My best tip is to read on ebook: that way by putting dictionaries on it you can see the meaning of the word instantly by touching it. If you're reading a physical book the best dictionary app for your phone is I think Wordreference.
As soon as you can I think it's important to start looking up every word you don't know, that way you can quickly expand your vocabulary. Often the same word is repeated so it's better to look it up the first time. If you don't know enough English for that yet start by looking up every word that's needed to understand the meaning of what you are reading. Or if you don't know enough English even to do that, I suggest reading a book you don't care about so that it doesn't always matter if you don't understand, a funny book or a so bad it's good book, that's what I did, the first book I read in English when I was a young teen was actually fifty shades of grey and I didn't understand but I found it really funny and I learned a lot of words without understanding everything. Next I read hunger games looking up every word and it was a very easy read and next I read Harry Potter which was harder and really expanded my vocabulary by looking up every word.
Btw "advice" is uncountable so even when it's plural it doesn't have the s

I think Hemingway's books aren't good choices for someone who is new to reading in English. I've been reading books in English for years and I still would have some trouble with those. Beginning with something simpler, especially with books you've read already in your native language. I started with Harry Potter, a lot of fanfiction, and books for children and young adults. Have a good dictionary handy, but don't bother with it much. It'll frustrate you. Try to understand the meaning of unfamiliar words and phrases from context first.

Well, if you can speak English than you can read it, maybe with some problems but you can.
Just be aware that it will take a LONG time if you compare it to reading in you own language. You'll need to look up a fair amount of words you don't know (for us foreigners the most problematic ones are adjectives, because we use very little variety of them in day to day use).
Don't try to ignore the words you don't know unless they are very easy to tell from the meaning of the sentence. That's the only piece of advice I can give.

Você é brasileiro então? Eu tô morando aqui e esses conselhos usei também para começar a ler em português.. mesmo assim ainda não cheguei na velocidade que tenho lendo o italiano!

Thank you for that, I think I'm gonna drop that book and look up for another one that isn't so dull like this one, you're right – the writing is really hard to understand I have to look up a lot of words, and thank you again for correcting me on that word.

You're welcome! :D I hope you enjoy your next read in English

If you want to read a specific book but it's too hard, read a translation in your mother tongue first and then reread in your target language. But otherwise find an easier and more engaging book.

Eu estou fazendo isso, entendendo pelo contexto e deixando umas palavras que não sei de lado justamente pela preguiça de ficar procurando haha Então você é italiano? que interessante! Qual foi o maior desafio de leitura até agora no português?

I speak English and some Spanish. When I'm wanting to read in Spanish, I usually stick to poetry or books that code-switch back and forth. Typically something like Pablo Neruda where the English / Spanish versions of the poem are on opposite pages or books that have Spanish words in them. I'd say, pick your favorite book to re-read in your native language and then try that one in English.

Reading classics is probably not a good idea, you want something like young adult/teenage fiction, it's usually more digestible but can still be quite challenging. Things like Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Animorphs or anything like that. I would recommend either reading on your PC with Deepl installed on your computer or with an e-reader. If you press ctrl+C+C then it will automatically copy the word into Deepl and show you the translation and an example sentence, which makes for a very efficient translation of difficult sentences or words.

The other option is to read on a Kobo or Kindle (I prefer Kobo) which has its own advantages. Firstly, you can read it like a real book, as in take it places such as the park, lie down on your bed and so on. However I think there's a second hidden advantage which is you learn to be okay with not understanding every single word and you let your brain sort of fill in the gaps.

As adults we are highly conscious of every word we don't know when reading a foreign language. We've forgotten when we were children, we would read books and you might not have even grasped whole paragraphs but you didn't really care, you just sort of tried your best and then kept going. That's the same type of mentality you should have as an adult reader. In fact, while reading in your native language, I bet you skip over many words that you still couldn't give the meaning of if asked but you sort of know what they mean within the context of a sentence and sometimes, you don't and you skip through it anyway.

The point is, I think reading an e-reader gives you the best of both worlds, you do get to look up words here and there but the architecture doesn't encourage it so much that you're looking up every second word or sentence to the point where it destroys your flow of reading.

The ereader dictionary function is by far the easiest. Don't get discouraged, many native English speakers look up the odd word when reading classics as well. English is also a mix of many different languages so there's lots of words that don't follow standard patterns making it even harder to read.

Funnily enough, I have the opposite, I moved to Portugal with a Brazilian partner. I am slowly reading fiction books in Portuguese (which I study/work in), while my main reading language is English.

I read in small chunks and give myself plenty of time to reread if I need to, I prefer paperbacks because I'm really bad with e-books as I can't keep my attention glued to the screen. But the dictionary idea is what I do, just manually typing into google translate or look for the definition online.

I'd say read in small chunks, if you feel getting tired and let's say you read x pages, that's good for starters, even if you read 2 pages a day, it's good. It comes with forming a habit and getting your brain used to the language. I also like to keep coffee next with me and remember that you reading in a different language, is factually badass, so small encouragements help too!

I would suggest reading without a dictionary. It's good for your brain and for general language learning skills development to try to infer the meaning of the unfamiliar words from context. You can highlight/underline these words and after reading a chapter or so, you can use the dictionary to write down their meaning. Checking every word on the dictionary while reading is really annoying. You'll get bored quickly and stop reading altogether. If it's too hard to understand the book from context I'd suggest either read a book you've already read or start with easy material that'll expand your vocabulary, like newspapers or magazines. You should keep in mind, though, that you'll always find some words you don't know when reading books in your second language. I've been reading in english for years and I'm also doing a degree completely in english and I still find unknown words in novels and/or textbooks. So try your best and keep your motivation high. Remember the first book is the hardest. Then it keeps getting easier and easier.

Ugh, I also struggle.

I'm learning French and the books I try to read are written for someone with at least a C1 in the language, and I merely have a B1. What helps me is reading the book in English first. You can read the translation in the language you're comfortable w. I also suggest ordering the e-book instead of a physical book from now on, if that's possible for you, since the e-readers have inbuilt dictionaries and some apps might also have a translation tool.

Keep a dictionary handy if you continue reading this book, but it's fine even if you don't wanna look up every difficult word you come across. I skip entire paragraphs when I'm not able to understand them, because it gets frustrating real quick if I try to look them all up.

I mostly read on my phone and it’s in French. I've also chosen French as the text-to-speech output language, so in case I need help with the pronunciation of a word, I can just get my phone to read the text aloud.

/r/languagelearning

I would suggest starting with something more contemporary or simpler. If this is not something you'd like at all, I'd suggest reading the original and the translation side by side.

You need to read something that’s really interesting to you. I used to read magazines instead of books. The articles are shorter and the information new to me. That built up my ability to read books, which require greater concentration.

If you are starting to read books in a foreign language, the books you start with matter. It is like wanting to run a race or marathon, you do not start right out with a big complex thing. Start smaller, less ambitiously, as a way to practice. Because if you start with something really hard and messy, you might complete it but be such a chore it will put you off reading more in the future.

Start with something shorter more manageable, less specific vocabulary. Novellas, or YA fiction, short stories.

Another tip, if you got an ebook reader, ebooks are fantastic because inbuilt dictionary or dictionaries to helo you.

Also try short stories! You want to check your reading comprehension without having to read too much at once.

What I usually do is that I start with a favorite book of mine that I have read in my native language. Since I already know roughly what happens, it is much easier to read the story in another language.

If you start reading in a foreign language, you need to read easier books than you would read in your own. I found reading English books s great way to learn the language but I was seriously out of my depth with the first book I read, even though it was 'only' fantasy and not a 'serious' book.

Eu diria os verbos. Não porque sejam difíceis, mas porque nos livros eu acho tempos e modos verbais que nunca escutei usar na vida real, então me lembra de quão ingorante eu sou kkkk.
Além disso porém diria que o português e o italiano na forma escrita não são tão diferentes!

Start with easy books. You can search a book's "lexile level" (that means how difficult the vocabulary is). The lower the level, the easier the book.

Possibly Read along with an audio book, so you can get context from narrator as you read.

Or just go audiobook. But if you are just trying gain reading comprehension then maybe not so great. If just for the story, I love reading with my eyes closed 😂

There are ebooks options where you can readily look up words, but reading on the screen sometimes isn’t enjoyable.

There are screens that are easier on the eyes, kindle style black in style screen.

You need something at your level. Middle grade fiction or nonfiction, or adult books published for Lower skilled readers. Harlequin romance novels or the readers digest select or readers digest condensed books would be good.

Thank you for the phone tip! I'm trying to learn Japanese on my own, and not knowing the pronunciation of unfamiliar words is really hindering me!

I'm trying to do this right now, in German. I grab my phone to look up words that are unfamiliar or that I just cannot remember. It's been 30 years since I took a German class. I found an ebook of Treasure Island translated into simplified German (man, if this is simplified, I definitely could not read something that was not). It's extremely slow going. I'm doing well if I can read and understand three pages at a time. But I feel really badass when I do read and understand whole passages!

I read The Sun Also Rises in high school and hated it. If you want to read something good but more accessible, Slaughterhouse Five is written in pretty simple prose and is a great, great book. If you don't object to reading something translated into English, Haruki Murakami writes in a very bare-bones style, but his books are amazing.

Like others have said, start with something simple. First books I read were the Harry Potter books and those were fairly easy to read. I'd you dont care about those then there plenty of other books that are very easy to read. Thank you can move slowly towards the classics. Check for word meanings online and keep your own dictionary. Also take it slow. You don't have to read the book in a week. Take a month if you need to. Start reading while taking notes and then mabye read the whole section again so you can enjoy it. Lastly, keep reading. Comments on YouTube, reddit, small articles on stupid thing, whatever it is. Don't stop doing it and soon you'll get good enough to read classics. Remember, it's a journey and not something that you'll achieve in a fortnight.

I would figure out what your reading level in English is and aim there or a little higher. Schools here use lexile levels, you could test yourself and aim for that level and stretch just above it.

Or, If you want to practice reading books at a higher level, choose something that you’re really familiar with in Portuguese (or another language you’re very competent in). If your spoken English is good, and your written English is as good as it is here, I think it will only take you a short time to be reading the type of books you are interested in.

You could also pick up a literary guide to the novel and read that alongside to get a better understanding as you go along.

[deleted]

Se estiveres apenas habituado ao PT-BR, vai haver uma diferença imensa nas formas falada e escrita, já que a variante brasileira do português informal é bastante distante da gramática prescritiva ensinada na escola.

Também concordo que o italiano é super fácil de ler para mim!

Terry Pratchett has a good vocabulary and is gripping to read.

There's nothing wrong with having copies of your book in both languages--try reading them in tandem. Also, think about this as a different kind of reading until you get proficient. It's more fun if you take plenty of time, read passages out loud, make flashcards, etc. Popular fiction includes quite a lot of vernacular and slang that you might not find easily in language instruction materials. When you layer on the author's style and use of literary devices, that's quite a lot of complexity to understand in one read-through. Good for you, OP for branching out in a new language!!

100% agree. I've found more success with reading books in foreign languages and my native language when I don't hyperfocus on looking up or understanding every word. I expanded my reading comprehension and ability very quickly as a child by letting myself figure things out with context clues and not understanding 100% of what I read.

It can also be good for the brain to have to work at understanding - the crutch of looking something up immediately can make it easier to forget what you've already looked up, compared to struggling with something and turning it over, which can make it easier to recognize, remember, or elaborate on your contextual understanding the next time you encounter it.

(This is an aspect of effective studying - making your brain work to recreate and recall something, like in working to remember the subject of a lecture, is more effective than just giving your brain the answer, like in re-reading notes.)

Here first and foremost because a reference to Animorphs caught me off guard and made me smile. Beautiful.

I think you put the concept of not looking up every word very well. I think as adults we forget just how difficult learning feels in general because we're so used to knowing so much about our world.

This is a great suggestion for someone who’s new to reading books in English for sure.

I mean Pratchett is generally a great suggestion, but reading OP I get a feeling Hemingway might be a bit too much for someone still having trouble with vocabulary.

I’d recommend Guards! Guards! or Small Gods by Pratchett.

Watch shows/movies in a foreign language with your native language subtitles. After a while, it helps with word recognition (although some translations aren’t 100% correct). Later, it will help out with pronunciation and sentence structure. It helped me a lot growing up learning English, and now it’s helping me with Japanese as a 34-year-old

That’s pretty much what I was going to write. So I’m just going to say that I absolutely agree, I did just that and it worked amazing for me. Now I’m reading in English (my second language) without any struggle.

Don't listen to people telling you to read some YA because classics are supposedly "too hard". Edgar Allan Poe can be quite easy to read, for example! Plus he wrote some short stories, which is cool. Maybe you can start with things like that.

My advice would be to avoid looking up words on internet as much as possible, or even worse, to avoid translating words in a sec if you're using an e-reader. Doing so won't really help developping some good comprehension skills, especially on the long term.Taking your time to figure out the meaning of a word by analyzing its context will eventually make the task much easier. It's a bit annoying at first, but it's pretty rewarding. If your english is fairly good, you'll get there in no time (:

[removed]

I would recommend reading a book you know really well! When I was learning German I picked up a copy of the first Harry Potter and it was much easier to get through since I knew the story and could pay attention to the sentences without worrying if I wasn't fully comprehending.

Try short stories instead. They're equally challenging, and equally literary, but not as overwhelming due to their length. I know Hemingway wrote many shorter works -- perhaps you could start with them and build your way up?

Reading and listening are the ways I learn foreign languages. It's always nice if you can find a book that is just a bit above your current level so that you can both understand without looking up words, but also continue to improve. That is sometimes the challenge!

Build your English reading skills by reading YA books or children’s books in English, and reading translations of Brazilian Portuguese books in English.

Audio books may help too with more complex writing.

My advice is when you feel stuck listen to the Audio book until you feel interested again. Because if you lost your interest in the book you don't becom motivated to read in foren language.

I would spend a few weeks watching a lot of tv/movies with the subtitles on. I was in Norway for a month once, watching American tv with Norwegian subtitles, and at the end of that month, I could sort of read Norwegian when I certainly hadn’t been able to when I started. Since you already have as good Grady of English, I think boosting your reading skill and speed with subtitles would cover a lot of ground fast.

There are no short cuts. It’s just reading which is a really basic activity and Hemingway is a really simple author to read. Just continue and you’ll get used to it.

Number one is don't feel bad about reading next to your computer and googling words you don't get. Number two is that you have to build up again, and it's perfectly fine to start with something easier and (more importantly) shorter. Length kills stories more than anything else, in my opinion.

Hemingway uses famously simple language. I’d say he’s a great place to start

I would recommend getting an eReader like a kindle. Because there is a built in dictionary where you can directly translate any of the words from English to your language.

It also has the English Oxford dictionary where you can build up your vocabulary flash card.

I would recommend even start with some children or young adult fiction (where the language is easier) just so you get the hang of the language and then you can progressively work towards harder books.

I am ESL as well and that’s how I progress (though I started when I was a kid so it was natural for me to start with Children and YA books).

Good luck!

Read books for young readers like The Babysitter Club or Dairy of a Middle schooler. The vocabulary is easier. If you are just beginning the read English read Beverly Cleary books.

I only read books in English and I keep my phone nearby to lookup words if I don't know their meaning and they seem important to the story (most aren't though). 95% of books I get through without looking up a word. But I also want to mention that some writers or books are just harder to read because of they way they are written. There is nothing you can do about that, and if it stops you from enjoying the book then just don't read it. There is nothing wrong with that.

Fala, meu mano/mana. Sou brasileiro também. Um autor que eu recomendo fortemente e que me ajudou muito a pegar o hábito do inglês é o Jack London. É um inglês simples e direto, mas umas histórias bem profundas, então acaba por ser o melhor dos dois mundos

Abraços

[deleted]

Yes to short stories. Also, read articles. They’re short and written for adults, so they keep my interest better than books for children or young adults.

I know there's a lot of conflicting advice here haha but as someone who learned Spanish and was pretty fluent at it back when I still used it, I found it detrimental to look up the words I didn't know. Instead, I tried to just guess what they meant based on the context and kept reading, even if I maybe only understood 80% of the story. If a word kept reappearing and I couldn't guess what it meant by the context, then I'd look it up, but only when it keeps reappearing. But I think it's important to try to understand words from the context bc in actual conversations, you won't have time to pause what the other person is saying to look up a word haha.

I'd also recommend reading in a genre you actually like. If you find Hemingway boring, that's fine! Just find what you like to read in Portuguese and find similar genres in English. I've seen a couple people recommend YA or children's series which is fine if that's what you like, but made up words make reading harder imo, so I don't really like to read foreign fantasy, but one genre that's usually pretty straightforward is detective/crime novels. Just plain old English with a usually straight forward plot, and might keep you hooked enough to keep on reading.

And then yeah, might be the obvious advice but just keep reading lol. You'll understand more and more with time. Nothing beats experience for learning.

Just try. It'll become easier I swear. I am argentinian and I went trough the same thing and it helped me learn lots of english. I try to write down the words I don't understand and I have a mini dictionary. You can start reading short books for example!

Perhaps you shouldn't start with poetry...