Hey, everybody, tudo bem com vocês?

I was thinking about a good topic for a post and I remembered what I did to improve my vocabulary in English and now what I’m doing now to improve my vocabulary in French. Last week I gave some more general tips, but today I’m going to be more specific.

I’m an avid reader, I love reading, like, everything, so back in the 90s I used to teach English at this school that had a huge library with graded readers and non-adapted books too. To my surprise they had the whole Stephen King and John Grisham collection, my favorite authors, so I started borrowing those books.

What happened was that at first learningthe new vocabulary seemed so overwhelming that I was writing down words and expressions and I thought, “Man, I don’t know anything!”. As I kept reading, lots of the words kept repeating themselves all over the book and I ended up learning them.

A few years later I decided to resume my French studies. I had already studied a lot of grammar, but I couldn’t read fluently or even listen to real spoken French so I decided to start with the vocabulary part again. And you know what I did? I bought some of Stephen King’s books in French! The ones I had read in English, and the same thing happened.

At first it seemed I didn’t know anything, but then words started becoming more and more familiar. I can say that today I can read a whole book in French without looking at the dictionary because we develop skimming and scanning skills that help us not to worry with every unknown word.

So this is my tip for today: read, read, and read some more! It will help you with your vocabulary, grammar, culture and it is a lot of fun!

By the way, who is your favorite author? Mine are Stephen King, John Grisham and Isabel Allende! Leave your answers in the comment area.

Cuidem-se e nos vemos em breve!

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