Is the issue something like “reading your favorite novel is fun enough that you’re motivated to look up words you don’t know, but reading history books would be dense enough that if you had to look up words as you went you’d give up?”
It’s more that I have my favorite novel half memorized and that can count as the context in the sentence “figuring it out from context”, and I don’t have any history book memorized the same way.
I can envision history books being as fun as The Magicians (which is why I want the ability to read them), but can’t identify the interesting ones ahead of time. I think the transition step is reading the same history book in English and German, which I’ve identified some candidates for.
I found early on, when learning a foreign language (German and French), that it was better to read English books translated into the language at first. They tended to be lighter on the colloquial and idiomatic expressions.
There is a great book “Teach yourself a foreign language quickly” by Azzopardi tha I would recommend. It is really excellent for languages with phonetic scripts. PM me if you can’t find it; I can lend you a copy.
One thing that slowed me down is my failure to ‘believe’ that gender of nouns is important. In German it is vital to learn the genders of nouns. Similarly in Italian (and you also need to remember the doubled consonants and where the accent lies).
You cannot learn a language in a big rush. Persistence is the key.
Right now I’m reading my favorite adult novel. The goal is to read history books that haven’t been translated into English.
Is the issue something like “reading your favorite novel is fun enough that you’re motivated to look up words you don’t know, but reading history books would be dense enough that if you had to look up words as you went you’d give up?”
It’s more that I have my favorite novel half memorized and that can count as the context in the sentence “figuring it out from context”, and I don’t have any history book memorized the same way.
I can envision history books being as fun as The Magicians (which is why I want the ability to read them), but can’t identify the interesting ones ahead of time. I think the transition step is reading the same history book in English and German, which I’ve identified some candidates for.
I found early on, when learning a foreign language (German and French), that it was better to read English books translated into the language at first. They tended to be lighter on the colloquial and idiomatic expressions.
There is a great book “Teach yourself a foreign language quickly” by Azzopardi tha I would recommend. It is really excellent for languages with phonetic scripts. PM me if you can’t find it; I can lend you a copy.
One thing that slowed me down is my failure to ‘believe’ that gender of nouns is important. In German it is vital to learn the genders of nouns. Similarly in Italian (and you also need to remember the doubled consonants and where the accent lies).
You cannot learn a language in a big rush. Persistence is the key.