Do reading books improve your writing skills?

[wizwor]

I think it does. Of course, that depends on what you are reading and what you mean by writing skills. Reading a lot, you get a feel for strategies for rolling out a story, developing a character, or painting a scene. Stuff like that ;-)

[Dee Q]

Thank you all for sharing your thoughts on the matter. Actually I just wanted to improve my writing skills in general since I cannot write as well as most people here.

Somehow I do have the feeling that folks on MR talk like books. Haha! Of course in a positive way. My spoken language is pretty good, but when it comes to writing I struggle a bit.

Would you use the same language you use in your comments in daily conversational speech? How come you could write in such a sophisticated manner? I believe much comes from extensive reading.

[Dee Q]

Originally Posted by Mivo

As for the question whether reading improves writing, well, yes, of course it does. The brain is a "what goes in, comes out" kind of device. I often discover brilliant ways of expressing ideas or concepts in short stories and novels, new words and phrases, or just elegant and innovative approaches.

English isn't my native language, either, though I am not sure that it matters as much as it may seem at first glance: if you are a decent writer in one language, you should do decently in the second or third language, too, at least once you have assembled enough building blocks (vocabulary, idioms, etc.), which you do by reading. Reading is like scavenging in that regard.

I believe that the brain is (or may be) language-independent in the sense that it stores information as "objects", and that words are only labels that refer to these "objects". Learning a second language "only" adds a second set of labels, and in time it will be mostly just the same. That happens when you start thinking in the "foreign" language (context-sensitive) and no longer mentally translate. For me, this occurred after a few years of intensive exposure to English. (But since I learned English mostly as an adult, and in written form before I could actually speak it, my grammar is frequently still a little German in nature.)

But it is entirely possible that I am totally off.

I totally agree with you about the input-output thing.

As for the labels, I believe it depends pretty much on how they are arranged in different languages. My mother tongue, Vietnamese, is very different from English, unfortunately. That causes a lot of problems to beginners and they can't n help but translate everything as starters. Besides, culturally speaking, it is also up to the ways people perceive and reflect upon the world. But that is a good thing, isn't it? Being entirely absorbed in a second language can give you another lens to look at life!

[Sydney's Mom]

I learned grammar from books I read as a child. I remember proofreading my essays, and thinking about how that thought would have been presented in a book I had read. I never could diagram a sentence worth a darn, but I never saw a dangling participle in
a book I read. I count my reading for getting good grades in English, and being able to write well enough to graduate from Harvard Law School.

I couldn't recommend reading books in English any more. Jane Austin and Laura Engels were particular favorites of mine.

[Dee Q]

Yay, Jane Austen is handsdown my favorite! I can read her prose thousands of times!

[Mivo]

I never actually studied English grammar. The bulk of my early English learning took place in CompuServe's chat rooms (much like IRC), two decades ago, and in various virtual worlds. I vividly recall my utter confusion when people used "ain't", and I just couldn't figure out its precise usage, because it was used in so many different, inconsistent ways. It took a while until it dawned on me that it was slang!

In a way, that was an almost natural way of learning, just in cyberspace instead of meatspace. As a result, I use English grammar "intuitively", which isn't always entirely correct, but oh well! That's what editors are for!

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Dee Q

- Have you learned a lot of grammar structure and vocabulary from books?

I don't write (only in code...) so I won't answer your first or third question.

Yes, I have learned a lot of my vocabulary from books. Grammar not so much, as not all writers write perfect grammar at all times (nor should they at those times... think of a book about a foreign speaking person for instance... or lines in some form of dialect).

One of my teachers once told me when I asked how to write "favourite": look it up in a dictionary, because that way you'll remember it. He was right, I never forgot how to write it (and I can even recall the exact setting and the face of the teacher when he told me that ) So, whenever I come across a word I don't know and can't distill the meaning out of the text, I'll look it up and thus increase my vocabulary.

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

a dangling participle

Whenever I see that, I am reminded of King's Quest VI...

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

One of my teachers once told me when I asked how to write "favourite": look it up in a dictionary, because that way you'll remember it. He was right, I never forgot how to write it (and I can even recall the exact setting and the face of the teacher when he told me that ) So, whenever I come across a word I don't know and can't distill the meaning out of the text, I'll look it up and thus increase my vocabulary.

My mom did that with me often when I was young. If it was a word I didn't know she'd help me look it up in the Dictionary.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by Dee Q

I also heard that some people even learned by heart the sentences or even paragraphs they liked. Have anybody here ever done that?

I have.
My very first English language textbook had vocabulary you had to learn and then simple sentences you had to learn. About 20 for each lesson. They were just demonstrating whatever grammar was being taught in that lesson. They were great help, because later you just replace a few words and you have a new sentence with a good grammar.

Please read my post on the subject of improving my language skills by reading (and posting on forums like Mobileread ;-) )
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...74#post2100274

[Geralt]

I have been learning English for 21 years now, and I know there are a couple of things that help speed up the process.
-Movies, watch everything subtitled. Cartoons and TV series go here as well.
-Talking to people on forums. Nothing improves your spelling and writing as talking to people on a forum. Plus you learn a lot of idioms here, phrases and you see how people normally speak nowadays. You get to see how the natives structure their sentences. English semantics can be quite different depending on which native you are.
-Books. Books are last because while they increase your vocabulary, they can be outdated. Nobody really speaks in a literary way, in a manner the books are written.

In my case, by the time I started reading books in English, I was already in university and I had 10 years of learning English behind me, so it was no problem. I benefited mostly because I was learning technical English relevant to my university major.
Now, after 21 years, I don't even pay attention of whether something is in my native language or English. Most of the time I use the dictionary it is for old English or middle English words (Fantasy reader).

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Geralt

I have been learning English for 21 years now, and I know there are a couple of things that help speed up the process.
-Movies, watch everything subtitled. Cartoons and TV series go here as well.
-Talking to people on forums. Nothing improves your spelling and writing as talking to people on a forum. Plus you learn a lot of idioms here, phrases and you see how people normally speak nowadays. You get to see how the natives structure their sentences. English semantics can be quite different depending on which native you are.
-Books. Books are last because while they increase your vocabulary, they can be outdated. Nobody really speaks in a literary way, in a manner the books are written.

In my case, by the time I started reading books in English, I was already in university and I had 10 years of learning English behind me, so it was no problem. I benefited mostly because I was learning technical English relevant to my university major.
Now, after 21 years, I don't even pay attention of whether something is in my native language or English. Most of the time I use the dictionary it is for old English or middle English words (Fantasy reader).

Subtitles, indeed! About all shows here are subtitled (not exactly sure at what age the subtitles start, I think somewhere at ages 10-12). But those can be highly confusing, if they also translate names (especially for movies made from books, like the Harry Potter movies or the LOTR movies)

But you never had to read English books while learning English? We had a mandatory reading list for all languages taught at high school (first two years Dutch, English and French and the third year German was added, the fourth and fifth year I could drop French and German, luckily, as I was horrible at those...)

But I cheated, I went to the States for a year, where I started to read all my books in English and I haven't stopped since The last book I read in Dutch must have been in 2012 somewhere...

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

But you never had to read English books while learning English? We had a mandatory reading list for all languages taught at high school (first two years Dutch, English and French and the third year German was added, the fourth and fifth year I could drop French and German, luckily, as I was horrible at those...)

We read Catcher in the Rye in high school, but it was not mandatory. I also had German in high school and Latin, and we never had to read books in those languages either.
Of course we had texts and short articles for reading comprehension, but the curriculum favored speaking. Once you enter the classroom, there's no talking in native language, no translation. If you don't know a word, you look it up in a dictionary. But the teacher was talking only in English, explaining in English and so on.
Before entering high school, my generation already had 5 years of learning English behind them, so this method isn't a problem for most teens. Nowadays, kids have already learned English for 9 years before they come to high school.

This is also the reason why pretty much everybody under 30 can communicate in English here. Young people who don't know this language are very rare.

[Mivo]

Many people who attended the (mandatory) English classes in middle and high school prior to the Internet seem to have come out of the educational system without really being comfortable with (or competent at) the language, at least here in Germany. (In my experience, this also applies to American students who have taken several years worth of German classes.) Pre-university "stock education" can be shockingly inefficient when it comes to languages, it seems.

The reason, I believe, was (partly still is) the lack of "application", need, and exposure. Until ten or fifteen years ago, it required actual effort to get undubbed movies, and even importing games was a hassle or cost extra. The average person just didn't need to know English and there wasn't much incentive to learn and actively use it.

The Internet, above all, changed the situation. Still, even know, many Germans are not comfortable speaking English and still much prefer localized media content (books, movies, games). And actually, I think that's fine. Language is important to cultural identity, though that is something I seem to lack. (I consider myself European first, German second.)

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by Mivo

The reason, I believe, was (partly still is) the lack of "application", need, and exposure. Until ten or fifteen years ago, it required actual effort to get undubbed movies, and even importing games was a hassle or cost extra. The average person just didn't need to know English and there wasn't much incentive to learn and actively use it.

This is the same thing that happens in Japan, which is why it's a rarity, let me tell you......to find a Japanese person fluent in English.
I lived there for 3 years and I interacted with a lot of them, none of them was really fluent. You get students that are in their phd or master studies that can't form a simple sentence. I can't even fathom, that they publish their works without being able to read any of the international articles. And they do. Not to mention that katakana ruins their pronunciation to extremes. So when they wanna speak in English, they use katakana pronunciation, not English one, resulting in a total confusion of you as a listener (until you get used to it anyway). For example word fashion designer, they will pronounce as fasshon dezainaa (To hear how ridiculous that sounds go here: https://translate.google.com/?ie=UTF...ion%20designer)

I talked to a lot of them about their English education and they all told me pretty much the same thing. When they are in primary and high school all they do is read texts and write. There's almost no conversation, dialogue, monologue or any form of spoken word in classroom. The teacher explains English in Japanese. So it's no wonder that when they are 25, and they have 15 years of learning English behind them, they can't put together a simple sentence.
Other factor is as you said, everything is dubbed.
Japanese English education has been in trouble for years, and they know it. They don't have enough good English professors that are Japanese, which is why any foreigner can get a job teaching English there. I did it, all my friends did it, and we are from all over the world.

Just the other day I got an email from Japanese Hulu advertising themselves as a way to learn English through their subtitled content.
I think that might actually help the Japanese a lot.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

I have.
My very first English language textbook had vocabulary you had to learn and then simple sentences you had to learn. About 20 for each lesson. They were just demonstrating whatever grammar was being taught in that lesson. They were great help, because later you just replace a few words and you have a new sentence with a good grammar.

Learning half a dozen new words every day is the best way to build your vocabulary in any new language, in my experience. It's always worked well for me. I find flashcards a great way to practice vocabulary.