How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

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FRAnglais1919
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How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby FRAnglais1919 » Tue Sep 27, 2022 3:19 am

I'm beginning to think that reading comprehension is much harder than oral comprehension. Here are some issues I have with reading comp generally: 1. more complex grammar than in the spoken language (excluding prepared speeches/presentations), 2. more varied vocabulary, and 3. more subjects addressed in a written work, such as a book, than in spoken dialogue.

I would like to read foreign language books in my target language, but it's just such a chore. I routinely come across words that I've never seen before. I look up the word in a dictionary and go back to reading, only to find another new word within the next few sentences. I repeat the process, hence the laboriousness. Is there a more efficient, effective, and fun way to go about reading comprehension? Or is it a matter of putting in the hours, looking up new words as you go along, and trying to remember them?
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luke
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby luke » Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:25 am

FRAnglais1919 wrote:I routinely come across words that I've never seen before. I look up the word in a dictionary and go back to reading, only to find another new word within the next few sentences. I repeat the process, hence the laboriousness. Is there a more efficient, effective, and fun way to go about reading comprehension?

Parallel texts, if you can find them, save a lot of look-up time and can make certain gramatical structures more comprensible.
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Amandine
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby Amandine » Tue Sep 27, 2022 4:55 am

An e-reader can take the chore out of looking up unknown words and even translate whole sentences in seconds if you need it. I have a Kindle and I'm getting my number of pages read up to around 10,000 on that before I start on the hard copy books I have. I look up words as I go but I don't make flashcards or anything. Other people swear by that so it may work for you but otherwise if a word is common you will see it often enough anyway. If its not common, you don't need to sweat it.

It sounds like what you are doing is "intensive" reading ie. trying to understand everything as you go. But "extensive" reading is also a valid method - try to understand the story and gist, infer meaning from context as much as possible and don't interrupt the flow to look a lot of things up. An unknown word every few sentences shouldn't inhibit your understanding too much that you can't keep going without it.

My strong advice is - read what brings you pleasure. This sounds simple but I think so many people read things they think they "should" read at their level and just run out of motivation. The first five or 6 books I read were aimed at children, young adults but then I jumped into reading the same sort of things I would voluntarily read in English so I have that internal motivation to push through. I am genuinely interested in the book as the book not as a duty. Also, after a certain amount if it wasn't working for me I give up and move on to something else. There is a huge variety of levels within authentic, native-speaker content and imho its hard to predict before you read it how you're going to go with any given text. Sample a whole bunch of things and find something that's relatively comfortable and motivating you for.

I screen shot or snap on my phone grammar or vocab usage that particularly catches my eye and ask my iTalki teacher about it but I don't let anything make my reading in French a chore.

IMHO you improve reading comprehension by reading a lot so find whatever tips and tricks makes reading easiest and most pleasurable for you. There isn't just one way to proceed.
Last edited by Amandine on Tue Sep 27, 2022 6:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue Sep 27, 2022 5:07 am

Read easier books extensively. You have lots of choices with French. I tried middle grades YA first, but I found that books aimed at the average adult are often easier than books aimed at smart kids. So light romance, thrillers, beach reads. Gilles Legardinier, Guillaume Musso were both accessible and entertaining.
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Le Baron
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby Le Baron » Tue Sep 27, 2022 1:58 pm

FRAnglais1919 wrote:I would like to read foreign language books in my target language, but it's just such a chore. I routinely come across words that I've never seen before. I look up the word in a dictionary and go back to reading, only to find another new word within the next few sentences. I repeat the process, hence the laboriousness.

That's just how it is. It's a hill you just have to get over. If you wanted to climb mountains and then started on mountains, surely it would be difficult?
FRAnglais1919 wrote:Is there a more efficient, effective, and fun way to go about reading comprehension? Or is it a matter of putting in the hours, looking up new words as you go along, and trying to remember them?

Yes, as suggested above, and especially this:
Amandine wrote:It sounds like what you are doing is "intensive" reading ie. trying to understand everything as you go. But "extensive" reading is also a valid method - try to understand the story and gist, infer meaning from context as much as possible and don't interrupt the flow to look a lot of things up. An unknown word every few sentences shouldn't inhibit your understanding too much that you can't keep going without it.

If you feel that you need to look up a lot of the words to get through just a page, it a vocabulary problem and you'll have to choose how you're going to overcome that. Either the e-reader + pop-up dictionary method, parallel texts, looking them up manually. Then decide whether you should, as Lawyer&Mom suggested 'read easier books extensively.' Building up in difficulty is a lot less painful than brute force with an impenetrable text.
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby Spaceman » Thu Sep 29, 2022 7:07 pm

The best thing I ever did for my reading was looking up children's literature prizes in Spain and went through a few recent winners until I found something that was easy enough for me. Books vary wildly by difficulty, and there's really no way to know about a specific book without trying it out yourself. Anecdotally, I found native material for children much easier than translated material (the opposite seems to be true for normal novels). I think translating faithfully while also keeping the vocabulary simplified is a difficult task.
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby Outofegypt » Mon Oct 10, 2022 12:18 am

Try an easy/graded reader. Start with an A1 level reader even if it’s super easy. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment which hopefully will propel you forward. Also lots of easy readers come along with audiobooks so you can see what you hear at the same time.
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Re: How do you improve reading comprehension for B1/B2 speakers?

Postby emcuttsy » Sat Oct 22, 2022 5:36 pm

luke wrote:Parallel texts, if you can find them, save a lot of look-up time and can make certain gramatical structures more comprensible.


Beelinguapp is good for this if they support your language.

My own suggestion is low-tech and probably annoying but it worked for me: just read more. It comes with time. Odds are that you get a lot more exposure to spoken language. Written German is quite different from spoken German and I've just made an effort to read more and have noticed a big payoff.

Also, a hack: audiobooks. They're spoken (and you can listen to them while doing chores) but they're in literary language with all the fancy forms and weird vocabulary that you'll only find in writing.
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