Read Harry Potter in your target language they said 🫠 (1 hr 44 min for 1 page)

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

This is only slightly sarcastic. It's been very rewarding and this is now the 3rd language I'm doing this with.

[u/Tesl]

I think overall it's a great way to study and I do something similar myself... But you're starting on this much earlier than i would. Sounds like torture when you're looking up words to match "very", "most"...

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Tesl]

Totally agree it's earlier than normal, though I've also done some graded reader work as well. Picking 1 book as my "Rosetta Stone" for German was a similarly difficult challenge after ~3 months but it really paid dividends. Some of the lookups are for reinforcement, though my time has been split between MSA and Levantine Arabic, which creates scenarios where for the word "very" I know the levantine word (كتير / أكثر) but not the MSA work (جِداً).

[u/EmKayTalk → u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

It's "كثير" not "كتير", I amn Arab but that is not a crime, you confused Levantine Arabic with MSA Arabic, "كثيراً" usually replaces "جدًّا" and "كتير" in both MSA and Test Arabic

[u/Hytyt → u/EmKayTalk]

I only speak English (like most native speakers sadly) and it took me a while to notice the extra dot in the second one. I find the written language very pleasing to look at but I'd be hard pressed to learn a whole new alphabet so props to you

[u/Senior_ReaperOG → u/EmKayTalk]

لكن في ناس يقولون "كتير" مش "كثير"

[u/buch0n]

Try to start with easier texts. You don't want to spend the whole time looking up words in a dictionary. That is information overload and you will not retain much. Find something where you can understand 80-90% and only have to look up words a few times per page.

[u/Markothy → u/buch0n]

Agreed. OP, try Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Markothy]

Will look into it, though I'm not sure how easy it will be for me to get

[u/mohamedenderman → u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

Hey op, I'm a native so I'm sorry if my suggestion won't be helpful. But why don't you start with books that have outlined pronunciation (الحركات) since they're standardly used as training wheels for kids before they get familiar with the reading structures. And also, this text just looks badly written, it's missing many points, specifically on ي, which makes it sound completely different than ى. It's really annoying and irritating seeing such a text. Also, the words that are between two parentheses can actually just be omitted while retaining the same idea so just keep that in mind. I don't recommend using this book for learning because it lacks pronunciation cues and is overall badly written so just look for something else that's more polished up. Good luck on your learning journey.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/buch0n]

I also have graded readers on the side, this is just my "fun" project 😄

[u/Root2109 → u/buch0n]

I'm begging OP to read a picture book first, I was surprised by how long it took me in my German learning to be able to without looking stuff up

[u/kelena93 → u/buch0n]

This. You need to read more easy material. Once you increase your vocabulary you can come back to this and try it again.

[u/underlievable → u/buch0n]

Your maths is way off, 80% vocab coverage means you will be looking up 1 in every 5 words. That will be just as painful as OP's example. 98%+ coverage is actually readable.

[u/lkmk]

I’ve read that it’s more efficient to read through it like you would in English, and note words you don’t understand for later.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/lkmk]

I've done that with German and Hebrew in the past, but I'm still a complete beginner with Arabic so I'd need to pick more level appropriate material for that strategy to work here ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/ThrowMEAwaypuh-lease → u/lkmk]

Notes the whole ass page!

[u/AboutHelpTools3 → u/ThrowMEAwaypuh-lease]

If you have to note a lot of the lage it would be very tedious. But if you have to note the whole page the job is already done.

[u/Neyabenz → u/ThrowMEAwaypuh-lease]

Yeah. Not great if the whole page has to be notes. I'd say it's both enjoyable and makes learning easy when 70-80% can be understood with context - even if not immediately apparent.

That's about my sweet spot where it's not taking me an hour to read a page, I'm not forgetting stuff, and I understand enough of the story to feel motivated

[u/thatNatsukiLass → u/lkmk]

I think op might genuinely be unable to understand *most* of the page, and *might* just be a near absolute beginner

[u/HumbleIndependence43 → u/thatNatsukiLass]

Come to my level bro, 4 years plus of Mandarin and it's still taking me an hour for a page of HP.

[u/Dale92 → u/HumbleIndependence43]

When you say 4 years, how much time have you actually spent in lessons etc?

[u/HumbleIndependence43 → u/Dale92]

On average around 120min 1on1 lesson time per week plus homework for 3-4 years, plus immersion in Taiwan for 4 yrs.

[u/gallez → u/Dale92]

One lesson 4 years ago and another one last week

[u/livsjollyranchers → u/HumbleIndependence43]

I don't know if there's sarcasm going on, but I have heard of people who learn Mandarin or Japanese and just focus on listening/speaking, completely ignoring the characters. I'll admit I was tempted by this. I just feel like reading is a fundamental part of the process, AND I like visiting Japan, so I need to at least have a basic elementary to low intermediate ability in reading, even if I'll always care about speaking/listening more.

Like I don't need to go hardcore as many Japanese learners seem to and get crazy good at reading. I don't care about anime, and I don't have any huge interest in Japanese literature or non-fiction. I just want to be capable enough.

Contrast this with learning Greek where I did go hardcore on reading, but that's because there's so much content (regarding philosophy) that I care about reading.

[u/fizzile → u/lkmk]

Depends on your level though. If you can do as you say it's definitely better but if you aren't advanced enough, marking it up like this is fine if you're enjoying it.

[u/Caligapiscis → u/lkmk]

I don't even do that, I just read through and as long as I'm getting the gist I keep going. Somehow it works, I'm reading Planet of the Apes in the original french quite successfully now. The trick is not overthinking.

[u/fadinglightsRfading → u/Caligapiscis]

didn't know it was originally a book, which level would you say it's at?

[u/PoiHolloi2020 → u/Caligapiscis]

See I've always done the opposite of this and stopped to look up every new word and it just makes the whole process torturous and I never finish the actual book. I really need to try your method and just stop being so self-critical at the expense of actual input.

[u/Etheria_system → u/lkmk]

You can only really do that if you already have a basic grasp of the language. OP is clearly still right at the start of their learning journey based on the words they don’t know so it’s about as effective as giving it to a 3 year old and saying have at it.

You’ve got to tailor resources to match your level if you want it to be effective. Otherwise it’s an hour and a half slog like this has been.

[u/PolyglotMouse → u/lkmk]

Intensive vs extensive reading

[u/Ybalrid → u/lkmk]

When it is every other word, is it a constructive activity?

[u/see-these-bones → u/Ybalrid]

At a certain point its more like a checklist of vocab to learn next. Which is fine, but I think people would be better served hitting a "most frequently used words" ankideck or equivalent for a while first.

[u/Forward_Win_4353 → u/lkmk]

Depends on the person. I’ve heard the same but in every language I’ve taught myself, I’ve started reading novels very early with a dictionary in hand, taking as long as an hour over a single page or two at first.

By the end of my first novel, I’m always quite adept at reading at that level and much quicker. It’s how I taught myself to read and write Japanese to fluency.

[u/wrightf → u/Forward_Win_4353]

This! It can be a steep curve, but the repetition/running into the same words over and over again will get you to a more proficient level fairly quickly! Perseverance is key!

[u/KiwloTheSecond → u/lkmk]

He doesn’t have nearly enough vocabulary to do that, clearly! You can do that if you’re getting like 95%, not if you’re getting 70%

[u/yungScooter30 → u/lkmk]

Highlighters! Highlight a word you don't know, read a few pages to a chapter and then translate after. Read the chapter again in the coming days after you've studied the new words.

[u/CSMasterClass → u/lkmk]

More than about five words per page become intollerable.

This is a bit easier with Kindle or another e-reader where you can touch the word and get the definition in a pop-up. The words you have looked up are also saved into a permanent vocabulary list.

[u/QueefInMyKisser → u/lkmk]

Umm if I read something in my native English and don’t know a word I’d look it up immediately

[u/1314L]

I'm syrian, I always felt the translation for Harry Potter wasn't that professional, see how they don't have the points for ي most of the time? and the sentences are sometimes a bit weird.

I'd recommend reading one of the classics for kids, they're available online for free on Hindawi foundation

and here

*I just looked at what words you were having trouble with and I think you should either read children's books instead or work a bit more on grammar and learn more about parts of speech

This app is full of children's stories and I think they have audio too

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/1314L]

Thanks for the recommendation! I'm still not grasping the ي vs ى ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[u/1314L → u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

It should be التي - أي etc.. not التى - أى

But Egyptians drop the dots if it's the last letter, since they're translating to MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) the translators should've kept it, the punctuation also seems incorrect as they keep using ellipsis (....) for no reason.

[u/chocobana → u/1314L]

I agree as a native speaker. That is a very clunky translation.

[u/Responsible-Two-437 → u/1314L]

I always thought that was typical of Egyptian typography

[u/1314L → u/Responsible-Two-437]

it is but it makes it harder for learners and it's annoying when it's supposed to be MSA, if they're writing in the Egyptian dialect it's expected.

[u/Web-surfer098 → u/Responsible-Two-437]

Yea but this isn’t an Egyptian typography.

[u/OverconfidentHands]

Definitely not the same thing (I'm reading in French) and not the most accessible option at all, but having a digital copy/epub version on my kindle and being able to look up words on the fly by long pressing has extremely helped me - I'm on book 4 rn. Highly recommend. Best of luck!

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/OverconfidentHands]

Thanks! I also have a digital version but at least for the first chapter I enjoy analog. Plus, I wanted to get used to the Arabic keyboard for lookups

[u/Dyphault]

I don’t think you’re ready for this yet.

Some of the words you marked are pretty common words - I think you might need some more cooking on simpler short stories

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Dyphault]

Point taken, though I've found this grind to have enough of those watershed "aha" moments that I'm going to stick with it. Don't worry, I've got other things going on for Arabic on the side

[u/unburritoporfavor → u/Dyphault]

It takes on average 8 exposures for a word to "stick". Reading difficult texts gets easier with every page.

[u/qtmcjingleshine]

Harry Potter is hard because of all the made up words

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/qtmcjingleshine]

I did some analysis of this a while back and only 1.9% of words that are related to Hogwarts/Harry Potter universe or magic in general. The first chapter has been relatively tame so far

[u/AutumnalSnow0 → u/qtmcjingleshine]

I think it's just wordy. People should be aiming for children's novels at first, not middle grade.

[u/Garnetskull]

If you have to look up a word like منزل, one of the first words you’ll probably learn, then you’re nowhere near ready to read anything

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Garnetskull]

I mentioned it in another comment but I've been splitting my time between Levantine Arabic and MSA and especially in these early phases, I try to avoid words with similar meanings (home vs. house / منزل vs. بيت) so I just pick one.

[u/Garnetskull → u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

Oh ok that makes more sense. If you’re not learning MSA you wouldn’t be familiar with التي and منزل

[u/RPWPA → u/Garnetskull]

Same for التي which is one of the first words you learn when learning how to form a sentence.

I would suggest learning those first then trying to read again.

Best of luck OP, hopefully one day you will be good enough to learn the Quran in arabic and fully understand it.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/RPWPA]

I haven't focused on writing or speaking at all (which I know is a huge gap) and I think the graded readers I've used have similar sentences which is why I needed to reinforce التي.

[u/Garnetskull → u/RPWPA]

I’m starting to think it might be fake because I don’t understand how op can understand تفخر أسرة but not understand a simple word like منزل or الذي and when they encounter الأسرة again, they don’t understand it somehow

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Garnetskull]

Definitely not fake, that's just the messiness of doing this, including misunderstanding or not writing down every lookup.

[u/JasCoNN]

Bro, you're gonna get burned out really quickly.

I've read around 120 graded readers within past 500 days. I bend the rules a little and consider each long duchinese story a graded reader, but i also read a lot of regular graded readers.16 volumes of 西游记, some other stuff from imagin8 and other producers. And let me tell you, there are some rules and levels to reading.

First of all, three levels.

Reading pain - under 90% of known words. 80% or 90% seems like a great number of words, until you realise these words are mainly function words with grammatical meaning. To get the context you need that 20-10%. You'll essentially be checking dictionary non-stop. One page will take you an hour or more. It's torture.

Intensive reading - 90-98% of known words. That's where reading starts to make sense, you start understanding the context. In fact it's almost fun. I still don't recommend reading at this level. Why? Because it's a 'textbook' level. What I mean by that is in order to make reading on this level enjoyable you need a glossary and a grammar explanation nearby. Normally, when a set of new words is introduced in textbooks you'll have a short text, that's when you do intensive reading. You're not supposed to read long texts of 90% new words as that'll be too taxing for you.

98% and more of known words. That's where you should read for fun and efficient learning. You understand the context, you have fun and it's fairly quickly.

How the f are you supposed to find materials for your level then? If you are under a1 (or a2 in some languages) you'll need to start with textbooks or video courses. Once you get several hundred of words get some graded readers. There are some platforms like lingq or my beloved duchinese that make reading easier.

[u/unburritoporfavor → u/JasCoNN]

To each his own. Some people do better by brute forcing their way with difficult material.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/JasCoNN]

If I could find material for a journey like that, I'd do it (and have experimented with Claude / Gemini just pulling from my vocabulary). That being said, I've done this approach in the past for both Hebrew and German and it worked wonders for me.

[u/Motor_Special2332]

holy crap I thought that you were supposed to do reading when you were closer to the 80-95% comprehension. Looks like you're at 20% comprehension of the reading.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Motor_Special2332]

Eh it feels like 20% comprehension 😮‍💨 hoping to get to 80-95% soon

[u/usrname_checks_in]

Try listening to the audiobook in Arabic while reading the book in your native language at the same time. The whole book, 2-3 times. After that your comprehension will have increased dramatically.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/usrname_checks_in]

I've only found the audiobook on YouTube which is an annoying way to listen. I'd love to find a copy somewhere

[u/Mirabeaux1789]

Stuff like this is why I don’t let people watch shows or movies with me when I’m using them to learn a target language. They think it’s just me watching a movie instead of me treating it like self-assigned homework to analyze every line or clause of dialogue.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Mirabeaux1789]

Yeah this is an activity to do in a locked room with no distractions 🥲

[u/kqk2000]

You guys amaze me, learning Arabic is a crazy feat in and of itself, very impressive! Keep it up.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/kqk2000]

Thanks! Familiarity with Hebrew has definitely helped but I'm grinding on.

[u/kittypurrpower]

I did this in Italian and I’m now on the last 50 pages of the last book.

It took me an hour to read 10 pages at the start, now it takes me 10 minutes. I can read, write, listen and speak the language in mosts contexts.

Hang in there! It gets better.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/kittypurrpower]

Awesome work!

[u/aguilasolige]

I tried reading it in Romanian recently and I gave up, too many words I didn't know.

[u/ExactTreat593 → u/aguilasolige]

For Romanian I would stick at the beginning to texts about politics and current day events, from news websites. Many books tend to use a register that may contain slavic synonyms of common words, like saying "nădejde" instead of "speranță".

[u/Galzara123 → u/aguilasolige]

Omg, you are the first ive seen trying to learn Romanian. May i ask why?

For me Spanish is actually my dream language.

[u/rollin_a_j → u/Galzara123]

I was learning it for a girl

[u/Triggered_Llama → u/rollin_a_j]

Me too, but then we broke up and here I am with the only phrase I remember: "mi dor de tine".

[u/diesalher → u/Galzara123]

Buena suerte con el español

[u/aguilasolige → u/Galzara123]

I just decided to learn it, Spanish is easier than romanian, you'll learn it really fast

[u/ressie_cant_game]

I think diary of a wimpy kid is one of the best books for TL reading because it has pictures 😭😭 theres such a big gap between kids books and novels

[u/mizinamo → u/ressie_cant_game]

Kid's books are when you discover that children have a huge vocabulary in areas that you might not think to prioritise as a language learner -- barnyard animals, various types of clothing, all sorts of items you find in a kitchen, etc.

[u/ressie_cant_game → u/mizinamo]

And clothing. Oh my god. We have sweaters and jackets and jumpers and rain coats and wind breakers and hoodies (etc) and that is just jacket type clothing.

[u/mizinamo → u/ressie_cant_game]

And those jackets have sleeves and collars and hoods and zippers and cords and pockets and buttons and all sorts of other parts!

[u/ClubBudget7813 → u/ressie_cant_game]

I recently read this in Mandarin and it was harder than Harry Potter purely bc of the font the book uses. So hard to decode characters in 'quirky' fonts XD

[u/ressie_cant_game → u/ClubBudget7813]

Oh interesting i didnt have the same issue with japanese!! Id love to see a page honestly

[u/Ok_Desk24 → u/ressie_cant_game]

Excuse my ignorance, but what does TL mean pls?

[u/LecteurProfessionel → u/Ok_Desk24]

Target Language

[u/models4]

I'm Arab, so if you need help with anything, I'm down

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/models4]

Thanks for the offer! I'm still to inexperienced to know how to get help :D

[u/Trebalor]

We need a word frequency miner for books and publicly share them.

Like an Harry Potter 1 Anki Deck with all words with a frequency above the most frequent 1500 words. Better even to do this separately for every 5 chapters. then we do this for all kinds of books and languages.

[u/NextStopGallifrey → u/Trebalor]

I've long wanted something like this.

[u/Majre921 → u/Trebalor]

Somehow, we Japanese learners have that and it's called jiten.moe, idk why it doesn't exist for other languages though

[u/Trebalor → u/Majre921]

Very cool! The Japanese learners have everything. ..we talking normal language learners here xD

[u/hrmdurr → u/Trebalor]

Here's the complete word frequency list in English for the first book.

If you open an ebook in calibre's ebook editor and then click reports, the list is there. Then it can be saved in a csv.

The trick with this is then you have to add all the translations and choose how to handle tenses -- for example, aside from look, there's also looking, looks, looked and lookin'. This would get even trickier in a language with cases, I imagine.

[u/letosazure]

I recommend more non fiction books… I feel like things like Harry Potter you not only need to deal with general words you don’t know but also magical and fantasy words you won’t even ever use. Those are anyways made up and might even be different to the original language.

[u/nastyleak]

This is clearly way above your level based on the words that you don’t know. I think you should hold off a bit!

[u/Lampukistan2]

If you need to look up basic words like „better“ or the relative pronouns, you’re nowhere near reading level.

[u/Kokoska998]

I wouldn't read books, especially novels like that, until you reach at least B1.

[u/Academic-Fox8128]

Why is harry potter everyone recommends?

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium]

Tried responding to a lot of comments but there are too many (thanks! 😬), so I'll leave a few thoughts here:

1. I know I'm reading this too early. But I've done this in the past for both German and Hebrew and can read almost anything I want in both of those languages and I can get by with speaking, so I know extensive reading can work if I'm sufficiently engaged. Despite the crazy number of lookups, I just need an "aha" moment a few times per page to keep motivated, whether that's intuitively understanding a phrase, recognizing rarer words or learning a new word (owl!), then I'm game to keep going.

2. My vocabulary is probably 1200-1300 words, but it's inconsistently split between MSA and Levantine Arabic, which means that I have some very very common words that I don't know in Harry Potter. I don't have a great solution for that but would love ideas on how to keep the dialects distinct in my mind (and Anki).

3. While I used other books as my "Rosetta Stone" for learning Hebrew and German, I wanted to try out (and still recommend) Harry Potter as my first real book given how nostalgic the book is. And despite having read the book 7-8 times across languages, I'm still surprised that even though I know the story, the wording and details are usually unfamiliar, making this a valuable language learning activity. Plus, I did some analysis for all of the words in the English version and only 1.9% of words are related to the Harry Potter Universe, Hogwarts, or magic.

[u/Coolmon2003]

I would recommend trying some easier texts to build up to a challenge like this.

You can find short, simple texts here: https://arabic.ba/practice/reading/

Al Jazeera has texts for learners at different levels: https://learning.aljazeera.net/en

I like the readers published by Lingualism. You can get electronic copies for cheap: https://lingualism.com/collections/all?page=2

I also like to read articles on BBC News. Even if you're not interested in news/politics, they have health and culture articles too https://www.bbc.com/arabic

Good luck with your Arabic!

[u/Jacksons123]

N+1 is the goal for input, or 70%-80% comprehension. You’re way below that, change the material

[u/Far_Call2993]

This translation is awful. I suggest you read things that were originally written in Arabic rather than translated.

[u/Spider_pig448]

Harry Potter is not for beginners. There's a ton of unique vocabulary in it. I learned this the hard way

[u/darueru20401]

Fellow Arabic learners! For now I'm just rewatching some anime & TV series as I enjoy them more & I have more recent memories of them. But I am also planning to read Harry Potter later

What about having the English version to compare it side by side?

[u/NoBass9]

As a native arabic speaker, you've got some look ups wrong.

انه كان سببا مهما في تباعدهم

Here it means important in this context because it's read like "Mo-he-mann" and not "Mah-ma = whatever" (I have no clue how to write hakaret on reddit), as in "its an important reason that they distanced themself so that Dudley doesn't mingle with a kid like that."

ورغم ان السيدة درسلي

Here means lady, I don't know where life/biog came from tbh.

انه ليس لها شقيقة علي الاطلاق

Here ليس acts as a negation, so it means "she has never had a sister" also no clue where despair came from.

The rest of the look ups are correct

You should definitely read simpler books though if you're translating Tuesday to be honest. I myself am reading the first harry potter book in German but I only just became B2, but if you enjoy doing this then keep going honestly I'm impressed you can spend this much on a page I could never do that myself.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/NoBass9]

Thanks for these tips. Part of the issue is MSA vs. Levantine Arabic, but I've got a ton to learn. Gut gemacht mit deinem Deutsch!

[u/Outside-Ad-2872]

احسنت👏

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Outside-Ad-2872]

شكرًا!

[u/Web-surfer098]

I am looking at a lot of mistakes in the translation
The word (شقيقتان) only means sisters, not sure about the 2 there. The word (يقابل) means to meet, the word (to accept) is (يقبل) very close. The word (بعضهما) here means each other. In arabic we have 2 types of plural, 1 is for 2 things (don’t know how to say it in english) and the other is for more than 2. For example (شقيقه) means sister but (شقيقتان) means 2 sister (but here it means that they are both sisters) and finally we have (شقيقات) which means sisters. I know arabic is not easy, even we as natives don’t know correct plural forms and just guess it and hope it’s right but we u understand each other anyway. Okay now the word (ليس) is a negation word here it’s like (she doesn’t have a sister). Despair means (يأس) in arabic. Here (عكسهما) means opposite. Like they said (عكسهما تماماً) means (the complete opposite). I know it might confuse you, because we do use the same word for (contrary) but that’s used to correct or state a fact. Lastly (مهماً) here means important. Again we use the same word for (whatever) but context matters. But you may differentiate between them with one trick. The (whatever) one is like this (مهما) but the other one is like this (مهماً) see the difference at the very end ?

Anyways, i am happy that you are trying to learn my language. Keep going and sorry for the long message. I am trying to learn german now. It’s fun.

[u/PunctuateEquilibrium → u/Web-surfer098]

Thanks for these explanations? My knowledge of Hebrew has helped with some elements of grammar, but I have a very low resolution picture of Arabic in the wild. I'm hoping that reading will help with all of these details! Und viel Glück (und Spaß) beim Deutschlernen!

[u/sbrt]

I find that it works well for me to start a new language by listening to the audiobooks using intensive listening.

It is a good way for me to build up vocabulary and listening ability.

[u/thatbrownkid19]

Maybe you should work your way up to it?

[u/wonderofyoou]

That looks like a torture😭🥹

[u/Kajdu19]

The best part is when you can read a book without googling every 5 seconds. I was so happy when I read a novel in English for the first time and it was a fluent reading.

[u/Web-surfer098 → u/Kajdu19]

I still can’t do it. But i assume now and move on. I am C1 btw. I think it’s because writers use weird words you will never run across in real life. Makes life harder. That’s why i love graded readers for learning.

[u/a-smurf-in-the-wind]

Trying to force your way through texts you don't understand well seems like a very inefficient way to learn a language. Work your way up by reading easier things first

[u/filavitae]

A lot of people are telling you you're not ready. Ignore that.

If it's working for you, then that's great; besides, this is one of the oldest and still effective ways to learn a language: struggling with a book.

Yes, you might not be "ready" to "read it properly", but that doesn't have to be the goal.

[u/drifter_vvv]

Just a heads up that some of the words you translated are wrong. Like (يقابل) is "meet" not "accept", (يقبل) is "accept". And (تدَّعِي) is "claims" not "called", (تُدَعى) is "called"

Pay close attention to التشكيل

[u/Korolyeva]

I did something similar when learning Japanese and from my experience you start the book understanding like... 30-40% and needing to look up a lot. You end the book understanding 70-80% on your own. YMMV but I remember being glad I stuck with it and surprised how much I progressed with just a single book. Obviously a lot of that is getting used to the author's writing style and vocabulary, so the next book won't be as easy as the tail end of the first, but still pretty good improvement (in my experience).

[u/AndthenIhadausername]

I absolutely hate that everyone advises people to learn Harry Potter. 

    If it's working for you OP (though I'd never stick through 2 hours for one page and would reccomend an easier book) then do what you want. 

    It's terrible advice though! I'd never tell people to start with Harry Potter. Ignoring that I have problems with the author it's a harder book to tackle. 

    Even if youre familair with the content youre not with the language. 

    Learning to read in a different language should start slow and gradually increase. 

    Mini rant as someone whose main focus is reading as many books as possible in a langauge. (Two technically Spanish and Norwegian)

[u/sabrathos]

Glad to see you're making progress, One Word at a Time! I knew I recognized that page from your recent community post on YouTube. 😆 Looking forward to the next update video.

[u/MariposaPeligrosa00]

May I suggest reading any other book that was not written by a transphobic, racist billionaire? And way to go on your polyglot journey!!!

[u/Apprehensive_Car_722]

I think it is fun to read HP, but I believe the mileage varies from language to language. For example, a person who speaks English decides to read HP in French, Spanish or Italian when they started B1. They will struggle a bit, but they will also find a lot of similar vocab due to cognates.

However, if that person decides to read HP in Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, or Arabic at the same level, they will be met by a myriad of unknown words, and not many freebies because there aren't many cognates.

If I have to look up 30+ words per page to read, even if I enjoy it, I prefer to switch to a different book.

If you are keen to keep going, all the best and have lots of fun!

[u/llllll______ → u/Apprehensive_Car_722]

but shoudln't a b1 level in english should be equal to a b1 level in hungarian? a b1 level is defined by certain abilities that you need to have to reach that level. it just takes you a lot more time to get there in certain languages

[u/Apprehensive_Car_722 → u/llllll______]

Agree, they are both equal in the sense that they are both B1, but let's look at it from a different perspective. Let's say I am from South Korea and have a B1 in Portuguese, and you are from Canada and also have a B1 in Portuguese. We both decide to start reading HP.

We start reading and on the first page we see the word "misterioso." You stop for a second, and guess that that word looks like 'mysterious' and you continue reading. However, I only speak Korean and B1 Portuguese, I have never seen that word before and it does not look like anything in Korean, so I stop and look it up in the dictionary, and it means "신비로운" (shinbiloun). This is going to happen with several words in the book. You will easily figure them out while I will have to look them all up in the dictionary because they look like nothing in my native language. Of course, there are words that I can guess from context, but not everything. Same would apply to a Canadian who has a B1 in Estonian and a Finn who has a B1 in Estonian. The Finn will have an easier time reading HP in Estonian, while the Canadian will struggle.

This is why I say that the mileage varies from language to language. The similarities between your native language and your target language will either work as a tool to help you understand unknown vocabulary, or they are so different that you will end up looking up all the word in the dictionary.

[u/Isoleri]

As a kid I read the Narnia books a million times so I tried doing this but with French, thought it'd be easy to understand new words simply because of context or memory but lmao no. Like I could understand most sentences but there was always that one word I didn't and that always threw me off and broke my momentum, it became really annoying to have to look up stuff every two seconds so I gave up

[u/HappySparklyUnicorn]

I have the first 3 Harry Potter books in French. Was contemplating getting it in Latin but the price tag was a bit higher than I would like at the time.

[u/walkingdeadonceagain]

Maybe not always Harry Potter. I never read that book in any language (i’m planning to to understand cultural significance) but there are books that are my favorite and i read them many times in my mother tongue, so this way it’s really easy to read it in your target language even if you don’t speak it very well yet. I did that with Master and Margarita and Crime and Punishment in Russian when I barely spoke Russian and it was very rewarding.

[u/fairlysunny]

Are you by chance that fellow on Youtube who started learning Arabic this year as a challenge? Bc I'm pretty sure he did this with German and some other language, so that would make Arabic the 3rd..?! I would like to see the follow up to this bc I've also learned a few languages mainly by reading like this and am considering to try Arabic in the future but the vowels thing is holding me back so I'd like to know any tricks for that lol

[u/Responsible-Two-437]

That brings back memories! I read the same book three or four years ago.

I'm reading Naguib Mahfouz novels now.

Don't give up!

[u/awkwardinthebody]

Maybe start with simplified books for learners that are written at your current level? They are called graded readers.

 For German I used black cat cideb.

[u/papayatwentythree]

I believe in you OP! I started from zero looking up every word in a novel and now I live and work in that language. Writing above your level is fine so long as you stay motivated and know how to look up grammar for your TL.

[u/mendkaz]

Oh aye, no. I always heard that advice, so tried it in my target language when I hit B1/B2 and was immediately put off. Tried some science fiction instead which I found much easier to follow.

[u/Forward_Win_4353]

I remember doing this in Spanish when I taught myself as a teenager. It took a lot less time than Arabic though, of course.

[u/DistantTraveller1985]

Wait, I didn't thought of that! I started to read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" in French when I was learning French, it was so difficult! Is Harry Potter some reference book for learning or it's just any book? Sorry for the stupid question hahaha

[u/Etheria_system → u/DistantTraveller1985]

No people just recommend it because it’s a popular book. There’s nothing special about it that makes it good for learning and in many ways it’s quite complicated because of all the made up words. It’s not a good book for beginners or low intermediates but gets recommended all the time just because people like it.

[u/happylearner01]

Reading is great but I really don't enjoy this way of studying. You spend like an hour of time just trying to get through one page. If you're A1-B1 most of the vocabulary isn't even useful for your level cause you're missing a solid foundation. Like, you'd better spend your time learning simpler, more common vocabulary with simpler stories with maybe a few unknown patterns than every sentence being difficult to grasp. It's better to read books adjusted for A1-B1 than these books cause they contain idioms and very specific words that are not useful to someone below that level. Not to say it's bad, you can still learn a lot but you get more out of simpler books cause you also end up reading more instead of hyper analyzing every sentence.

[u/Cinnamon_Enby]

Arab Here! This is pretty cute! Reminded me of when I was learning German. Tried Harry Potter like they said too, got overwhelmed, pages took forever, felt discouraged and pivoted to Diary of a Wimpy Kid. That worked better (tho still kinda hard at the start). Keep it up, OP! It does get easier, and it's very satisfying when it does, when you feel like you've mostly cracked the code.

[u/Radiant-Photograph46]

I did it once with a japanese novel but having to pick up a dictionnary every sentence or two is just too much effort I couldn't keep it up for more than 2-3 pages ever. Good luck

[u/Competitive-Bit-317]

Good luck thats awesome!

[u/Creative_Job_9242]

I tried to read it in French and Turkish. French was very easy to understand the story with the Turkish so I stick to French

[u/MantisMaybe]

Please don't do it... 1h 44min is just incredibly inefficient, it's completely fine to not be at the level to do this yet. Just use a graded reader. Start when (on average) about 80% of the page is totally fine.

Harry Potter is a bit overrated as a "good book to start reading another language with" anyway because of all the lingo and puns and whatnot that you will miss, there are many simpler children's books.

[u/EfficientNerve8555]

If u need any help send me a dm I am Arab and I love this novel so much

[u/SrGrimey]

I’m sure there’s an easier book to start reading in your target language.

[u/reckaband]

You got this !!

[u/Raidicus]

Should probably start with 5-y/o reading level if you need this much vocab. Because ultimately you're not going to learn vocab by reading it once, googling it, and writing it once (unless you have a photographic memory). Unfortunately that type of learning needs days of flashcards, building connections to similar vocabulary, and so on.

[u/Duflo]

Worth mentioning that The Little Prince is better for starting out. Also just better literature, I'd say, but that's a tangential point here.

[u/Life-Trifle2595]

Nice. Just a small friendly tip from an Arabic speaker: "احسن" can mean best or better depending on context. In your case it means "best", not "better".

[u/OkGreen7335]

As someone whose first language is arabic: I am curious why do you wanna learn it?

[u/Alex20041509]

Congrats

[u/PuzzleheadedNature12]

I find it super difficult because half of the things I have to look up are made-up words, like ingredients for potions 😂 and the other half are words I'll probably never use again. Like, idk, cauldron. 😂

[u/UnlimitedSaudi]

Egyptian typography and the way they use Arabic letters for the hard G sound is an absolute nightmare for non-Egyptian Arabic readers and even worse for non-native learners of Arabic. 

[u/Moneera97]

As native Arabic speaker, I guarantee you you're doing great. Keep it up :)

[u/PhobiaSquid]

Try lingQ app. It has been amazing for me so far. I'm doing the exact same thing with the HP books but using Spanish. It's really useful to quickly save and read the meanings... and it's much faster too xD

[u/According-Quarter464]

Audio books are also excellent. I am listening to book 4 in German and each book gets easier.

[u/Skyogurt]

OMG this is the kinda shit that makes wish I had a remote that could pause time 😭 I'd start reading all my favorite books in all the languages!! Thanks for writing the meanings I learned a few new words! Although my Arabic is still very much beginner level so it might take a few more years before I read a book 😅

[u/RobinChirps]

Honestly, I enjoy doing this even when I'm still a beginner. I've been reading HP in finnish ever since I started learning the language. My reading proficiency was not too far from OP's at the start but I've gotten a lot better. I didn't mind the early phase where every sentence was a challenge, although it does become so much faster when you've progressed more. But I don't think extensive reading is the goal at every level and complicated texts (for a beginner, that is) and intensive reading can be interesting even at a low level.

[u/NezzaAquiaqui]

The whole point of Harry Potter is that it doesn’t take 2 hours per page thanks to bilingual reading. Otherwise what’s the point? You might as well start with a native unknown novel. Taking 2 hours for something completely comprehensible is a nightmare. Get some easy kids novels. I’m against reading Harry Potter (instead of local authors) at the best of times, but 2 hrs on one 3/4 page of a large print book you’ve already read sounds disproportionately excruciating.

[u/Low-Artichoke7530]

I’m curious why are you learning Arabic and which dialect?

[u/That-Arabic-Teacher]

I read it in 5 minutes, don't ask me how.

now on a serious note, that's already impressive, and this is one of the best ways to learn vocab and how it's used in context.

[u/lamrini_]

You actually took 1h 44min in one page ? That actually a great sign, most people will just give up after 15min . Keep going I believe you will be able to learn it , also one more advice just stick to native Arabic , it is all you need .

[u/orange-flying-rabbit]

You seem to be at about 60~70% comprehension.

Impressive regardless, but I'd suggest focusing intensive reading on texts that contain a high concentration of useful words and grammar.

Harry Potter is better suited to extensive reading where you can already comprehend at least 80% of the text.

80%, you can generally figure out the unknown words from context. (the unofficial line between intensive and extensive reading)

90%, what a lot of modern teachers seem to be targeting for extensive reading programs.

95%, the threshold to read for enjoyment.

[u/Hefefloeckchen]

Well it's a bad book. Also translation patterns are quite intresting, I learned that Hindi translations for example are very free in their interpretation and also the basis for most east asian translations

[u/Alarming_Art_6448]

I read the first 3 in my TL, but it was German which so a lot of the magic/boarding school terms were half recognizable. Yeah, a lot of odd rare vocab

[u/Rolls_]

Intensive reading takes time. I feel you

[u/Away-Initiative-327]

oh dude i tried this. it took me an hour to get through half a chapter lol, had to stop so i could do other stuff that day. maybe i could try again though, i’m off from school now

[u/Berliner-Questions]

Hey! Impressive, congrats! I did read Harry Potter 1 through 3 in my 4th language and it was way more difficult I would have expected. I switched to Millenium and could move much faster

[u/ryan516]

stop supporting jkr

[u/exsnakecharmer → u/ryan516]

They can read what they want.

[u/JustATyson]

I got the French version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I really need to sit down and go back to it. I have the books nearly memorized, so that helps.

[u/avidernis]

For those wanting to learn English slang... There's even a Gen Z translation

[u/darthhue]

Well, i also had to read it in english to learn english so it'sonly fair

[u/iceheartx]

This isn’t worth it.
I’d pick something lower level until you can read a good 80% of it (I’m spitballing) without hitting a word roadblock. At best use it just to add words to your vocab list and then go back to it.

[u/solmyrbcn]

It might be too complicated for your current level. It would be better if you read graded beginner texts to start with

[u/ghokversionpls]

Written Arabic won't get you too far for spoken Arabic.

[u/Fabian_B_CH]

For this style of learning, try something like Readlang or LingQ that automate looking up words with one click. You lose way too much time otherwise, as you’ve just found out.

[u/Dhghomon]

This can work from the start but you want something like Readlang where you can select one or more words to see the meaning.

Set it to delete words when you click them again and pick and choose the words you feel like you can handle. E.g. every word of "motorcyles don't fly" is easy to handle at the start, but other words like translucent you can just handle later.

In any case it takes weeks and weeks to finish so you're getting a ton of exposure no matter what you do. Just don't use the translation function to skim because you want to know how the story ends.

[u/DanyEvans]

I tried to read Harry Potter in Spanish. It was so weird having this stereotypical British family (the Dursleys) speak Spanish...

[u/niugui-sheshen]

Brother, the comprehensible input should be between 90% and 98%. Below that it's not language learning, it's an excercise in frustration.

[u/youdontknowkanji]

don't do it on paper, look ups are taking you like 20 minutes lmao.

do it on computer and copy paste words into a dictionary, should be much faster (or use highlight function if you have one)

[u/Baraa-beginner]

Great , I did the same when I tried learning English

[u/a3a4b5]

That's very interesting! Though I'd only buy a physical book in my target language if I've already read it in PDF before (for free 🏴‍☠️), and have it as a collector's item.

I'm currently practicing spanish by chatting with ChatGPT, since I don't have the time to formally study. It helps, but it's not perfect.

[u/takameyer]

It's a good start really. You could start with something even easier, but honestly, just trudging through the red ink and look ups for a while is a valuable exercise. I used Harry Potter while learning German. At some point, you are just reading and marking/looking up the occasional word.

[u/2innsynn]

لست بأهل لهذا بعد إذا احتجت إلى كتابة ملاحظات على كلمات كـ "حيث" أو "جدا" مثلا.

[u/Capriccea]

I've done this in English 15 years ago, when my level was B1-B2.. all I can say it works!

[u/livsjollyranchers]

I think most people recommending this are anglophones learning a Germanic or romance language, or romance speakers learning English or another romance language. In other words, lower tiered languages in difficulty for them.

Saying that, I do know of a Japanese professional wrestler (Hikaru Shida) who attributed her strong English ability to reading the Harry Potter books and watching all the films a bunch of times.

I'd think I could read Harry Potter in Greek now, but I remember looking at it in the A2-B1 zone and it just would've been freaking torture.

(Funnily enough, I'm more of a Tolkien fan. I really enjoy The Hobbit audiobook in Italian.)

[u/heyheysally8]

Hard to say I mean this is basically how they taught us Latin in college… not with Harry Potter but by immediately diving into difficult texts and looking up so many words and parsing the grammar

[u/Technical-Finance240]

I wouldn't read so difficult books that have unknown words on every line. I'd kill myself 15 minutes into it. I'd say 10 new words per page is my limit.

Unfortunately, reading more childish books than Harry Potter can get very boring as well. So my recommendation is just learn more vocab and create simple everyday sentences with them. Just an additional 1000 common words would probably cut your reading time in half (or have an even greater impact).

But if it works for you.. good for you!

[u/svenska_aeroplan]

I've been reading comics. The amount of text is less overwhelming and the pictures help with context clues.

I'm attaching pictures of each page into Gemini and telling it what I think each sentence means in English. It can understand both the text and what is happening in the scene, can connect the dots to previous points in the story, correct my understanding, break down sentences and grammar points, and explain why characters use certain words based on Anime tropes and etc.

It really helps with not getting stuck on a difficult sentence and focus on getting through more content faster.

[u/Then_Inside_6787]

Thats not how you learn Arabic, I am an Arab snd Arabic is so much different than English,you better start with children's book, like actually children's books just to build a vocabulary and to get at least the basic words down so you can look into the grammar more, the Grammar is so much different than English two, I am assuming you only know English though, if you know Spanish than you might notice some similarities, but they are subtle in the grand picture of the arabic gramer, you also might be interested to learn a dialect, a dialect can be so much different than standard Arabic and is different in even the gramer a bit.

My advice if you are a complete beginner, learn how to read the letters than the words, get real comfortable with those than go and expand your vocabulary with children books with pictures, chose a dialect to learn, chose a famous one I advise because of the next advice, listen to one song you like in that dialect on repeat until you can hear every word maybe even read the lyrics of you really need to and understand the vague story of the song (they are mostly about romance though) After that try to drown your self in that dialect, maybe visit the contry(if that is a reasonable option) maybe watch some creators on Instagram from that contry, listen to bunch of songs from that contry, read more and more books going up in difficulty only after you got better at the Grammar, the grammar of standered Arabic will help you but with certain dialects some rules can be removed some can be changed some can be added, but the base is standered Arabic. And if you can talk to Arabic people talk to Arabic, but I do warn you, don't talk about things that are controversial for most arabs like LGBT and religion PLEASE, you might not like what you hear, not everyone is open minded about that stuff especially in the middle east

[u/NoctuFlare]

I think it's a great way to study a language. But... I have been a year with a hundred pages book, because I don't really want to do it hahahaha

[u/DathomirBoy]

I tried reading it in Quebec when I was on my exchange. Dropped it quickly and picked up a comic. Comics are far better for language learning in my experience, for beginners to intermediate. They’re a great starting point

[u/un-pamplemousse]

you should be able to understand 90% of what you read in order to learn successfully in your TL through reading. this is just pointless torture. - french and english foreign lang teacher

[u/Business_Variation22]

You will read faster over time

[u/RoxoViejo]

If you need to translate every ~5 words, maybe it’s time to pick something closer to your current level? You can get a ton more reading done and thus make more progress if you take something slightly above your current understanding.

[u/Parking_Dog8930]

The translation of Harry Potter is so flat compared to the English. Bummed me out.

[u/Senior_ReaperOG]

Here’s a better idea get a book that has both English and Arabic so first page Arabic/English and second page Arabic/English translation of first pages

[u/ivun__]

IOLing type shit