How you can learn English from reading

We all know that reading books is a great way to learn English. What about if you don’t like books, though? Reading a whole book can be tough and time-consuming, especially if you aren’t interested in reading books in your native language. So, what can we learn from reading something other than a book?

Improve your vocabulary with a newspaper

Newspapers use a wide range of vocabulary to describe the world around us. If you feel like you already know all the vocabulary in your textbook or online study course, pick up a newspaper and you’ll soon come across some new words to add to your (vocabulary notebook [link to article on English notebooks])

Build your English skills for work with a trade magazine

Most fields of business have English trade journals that people use to keep their professional knowledge up to date. If you are a teacher, get yourself a teaching journal or if you are an architect or designer, subscribe to an interesting design magazine. Reading about your area of work in English will help you learn all specialist English expressions you need to do your job in English.

Practise scanning with product specifications

(Scanning for specific information [link to article on English reading styles]) in a text is an important skills to master in English. Practise it by reading product specifications in English. Set yourself a task to find out a specific piece of information about a product and see how quickly you can look it up.

Learn to read for gist with reviews

Reviews are great for finding out which products to buy or which films to see. See if you can understand the gist (general idea) of a review by reading the review and guessing what score the reviewer will give the product out of ten. Check if your guess matches the reviewer’s rating at the bottom of the review.

Read instructions to learn how to describe processes

Describing how things work in English is an important skill. It also often comes up as a task in English exams such as IELTS, TOEFL or TOEIC. Next time you buy a new gadget, work out how to use it by reading the instructions in English. You will build your comprehension skills and learn how to describe the process of using something in English.

By opening your eyes and reading a wide range of things, you can really improve your skills without needing to sit down for hours reading a book. Try it today and let us know what you read using the comments section below.