If you wish to become a better reader, here are four important points to remember about rate, or speed, of reading:

1. Knowing why you are reading—what you are reading to find out—will often help you to know whether to read rapidly or slowly.

2. Some things should be read slowly throughout. Examples are directions for making or doing something, arithmetic problems, science and history books, which are full of important information. You must read such things slowly to remember each important step and understand each important idea.

3. Some things should be read rapidly throughout. Examples are simple stories meant for enjoyment, news, and letters from friends, items, or bits of news from local, or hometown, paper, telling what is happening to friends and neighbors.

4. In some of your readings, you must change your speed from fast to slow to fast, as you go along. You need to read certain pages rapidly and then slow down and do more careful readings when you come to important ideas which must be remembered.

I just counted how many foreign languages I've studied so far in my life and it's been twelve!

I always follow my interests and I like to read blogs(博客)in other languages.【小题1】. Bloggers tend to write the same way they speak, so I don't have to worry much about adopting strange terms that are only used in writing.

Movies are also a really good tool, especially if you can find subtitles(字幕)in the language you're learning.【小题2】,they will still keep your brain listening and reading in the same language. Music is another way to start listening in your new language. Games are of course also an excellent way of studying a new language. A lot of language learning computer programs include games. I'm super competitive and if I play any of them. I can be hooked for hours.【小题3】

However, the hardest bit for me is when I'm comfortable enough with a language to understand most things and make myself understood. I'm actually stuck at this stage in Norwegian,【小题4】 Ideally I should sign up to take a big language exam. Each time I start getting self-satisfied, it's time to take a new course or take up some sort of challenge that will require me to level up my skills.

【小题5】The best language class I've ever taken was my beginner's Russian course at university where my professor never used any English. It got to the point where I would kind of just forget about English while in Russian class, which helped me to really immerse myself in the Russian language and do a whole lot with the limited Russian I had.

Magazine Activities for Learning English

Even if you just read the magazines and enjoy their content, you will be learning new words, sentence structures and common sayings. 【小题1】 Here are some activities you can do with English magazines that will help you study English actively. You can do these out loud by writing, through discussion with someone else or even just silently in your head.

【小题2】 Most magazines have a lot of pictures. Choose some pictures and describe what you see in them, out loud or in writing. You can find more ideas on how to learn using pictures in this article.

Add speech and thoughts. Are there any people or animals in the pictures? 【小题3】 Then write on the magazine their words or thoughts in your imagination. It is like a film showing in your mind.

Summarize the articles. You can test how well you understand an article by trying to summarize it. 【小题4】 If you can’t, try reading it again and take care to see the meaning instead of the individual words.

Discuss the articles. If you read about an event that just happened, or even if you just find something interesting, share it with someone. Have a conversation about it. It will be a great way to practice your understanding of the article and your conversation skills. Some-times reading an article leaves you with more questions. If you could ask the author anything, what would it be? What else would you want to know about the topic? 【小题5】