The Benefit Of Reading Spanish

Question

I can now skim through www.bbc.co.uk/mundo and understand between 80% and 100% of the articles that I read.

Much of the time I see words and understand them either, because of context or because they were in the back of my head or the phrase whilst I have never see it, I can translate it.

However much of it I would not have been able to put into a sentence as it is either new, i.e. words or phrases I would never have used in the context, or words that were too buried in my head for me to have uncovered.

Do you think by skimming through the first few paragraphs of these articles I will begin to pick things up, or if it needs more dedicated and focused study ?

Gracias para www.bbc.co.uk/mundo url. Looks interesting. - jrschenk, Aug 17, 2015

I made your link active. - Jubilado, Aug 18, 2015

Answer 1

You definitely need to study more in depth and focused.

First, I would like to know that, and I am assuming here you are a native English speaker, as the profile here just asks if you are fluent.

Have you ever thought of a word in English to mean whatever and for years you thought it meant that whatever, when in fact you checked the dictionary just to find out the word meant something else?

I think a lot of people, but in reality I am thinking everybody, does this.

If according to you, you are "guessing" what the meaning is according to context, you might be missing a whole lot later on. It happens in your own native language and of course it is going to happen in the foreign language you are trying to acquire.

I have more at my blog which address is in my profile.

I completely agree. I read news in Spanish everyday and encounter new words and words I know used in ways I don't understand. I always read with a dictionary handy. - gringojrf, Aug 17, 2015

I learned that while acquiring English. I was completely wrong in more tan one Spanish definition, I found out! - chileno, Aug 17, 2015

Excellent answer!! If you read in order to learn you need to study every word,If read just for information guessing may suffice to some extent. - faliron, Aug 18, 2015

Answer 2

I think anything you do will help. In one of the audio courses I used, Michel Thomas (the instructor) gave some tips after the teaching portions. One was to read magazines or newspapers in Spanish because they would be using fairly common language. He also suggested not looking up every word as you go along because you will get the gist of what you read. When you see a word recurring a few times, then look it up because that will be a common or important word.

As for me, I've been reading "The Old Man and the Sea" in Spanish, I was horrible at first, but as I kept reading, I was able to understand more and more, especially ways of using words and phrases that I had not seen before.

I also like News in Slow Spanish. You can listen to the news to help in understanding Spanish speakers, and you can read the news stories as well. Very good in my opinion.

Good luck!!

You are reading " The Old Man and the Sea" in Spanish; and you put your level as beginner ? - MeAgain, Aug 18, 2015

MeAgain, he is reading at his intelectual and experience level and not at a comprehending level. That's why many people starting with child book take longer to understand. If you are a child you could not not understand an adul book even in your own... - chileno, Aug 19, 2015

...language - chileno, Aug 19, 2015