Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 46 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well.
I've been very busy lately.
I've had a lot of stuff to do, but I'm happy to be back in front of the microphone and recording another episode for you guys.
Of course, if you want more episodes, if two episodes per month isn't enough for you, then remember to become a listening time member.
And all my members receive an extra podcast episode every month.
So if you want more listening practice and more episodes, then make sure to become a member so that you have more listening time in your life.
So why don't we just jump right into the subject for today.
So we're going to talk about books and reading.
So some of you might really like this topic and some of you might not be big readers.
But regardless, I'm sure for all of you this will be a good episode to practice your listening skills.
Of course, remember that you have the transcript available in the episode notes.
So if you want to access that, just click on that link and you can use the transcript to help you understand what I'm saying and to help you learn any new words or phrases that I might teach you in this episode.
And, of course, please share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful and help the Listening Time podcast grow even more.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so today we're going to talk about books and reading.
So let me tell you a little bit about my experience with books.
So I think I started to get interested in books when I was around eight years old.
I was trying to remember what age I was when I first started reading a lot.
And the earliest memories I have of really sitting down for many hours reading books, I think, was when I was eight.
I know I read books earlier than that.
I read books when I was probably six or seven, but I don't think I spent much time reading at that age.
When I was 8 years old, this is when I really started getting into reading.
In English, when we say that you get into something, some activity, we're saying that you become interested in it.
You start to do it more.
So, I started getting into reading when I was about 8 years old, if I remember correctly.
And at that time, I was in third grade in elementary school.
In English, elementary school refers to the first stage of school.
From the time that you're six years old until you're maybe 11 or 12 years old, you're in elementary school.
So when I was in third grade in elementary school, I started reading more books.
I remember going to the school library.
So in all of our public schools, and probably in private schools and other types of schools, we we have a library with a pretty large selection of books.
In English we can say a selection of books or a selection of something, just to mean that we have a lot of options of that thing.
So if there's a large selection of books, this just means that there are many options of books.
There are many books available at that library.
So our school library had a pretty large selection of books, and so there were plenty of options for me to choose from.
And I remember that I started to get interested in a couple different authors during my elementary school years.
So, of course, our teachers in school, they always encouraged us to read.
They always encouraged us to go to the school library and to check out books and read them.
In English, we use the phrasal verb check out to talk about renting books from a library.
So if you check out a book, this means that you rent the book, right?
You borrow it, so to say.
So our teachers always recommended that we check out books from the school library, and they wanted us to improve our reading skills and to read for pleasure.
In English, when we say that you do something for pleasure, this means that you do it for fun.
It means that you're doing it because you enjoy it.
So our teachers wanted us to read for pleasure, so that we could develop the habit of reading and we could become good readers.
I think it worked for me.
I think I became interested in reading and I really liked the school library and the books that were there.
So I started to read for fun.
I read for pleasure.
And I also went to the public library.
So we also have public libraries in every city in the US.
So if you sign up to be a member at the library, you get a library card and then you can usually check out books for free.
At least when I was young I was able to do this for free.
I didn't need to pay for any of the books that I checked out.
I just needed to return them after a certain period of time.
So I had the habit of going to the library checking out a book, or maybe two books, and then I would bring them home and read them.
And then a couple of weeks later, I would go back to the library and return those books and then check out another book or another couple of books.
So I definitely had the habit of going to the library, checking out books, reading.
And because I developed this habit at a young age, I think it helped me grow into a mature reader pretty early on.
So I kept on reading after that.
I read throughout high school and And as an adult, I still like reading.
I don't read nearly as much as I want to.
I wish I had the chance to read a lot more, but I simply don't have enough time to dedicate to reading at this point in my life.
But I know that's kind of an excuse that we like to make for many things.
I don't have enough time, right?
So I think that in reality, I do have time to read, but I use this time for other things.
I have other priorities that maybe I view as more important.
But I do want to get back into reading as soon as possible and I hope to start reading a little bit every day, if I can.
I really miss this habit.
Once in a while I try to get back into the habit of reading and I find a good book and I try to read again every evening, but after I finish the book I tend to stop reading for a little while and forget about it.
So I need to become more like I was when I was a child and I need to get this habit back.
So hopefully this year I'll be able to do more reading and I'll make the time to read.
In English, when we use the phrase make the time to do something, it just means that you find time and dedicate it to do some action.
So I hope that this year I can make the time to read more.
So why don't we talk a little bit about types of books.
Let's talk about the different genres of books.
The word genre means type, the type of book, the genre of book.
Okay, so first of all, we have fiction.
Fiction refers to books that are not true stories.
These are stories that were invented by authors to entertain us.
So I really like fiction.
I always liked fiction when I was a kid and I continued reading fiction throughout my childhood.
And usually, when I read books today, they're fiction.
Once in a while I'll read a book that isn't fiction, but most of the time I prefer reading fiction.
So some of the authors that I really enjoy reading are Ernest Hemingway, Agatha Christie and Cormac McCarthy.
Ernest Hemingway was one of the classic American authors.
He wrote in a style that is very iconic.
A lot of people can really recognize his style when they read his books.
I really love his style of writing.
I love the types of sentences that he uses and And I just really like his books.
So I also mentioned Agatha Christie.
Some of you might have heard of this author.
She is the most famous mystery author of all time, probably.
I think she's written more mystery books than any other author, if I'm not mistaken.
I really like the genre of mystery.
So for me her books are really entertaining because I like being on the edge of my seat waiting for the next event to happen or waiting to see who committed the crime.
I really like Mystery, so for me, her books are awesome.
I think that she has a really amazing way of crafting a story and keeping you interested until the very end.
So I really like her style of writing as well.
And lastly I mentioned Cormac McCarthy.
Most of you probably haven't heard of this author, but he is considered to be one of the greatest contemporary authors in the US.
He's still alive at the time of the recording of this podcast, but he's pretty old now.
He's written books that are from different genres.
He's written Western books.
He's written dystopian, futuristic books.
And he's also written books that would be classified as Southern Gothic books.
Southern Gothic is a genre that only exists in the US, because it's based on life in the south of the US.
The setting, the place where these stories take place are almost always in the south of the US.
And so this style is really unique.
The types of descriptions that you read in Southern Gothic books are really interesting.
You don't see this type of writing in any other genre.
And I think that's why I like Southern Gothic, because I'm the type of guy that likes words and language and writing.
So for me it's really cool to read these really interesting sentences and descriptions that you find in Southern Gothic literature.
All right, let's talk just a little bit about classic American literature.
Some of the most famous authors in classic American literature include Mark Twain, John Steinbeck.
I'm sure some of you have heard of Mark Twain, because he's definitely one of the most famous American authors of all time.
I don't know if any of you have heard any of those other names, but all of these authors have written extremely important books that we still read today.
These are the types of books that we are assigned to read in high school, for example.
So a lot of people have to read John Steinbeck's books in high school or F Scott Fitzgerald's most famous book, The Great Gatsby.
We often read this when we're in high school.
So these authors are extremely important and I think that their work, their books, will continue to be very popular even in the future.
So one interesting topic regarding American literature is the idea of the great American novel.
This idea is that we are always searching for that one book that best represents America, the greatest American fiction, fiction novel.
So there are always debates in the literary world about which book best represents America, which book really is the great American novel.
So some of the top contenders for the title of Great American Novel are Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby.
These are three of the most common books that people mention when they're talking about the Great American Novel.
I don't necessarily have a strong opinion about which book really is the great American novel, but I would say that I like the idea of the great American novel.
I think it's cool that many authors have set out to try to write the book that best represents the country.
And to be honest, I've also dreamed about writing the great American novel.
When I was younger, I tried to write some fiction.
I didn't have much success.
I always stopped after a few pages, or sometimes I actually wrote a few chapters of a book, but then I kind of got discouraged and stopped after that.
So, I never had much success, but I like writing.
I think it's a really fun activity.
And so, when I was younger, I also dreamed about writing the great American novel.
So, I really like that concept.
And of course, not everyone likes fiction.
Some people prefer nonfiction books.
I'm sure many of you like nonfiction books.
For example, biographies, self-help books, academic essays, things like that.
Non-Fiction Books, So I don't have much experience with this type of literature, but I'm sure many of you like reading these types of books and I'm sure that in the future I'll have more time to read some non-fiction as well.
Alright, now let's talk about using reading as a tool in language learning.
So I think that every language learner should read.
I think that books are really, really helpful for us, especially with learning vocabulary, because books are just so dense with words.
There are so many words in books and we see many words repeated over and over again, page after page, and we get exposed to a lot of vocabulary when we read.
Of course, not all of the words that we read in books are helpful in our everyday lives, but there are a lot of useful words that you'll come across when you read.
So I think that in terms of learning vocabulary, reading is one of the best ways we can do this.
But reading also helps us learn grammar.
Of course, I'm not talking about reading grammar books in English.
I'm just talking about reading books that you like, books that you're interested in.
When you're interested in a book and you read it and you're interested in the content that you're reading, you're probably not focused on the grammar of that book.
However, your brain will start to notice these grammatical patterns and you won't even realize it.
But it's happening.
This process happens when you read in another language or when you listen in another language.
Your brain starts to recognize grammatical structures and patterns.
And even if you don't think that you're learning grammar, you really are.
Your brain is starting to notice those things.
So, reading books is good for vocabulary, but it's also good for grammar.
Some people ask me about how many words should they look up in a dictionary or should they try to translate when they're reading in English?
Or they're reading in another language that they're learning.
And this is a good question, because obviously we want to look up some of the words that we don't know.
We want to understand the words that are on the page.
But if you look up too many words it's going to interrupt your reading and it's going to get a little bit boring.
So I think that one good practice is to limit yourself and to put a number, a limit on how many words you can look up per page.
So maybe you say, okay, I can only look up two words per page.
So if you've already looked up two vocabulary words that you didn't understand on that page, you can't look up any more.
You just have to read and be okay with not understanding some of the other words on that page.
And then when you get to the next page, you have two more words that you can look up if you want to.
So using a method like this kind of helps you stay interested in the book itself and not only finding out what all of these different vocabulary words mean.
So I think that in order for this method to work, you also have to be reading books that that aren't too hard for you.
Because if you read books that are really hard, there are going to be like 15 20, however many words on one page and it's going to be too much for you.
You're not going to be able to just look up two words and then understand enough of the page in order to stay interested.
So I think you need to find books that are close to your level but are just a little bit challenging for you.
And so if you do this, you'll probably be able to understand most of what you read on one page and then just look up a couple of the words that you want to understand better.
And then you just continue on reading.
I think the main goal of reading, when you're doing it for language learning is is to do it for pleasure and to like what you're reading.
You don't want it to be a chore where you think it's boring and it's frustrating.
You should enjoy what you're reading, and so this is why I say that you shouldn't look up too many words, because it becomes hard to enjoy the process of reading.
And so you're not going to continue on doing it if you stop every five seconds and look up another word.
So that's my advice.
But I know many other people have many other opinions about how to read when you're learning a language.
Okay, so why don't we stop there for today?
I hope that this episode was interesting for you and I'm sure it was good practice for your listening skills.
So, of course, remember to become a Listening Time member if you want more episodes and if you want access to my listening practice seminars, make sure to click on the link in the episode notes and you can become a member there.
And of course, you have the transcript available.
If you need the transcript for this episode, just click on that and you'll see everything that I said.
And remember to share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful.
All right.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I hope you'll come back for episode 47 of the Listening Time podcast.
