Can you get fluent just by reading?

Curious about how to learn a language through stories? Get the full scoop on my StoryLearning method here 👉🏼 https://youtu.be/dPqWN2dlsBg

I started reading books in English when I was 12 years old in order to improve my grades. Within a year I went from the bottom of my class to the top of my class. After about two years my grammar was flawless and my vocabulary was much more advanced than that of my peers. I think the biggest benefit I gained from reading was an intuitive understanding of the language, close to that of a native speaker.

The second graph is exactly what happened with my English. What's funny is that it happened by chance. I didn't care nor think about learning/improving my English or talking to English native speakers when I first started reading books. I just found super cool novel genres that happened to be originally written in this language. However, when I did start using it to communicate, I wouldn't say I spoke fluently from day one but I was definitely at an advantage and it didn't take me long to reach fluency in speech.

I learned english by reading smut on wattpad and I'm gonna do the same with french🧚‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

İ don't remember where, but İ came across an interesting statement: "İt's impossible for someone, who understands almost everything he hears (direct speech, News, Movies and passerbys conversation), not to be able to speak fluently. İt might be awkward and slow at the beginning, but in no time fluency will come"

I delayed speaking for a long time for the very practical reason that no matter how well you speak, you can't have a conversation if you don't understand the other person. I waited until I had about a B1 level of comprehension, which was probably later than necessary. Since then, I've become completely convinced that an input heavy method is the only way to achieve a very high level in a language for all the reasons you mention.

You are 100% right. I started learning English in the early seventies during my school days. No social media or even computer existed at that time. I had only access to books and a shortwave radio. I continued with reading, occasionally listening to English news on the radio. Almost no speaking at that time. But I read thoroughly including many English classics like Charles Dickens, Robert L. Stevenson, and Agatha Christie. But later on when I attempted speaking my background knowledge of what I read gave me a tremendous boost. However, I must point out that listening to dialogues is also very important, specially for those languages where the gap between the written and the spoken is large.

Thing is if you're nervous about speaking you don't actually have to start by actually speaking, you can communicate by typing on social media sites and later on in chat rooms. You have way more time to write a comment and you can be anonymous, so a lot of the pressures associated with outputting are no longer there. Not to mention you can check if you're correct in whatever phrase you're saying, so you'll avoid getting some bad habits that way. Also, being able to write well in your target langue is an useful skill, maybe even more useful than being able to speak in it, so this will be useful and kind of necessary anyways.

Very well said, Olly. I am a 78-year-old native speaker of English, I am still learning and absorbing the language.

"Can you get fluent just by reading?" "Yes, you can!". But that's my fluency experience. Now I am going to listen to you carefully, because you are never too old to learn.

When reading, try read out loud. You might not be able to understand, but you'll train your mouth to make the sounds required for the language, partially taking care of the physical aspect of speaking.

My Mandarin went like the Story graph. I did Duolingo, textbook and then watched tv for 5 months. And then I tried speaking and BOOM!!! I think Speak from Day 1 can work as long as you add something when you start to plateau. Good point on the physical tiredness. A lot of people don't realise that making new mouth shapes is hard. Also, the amount of concentration to produce language and sounds you never made before exhausts your brain.

Reading stories helps, but it is not a panacea. I would also read other things like poetry, newspapers, scientific papers, books, magazines, and so on. Listening is also important and people should do a variety of things like radio, podcast, movies, music, television and so on. Reviewing the grammar without obsessing about it could also be beneficial. Doing exercises for the mouth, reading outloud, shadowing, accent reduction, listening and repeating also can have a positive impact on the physicality aspect. Once you have developed an intuition so you do not make mistakes, have already had a ton of input so you understand pretty much anything you hear, then you can start outputting and doing a lot of it would make you better each time at speaking the language. In the end it is not about one thing but a combination of things and a lot of time.

Excellent video. To get rid of the shopping list: scribble over it with your dry erase marker and then erase both. It should come right off!

Well said, Olly! Listening is not enough. Reading is not enough. In order to be fluent in a new language, we need to combine input and output to produce a highly effective level of fluency! It took me years to reach a very decent command of the English language.

i live in austria and have some friends who came from other countries because of work. they took their children with them. the children went to kindergarden and were exposed to the german language a lot. of course just listening. but none of them would talk from day one, though they seemed to enjoy their time with the other kids. after about 4-8 months they would start talking.....whole sentences, no accent, almost like a native child of the same age. i don`t remember the name of the linguist who said that their is a silent period of language learning in children. be it their first or second language. i can remember a boy of 8years. he spoke 4 languages.....dutch(mother), spanish(father), german(living in austria)......i had them and some other friends over for dinner and we were talking in english. the boy was bored and suddenly burst into the conversation . his mother was surprised. they never tried to teach him english because they thaught he would be overwhelmed with too many languages but she and her husband mostly talk in english because that was their language when they met. so the boy must have been listening for years before he was ready to speak.

"Pronunciation is a motor skill." - I'm glad I found this idea in your video, formulated in other words, but it's there :). For each language we must do different things with ourselves, with our articulators to train them for that specific language. I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of "articulatory setting". My students love your books; I use the ones for German & English with them.

Me encanta leer, me da mucha información: el contexto para aprender nuevas palabras, la habilidad para tener experiencia con la gramática y también la oportunidad así que puedo desarrollar la fortaleza para hablar. Yo leo en voz alta y creo que me ayuda mucho con el aspecto físico de hablar.

I find these videos so validating! I'm from Finland, so my own language was never going to help me communicate with anyone except other Finns. On top of that there wasn't a huge number of interesting new books to read, series to watch or even music to listen to in Finnish. I started studying English in school when I was 9 and after six years still felt I knew nothing. At that point I started reading books in English and it opened the language on a totally new level! Later on I started watching series and movies without subtitles, which also helped. Now I live in England and use the language for everything without a struggle. (Although I still frequently bump into words I can't pronounce having only learned them from books 😄) When learning other languages later on I've started reading from a much earlier point. I like to start with translated stories I already know, especially murder mysteries, because they hold my interest for long enough, and having read it in another language before helps so much. I've playfully called it Agatha Christie method, because her books have been translated into so many different languages, there's loads of them, and I can read them over and over again (even after I know who did it). The downside of my choice of study material is that my early vocabulary leans heavily towards words I rarely need, like murder, death, poison, weapons etc. 😆

Dude - I wish I had seen this video a year ago when I started ;_; also maybe this video could be titled something else like "How to actually understand and start speaking a foreign language"... or "Feeling stuck? This is why you can't speak the language you are learning". I've seen your videos floating around but I decided to watch this one and I'm so glad. I'm 1000% on the comprehensive input but I always battle with how much should I be speaking. You are completely right about the dotted line bc I've done that and it's a monster to try to speak in a real conversation when you only understand a bit of grammar and some vocab or phrases you basically memorized. what you say at 7:03 man! okay. exact.