Do you have a list of books you want to read in your L2?
What order are you going to read them in?
Do you wait until you get to a certain level before deciding to read a particular book? How do you determine that you are ready for that particular book?
Are you intentionally holding back on reading any books because you are waiting until you are at a higher level first?
How do you balance betwen reading a book now (for language learning purposes) and enjoyment (reading it when you are better means less distractions from looking up words and more immersion)?
Not exactly a list, but I’m always inspired to learn a language by an author, sometimes several, that I want to read in the original.
I usually have a rough sense of the path of progression that I expect to take through the language. It’s good to look for early 20th century popular fiction as a way in (Salgari in Italian), and it’s important to pick an initial author whose literary style is not too descriptive, or philosophically discursive, and who has pretty good narrative pace (I choose Calvino - I had not read a word of him in English but from what I knew of him he seemed to fit the description and that turned out to be right). I tend to alternate between popular and literary fiction. I also look for high quality children’s authors and then read the rest of their work. If an author writes well for children his adult fiction will probably have a more direct style (I discovered Dino Buzzati this way and am still reading my way through his work). I will also look for high school syllabi so that I can read the works that form the basis of the traditional literary culture of the language. If a teenager can read it, I probably can. For history I knew I would read Indro Montanelli’s popular multi-volume history of Italy, before I read anything more particular and in a more academic style. Again, I tend to alternate: I read a volume of Montanelli, pick a few interesting figures and seek out books focused on those figures, which tend to be more difficult reads. Popular → Academic/Literary → Popular → Academic/Literary, etc.
The first book I read was Il visconte dimezzato by Calvino. Zero preparation, just dove right in. I don’t care that much about readiness. Every now and again I will bite off more than I can chew, but most of the time with max effort I can read the book.
Yes, but not because of language learning considerations, but because I want to enjoy the pay off of the full command of the language. I will one day read through all of Umberto Eco, sitting comfortably in my living room, without a dictionary in hand. I will one day read Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. When I can do those things, I will read the Divine Comedy. I still expect to have to study it, but I don’t want to do that before my Italian is rock solid.
There is so little dissonance between my experience of these two considerations that I don’t actively think about it that much. I think there have been three books that I read at the wrong time over the past 2.25 years, in that even with max effort they were just too much of a slog for me. It’s a character flaw, I admit, but in each instance, I dragged myself to the end of the book, rather than put them aside for later. I consider this the price I pay for being the kind of person who can do all the other things that have made it possible for me to effectively learn the language in the first place.
Yes I have a whole list of books I want to get to! and a list of books that I’m currently reading. I try not to read more than 2 books at the same time.
(which is hard to do! because there’s so many great books that I want to get to! haha)
Right now I’m reading
11/22/63, Salems Lot by Stephen King
and Psychologie to go! by Franca Cerutti
Right now I’m holding back on IT by Stephen King just because that book is sooo long I want to wait until my reading level gets a little higher.
My main target language at the moment is Persian, and I honestly don’t know! I’ve been discovering the culture and history along with the language, going in almost blind at first.
I have already managed to read through LingQ one book I kept hearing about - “The Little Black Fish” (Mahi-ye Siyah-e Kuchulu - forgive me for not typing Persian on my desktop ), a short children’s fable with political overtones that I gather is dear to many Iranians. I’m curious to discover more in time!
[Кафе “Європа”. Життя після комунізму] Cafe Europa: Life After Communism
[Російсько-українська війна. Повернення історії] The Russo-Ukrainian War. Return of history.
[Четвертий помічник святого Христофора] The fourth helper of St. Christopher
Cafe Europa: I have got the audio book and the ebook. It’s easy to understand if I take enough time.
The Russo-Ukrainian War. Return of history. This autor is an historian and wrote an history book about history of Ukraine. This one is to explain what happens now. Here I have ebook and paper book. I intend to study with ebook and do reading exercise with paper book.
The fourth helper of St. Christopher I book this book a long time ago and an ebook. I waited to consolidate my Ukrainian before starting it. Amount of unknown words are 39 thousands when I bought it. Now it’s above 30 thousands. I have algo got paper version. So I can also study ebook and do reading execises with paper book.
I take pleasure in reading. “Cafe Europa” is second book I’m reading in Ukrainian. I clearly remember part from these books I have enjoyed and then speak about them in my onw langague.
Issue here is that reading is slow. A book as “Cafe Europa” will probably take me 3 months. Limiting factor is Lingq creation.
This was actually what I was thinking when I posed the question! Haha. I was thinking how much more I would enjoy Il Nome della Rosa in the future, when I have a better command of Italian, compared to now. If you still aren’t that level yet, then I guess I have a while to wait.
Personally, I’m reading books from YouTubers I’ve been watching for years and I recently remembered that many of the great movies I watched were actually based on books. So these books are generally published in the 21st century.
I usually look that I take books I can enjoy on the one side and where I still have around 7 - 17% of unknown words per chapter on the other side. If it’s less you don’t learn much. If it’s more, it gets too difficult and doesn’t make fun. You can just start reading and see whether the book is too difficult for you or not, usually you would see it after a few pages.
), a short children’s fable with political overtones that I gather is dear to many Iranians. I’m curious to discover more in time!