#438 - 5 Ways to Improve Your English Speaking Alone by Reading Books — The Strategies Used by the Best Learners, Essential Lessons for Life, and Why You Should Focus on Discoveries Rather Than Outcomes
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You know, I find that many English learners are intimidated to read in English because there's many advanced words that they don't understand. So if you watch today's lesson until the end, I'm going to give you five tips that will help you to actually improve your speaking by reading books. I will also give you five life lessons at the end from a book that personally changed my life.

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Hi, yeah, real lifers. So I'm super excited for today's lesson. Some of you, if you've been following us for a while, know that I'm an avid reader. So I love having the opportunity to talk to you guys about books, about how you can learn better with books, about some of my favorite books. We're going to do all of that today. And if you're not reading yet in English, uh,

Maybe it's because you're lacking confidence or something, but you should, if you like reading, you should start reading something in English. All of us like reading different things, right? So it doesn't necessarily need to be books. It could be reading the newspaper. It could even be reading tweets or posts on Instagram or anything like that, but doing it with the intention to learn. Because reading has to be the best way to grow your vocabulary.

to be encountering new advanced words, which really is what sets apart people who are intermediate. It's like people who are intermediate kind of all use the same words all the time from people who are advanced who have really expanded their vocabulary and can use really specific terms. So I'm going to be giving you a bunch of different tips on how you can do this. So let's jump into the first one, which is finding your fluency fuel. ♪

So this is all about finding the right book for you for the right moment that you're in. And there's different ways that you can look at this. But first of all, I'd say it's important to find a book that is just like slightly above your current English level. And that basically just means that it's something that is a bit of a challenge for you.

So you're not going to understand every single word, but it's not so easy that it's boring like you understand everything, right? Or even that's like right at your level. So you should feel a bit of a stretch, a little bit out of your comfort zone. Something I really recommend to English learners is to reread a book that you've already read in your native language.

And finally, you should find a book that is motivating for you, that you really want to read. So for me, the first book that I read in another language, and actually this was the same for two different languages, in German, it was the last Harry Potter book, which I had already read in English and it was just shortly after it had come out.

So this was really great because I had the story pretty fresh, which gave me more context to understand. And then when I started learning Spanish before I got to actually move to Spain, I read the first two Harry Potter books in English. Sorry, in Spanish. And this was really great because I already, as I said, was familiar with the story. So I had the context.

But there was like a lot of words that I could pick up very specific vocabulary. Harry Potter books are also great because they the first ones, you know, they were written for kids. So I had probably like a low intermediate level in Spanish. So that was a bit of a stretch for me, even at that point.

So it doesn't necessarily need to be a book like this. Like I said, the third thing was that it's really important that you're motivated to read this book. So you should look forward to reading this book every single day. Hopefully that means that you shouldn't just read a book just because, you know, just because I say like Harry Potter is really great. If you don't like Harry Potter, if you don't like fantasy stories, don't read Harry Potter. Find something that is really motivating for you that you look forward to reading every day.

Something else I can say here too is recently I finished a book called "Dom Casmojo" in Portuguese that a friend recommended to me and this was really great because I was motivated to read it because I wanted to be able to comment about it with that friend and it was a little bit of a challenging book for me but I think that motivation helped to keep me going. So moving on to the second tip to become a better English speaker with reading books is to read between the lines.

Now, this is actually an English expression in itself. If you read between the lines, it means that you are able to decipher the meaning of something through the context. So you're able to do it implicitly instead of explicitly. So what I mean by this reading between the lines when it comes to reading a book in another language, I say this because

most learners that I encounter they don't really like reading or they get stuck because their first instinct when they open the book is to look up every single word that they don't understand and this is actually what I did the first time I read a book in German is I remember you know Starting the first chapter the first sentence. There's already a word. I don't know so I stopped open the dictionary this was

quite a few years ago, so it was before smartphones. So I had an actual like German to English dictionary, opened and looked up the word, okay, next sentence, there's another word I don't understand, so open the dictionary, look it up, read a couple more sentences, another word I don't understand, looked it up. And then I got to the end of the paragraph and I realized I didn't understand, I have no idea what happened in this paragraph. So

It just was really slow. Like, you know, it took me forever just to finish an entire chapter because I had to reread entire sections over and over again. And I just felt like I was always going back and forth with the dictionary. So what a better thing to do is, first off, reading between the lines is learning through context. So there's even if you don't understand every single word that you read, you're

Even if there's, you know, a lot of expressions and advanced terms you haven't learned yet, some of them just through reading, just through understanding the situation of what's happening, you're going to be able to understand through the context. So that already means that maybe you don't need to look up every single word.

Besides that, what I would recommend doing either if you're going to read physically, then get a highlighter or a pencil or something to read with and you can underline or highlight words and expressions that you don't understand. And so I recommend here as well is like highlight the entire phrase or sentence because that way you're already getting an example that you'll be able to remember back. You know, when you see that new word, you'll have that example that will remind you of where you learned it, which will make it stickier for you and make it easier to remember.

And aside from that, it helps you to learn it in like as a collocation, which this with verbs, for example.

you know, certain prepositions go with certain verbs. So if you're only highlighting the verb itself and you're not highlighting the preposition goes with it, then you might end up speaking incorrectly. You might be translating directly from your language and using the incorrect one. It's sounding more unnatural. All right. And that brings us to the next tip, which is always remember the right word at the right time. Basically, if you're doing this highlighting,

How are you going to actually learn? So what I used to do, like my routine was I would read a book at night in another language. I would be highlighting things.

You know, maybe reading on a Kindle used to do it, which makes it really easy to highlight different sentences. And then the next morning I would sit down. I had my deliberate study time in the morning where I would go back to the highlighted words and I would look them up in that moment. So I wasn't even worrying when I'm reading, like trying to understand as much as I can from the context.

And again, it's like you don't need to worry so much because even if you don't understand certain words, the goal isn't to understand every single sentence, but rather you'll find if you've chosen a book that's at that level of being just a little bit challenging for you, that even if you don't understand a sentence, you'll understand the paragraphs, you'll be able to understand the whole story.

If you've chosen a story that's really good that you're motivated to read, you'll want to keep going. And then you have your deliberate study time to actually add those new words to your vocabulary. So then, for example, you can use them when it comes time to speak. So I really recommend some sort of routine like this where you're reading a certain time of the day, you're doing it more passively, highlighting the words, and then you have your deliberate study time where you can look these up.

And a really important part here is, you know, you could just have like a list of the new words or something that you're doing, but then you're studying of them. It's not going to be so efficient to actually add them to your long-term memory. So use spaced repetition software. I've used different ones like Quizlet, Memrise, but my go-to, my favorite one has to be

memorize just because it's very simple, but it has a lot of different features that you can use. You can add images to it. You can add pronunciation depending how much time you have. You can really make them complex. And if you are wanting to use this sort of technology and improve your English, you should definitely be watching this lesson over on the RelayFingish app because we take all of the advanced expressions

and words that we use in every lesson and we turn them into vocabulary flashcards that you can study, you know, so we take all the hard work out of it for you if they already have the pronunciation and the images and you can study them and never forget them, add them to your active vocabulary so they're available to you when you speak. All right, so let's move to the second to last tip, the fourth one, which is don't just read, repeat. All right, so this is really where the rubber hits the road, which by the way, that's a vocabulary flashcard that you can study if you're on the app.

And the rubber meets the road, that means that you take what you've been rehearsing or you take what you've been learning and you actually put it into practice. You challenge yourself to use it. So what I like to do sometimes when I'm reading is if I see a word that maybe has some sounds that are challenging for me, that I know are challenging for me, I'll actually say the sentence out loud to myself.

If you really want to take this to the next level, other than just looking for different opportunities to say words or phrases out loud, especially if you notice that they have sounds that you're working on perfecting, is you can read alongside with the audiobook. And there's different ways that you can use this. You could do shadowing, where you're listening to the audiobook and you're speaking out loud. You could read aloud while you're listening and try to be like listening and comparing how you're saying it to how the narrator is saying it.

Or you could do more of a process of listen and then read out loud and then listen again and try to compare to see what words might have you said incorrectly or where did you miss the connected speech, you know, where the narrator is cutting, reducing and linking different sounds together.

And if you want to make it even better, you could record yourself when you're reading it out loud and compare that to the audiobook. So I recommend playing around with different things, find what works best for you. But doing all that makes your practice a lot more deliberate so you can actually be using it to improve your pronunciation and sounding more natural when you speak. And then finally, the last tip is from page to practice.

So what I mean by this is, again, where the rubber hits the road, like we're actually taking what we're doing when we're learning passively, enjoying the book and making it more active. So one thing you can do is with the new words and expressions that you're learning is you'll have the example from the book, right? But you could write your own example sentences and you can practice these in different ways. I would also add that to your spaced repetition system. And then you

You can practice these sentences or just practice the new words and expressions, even pronunciation that you are learning with someone. So if you have a teacher, obviously try to bring that to your class. Say like, oh, I learned this new expression or when you're speaking with your teacher, try to use it. You can do it on the RealLife English app also.

We have the global speak feature. So anytime, anywhere, you can just press a button and connect to another English learner in another part of the world. You can learn about other cultures. And what I challenge you to do in this case is if you meet someone

Tell them, like ask them, do they have favorite books? And you can tell them about the book that you're reading and try to talk to them about the book and use some of the new vocabulary that you're learning from that book as you're telling them about it. One thing that I do myself is when I'm learning with a book and I learn a new word or expression is I try as soon as possible to actually use that word or expression when I'm speaking with people. So even if it's like a little bit unnatural, a little bit forced, like trying to work that expression or that word into conversation, it really goes a long way because

'cause it's like automatically you're activating it. You can kind of see the other person's reaction. Did they understand it? Did you like learn how to use it, right? So that's super important, all right?

And I want to move on now to the next part of the podcast where I'm going to be talking to you about a book that has been really impactful on me. I'm going to share with you five life lessons that you can learn from this book. And maybe you might even want to check this one out for being one of your next reads that you could be learning English with.

So this is called The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life by Boyd Vardy. All right, so who is this Boyd Vardy besides being a guy that has kind of a weird name? So he's a South African tracker and wildlife guide. Now, when I say tracker here, this does not mean a hunter. A hunter looks for animals to be able to kill them either for sport or for food. But a tracker simply follows animals

signs, like signs that the animal has left to find the animal. So he actually does this sort of working through tourism, right? People who come to his country and want to be able to go on safari, for example. So it's really cool. He actually uses his experience tracking lions in the wild as a metaphor for finding a more unique purpose in life. So it makes it really different from other self-help and self-development books.

And actually, Izzy and I went a lot more in depth about this in episode 436, which is called "The Key to Changing Your Life's Destiny," where we also talked a lot about someone else who's been really inspirational to me in the last months, Martha Beck, who is a life coach. She's actually sometimes referred to as the world's best life coach. So, I highly recommend that you check out that episode if you haven't already. Let's jump into the first one, which is know when you're on the path of not here.

So let me start off by sharing a quote directly from the book with you. So Boyd says,

He relies on a process of elimination, inquiry, confirmation, a process of discovery and feedback. He enters a ritual of focused attention. As paradoxical as it sounds, going down a path and not finding a track is part of finding the track. Alex and Ranius, who are two of his fellow trackers who he's learned a lot from,

So Alex and Ranius called this the path of not here. No action is considered a waste, and the key is to keep moving, readjusting, welcoming feedback. The path of not here is part of the path of here.

So this is super interesting, right? Is that oftentimes when we feel lost, we just want to have certainty before we can make a move. So what he's talking about here is I think it's really just the value of curiosity, which we talk about a lot on this podcast. That's such an important virtue for each of us to have is certainty.

Rather than needing to have certainty or perfection or needing to be right about something, we ask questions. We're open. We are willing to be wrong. We're willing to fail, right? And this was really important for me in the last, I don't know, six months or so. I felt like my life was on autopilot, like I was stuck in a rut, you know,

Kind of just felt like I was going through the motions in life. These are all sort of the same way, different ways to say the same thing. And when I reviewed this, actually, I think I heard on another podcast referencing to this, the path of not here, it really struck a chord with me, meaning that it really resonated with me.

Because sometimes this feeling of being lost or feeling like we're stuck in a rut, it's actually, it's a good thing. It's an indicator that we have the opportunity to, you know, recognize that and redirect ourselves towards the path that we want to be on. So we can take that as sort of a data point to point us in the right direction.

So I wanted to let you guys know this is actually just an excerpt from the full length podcast, which you will find exclusively over on the RealLife English app. And I'm really excited for you to see the other four life lessons from the Lion Tracker's Guide to Life that are waiting for you there. Really, these have made a huge impact on me. I know you're going to love them. So be sure to go and download the app now for free by looking up RealLife English in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store or

the easiest way is actually to click the link down the description below on your phone. See you there.