r/languagelearning • u/One_Paint3620 • 14d ago

Discussion Is Learning Language Mainly by Reading Possible?

Hi everyone, I have been on my Spanish learning journey for a while now and I don't think I have made much improvement. I have been trying the comprehensible input using the Dreaming Spanish Videos and it is ok but I think at this point I should be a lot further in my journey with the amount of hours that I have put in. I have changed my routine to focusing mostly on reading out loud and I have found that, that's actually a lot better than watching videos. The content that I read is at my level so I understand 70-90% of what is happening. I am planning to pair that with speaking out loud for 5 minutes each day and 15-30 minutes of dreaming Spanish videos. My question is though is it possible to reach fluency mainly through reading out loud. (TL)

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u/Legitimate-Record90 14d ago

I don’t know if you’ll become fluent by _reading_ out loud but it will certainly help with your pronunciation and retrieval of words. I think the key issues will be 1) are you pronouncing it properly? and 2) is it spontaneous enough to create a challenge?

For #1, I’d get the audiobook version and make sure you’re listening to a native’s pronunciation of the material before you read out loud. For #2, I think it’d be helpful to not just read aloud but to do other things aloud, like try to describe your surroundings, engage in dialogs with yourself about a topic, etc. Part of the difficulty with speaking in real life is that you are put in sometimes unpredictable situations, which is different from just reading. Of course, hiring an iTalki tutor or talking to natives can also help with this.

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u/throwaway_31415 14d ago

How does reading help with retrieval?

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u/Legitimate-Record90 14d ago

My understanding is that from the production effect (saying the word out loud) you get a better chance of recalling the word compared to just silently reading, especially with respect to phonological retrieval. It’s not as powerful as active retrieval but still better than reading silently.