, this is called intensive reading.

Intensive reading.

So you focus on the language, and you stop when you need to learn something new.

Extensive reading is when you don't stop, and you just read for pleasure.

You're reading to enjoy the book.

We're going to talk about which one is best soon. But first, let's discuss what type of books you should be reading.

There are three things to consider when choosing a book: the genre, the level of the book, and how enjoyable it is.

The genre means the category.

So when you go to the library, or a book store, you'll notice that books are categorized into different sections. Things like novels, history, science, et cetera.

So, if you love novels, then consider getting a novel.

If you are studying business English, then get books based on business English.

This is important to say because I find that a lot of learners feel like they have to read a certain type of book.

But it's important to know that everyone is different, and the book that is right for you might not be right for someone else.

The level of the book is key too.

If it is too difficult to understand, then it won't be useful.

If you have to stop at every sentence and look up a new word, then you're not going to enjoy reading the book.

A great solution here, and I've mentioned this many times, is to look at graded readers.

And these are books that are specifically adapted for English learners to make them easier to understand.

They also tend to use everyday English, which is good because this is the type of English used in everyday life.

Finally, find a book that you are going to enjoy.

And if you start reading a book and you're not enjoying it, put it down and find a different one instead.

We want to enjoy reading because then we'll read more.

Here is a great way that you can find books that you're going to enjoy before buying them.

Now go to amazon.com to do this.

And I've just chosen this book.

I searched for history books and found this one.

And you can see it says, Look Inside.

And if you click on it, you can actually start reading it.

And this is a way for you to know if the book is going to be good for you or not.

So, let's just go to the introduction.

The man was seated at a desk in a windowless basement office.

Two aides had just left the room.

I was now alone with a new U.S. Senator from Illinois.

It was January 5, 2005.

And you can continue reading this, to see if this book is going to help you, and if you think it's going to be interesting.

So before you choose a book, be sure to read a few pages first.

A bonus tip is to find books with audio versions too.

As you know, English isn't a phonetic language, which means that you can't infer how a word sounds by reading it.

So getting an audio book will help you greatly.

And it also means that you can go from reading a book to listening to a book, or doing both at the same time.

Okay, once you have found your book, now it's time to start reading.

And let's go back to whether intensive or extensive reading is better.

As a recap, intensive reading is when you focus on the language, and look up new words, and extensive reading is when you continue reading for pleasure.

Which one should you focus on, which one is better?

Well, I recommend that you do both, and I recommend that you do both in a smart way.

Here is how.

What I want you to do is this: read extensively, but highlight any words that you don't understand while reading.

Don't stop to look them up, but just highlight them for now.

Do this for a chapter, or a specific number of pages.

And then once you have finished a chapter, go back and look up the highlighted words.

This allows you to continue reading extensively, but, you can then go back and look up these new words and phrases so that you can acquire new language.

Here is a very key point about this method. Don't just highlight a single word, but instead highlight the whole sentence.

And here is how to take it one step further. Take those sentences and create flashcards from them.

I recommend using an app like Anki, so that you can get smart repetition.

And I've talked about this a lot in past lessons. And I'm going to talk about it more.

And this is a method that I use in my program too.

It's where you repeat a sentence today, then tomorrow, then in two days, four days, and eight days, so that you can acquire this language over the long term.

And once you have done this over two or three months, and you've gone through the entire book, what you can do next is go back and read it again.

And you'll be amazed at how much more language you'll understand.

And then you can read extensively and complete the entire book without stopping.

So this is a reading method that will allow you to acquire vocabulary, learn grammar, and also read for pleasure.

But now, I need your help.

In the comment section below, share books that you have found to be useful for learning English. Okay?

Your book recommendations.

And let us know if these books are best for beginners, intermediate speakers, or advanced learners.

And I might feature some of these recommendations in a future video.

Once you have left your recommendation, be sure to click over here and watch another one of my videos on this subject.

If you've enjoyed this, then please share it, and thank you so much for being here.

(upbeat music)