What You Should (and Should Not) Read When Starting to Learn a New Language
Because reading is free, useful, and only mildly painful.
Reading is one of the fastest ways to boost your vocabulary, reinforce your grammar, and make your brain quietly scream in three languages at once. But not all reading materials are created equal, and some will help you fly… while others will make you question your life choices.
Here’s your clear guide to the reading that actually speeds up language learning—and what to skip for now.
First of all: Yes, you MUST read.
Reading gives you:
- Vocabulary + grammar in one go.
- Real examples of how the language actually works.
- Exposure to natural expressions, connectors, idioms, and sentence rhythm.
In other words, reading is basically a free language teacher, minus the trauma.
How to Read (Without Crying)
Most learners destroy their progress by reading the wrong way or the wrong content.
Here’s the right way:
1. Don’t try to understand every single word.
If you stop at every unknown word, you’ll finish one page per year. Or worse, you’ll give up. You will keep looking up every word, and rather than enjoying it, it will feel like proper hardcore studying that you hate. Your goal is the message, not linguistic perfection.
2. If you miss the keyword, look it up.
Not every word. Only the ones that block meaning. Then continue.
3. Let your brain make mistakes.
Guess meanings. Predict what comes next. Let context work for you.
This is how children learn—minus the tantrums.
What You Should NOT Read (Yet)
❌ Children’s Books
Everyone recommends them. Everyone is wrong. I was also wrong when I started to learn English. I was reading bedtime stories to children, while not having a clue what I was reading. Bless my old au pair days when I asked the kids to explain the most frequently repeated word in the book, “pixie”.
Children’s books use:
- Fairy-tale vocabulary
- Non-existent creatures
- Words you will never use in adult life
- Odd sentence structures
Useful words learned from kids’ books:
- Dragón, princesa, varita mágica, gnome
- How often will you say any of those at the bank? Exactly.
❌ Newspapers
Even native speakers suffer.
If you enjoy migraines, political scandals, and sentences longer than your CV — perfect.
Otherwise? Run.
A typical Spanish headline:
“El Gobierno aprueba la reorganización estructural del marco presupuestario del ejercicio fiscal…”
At this point, even the dictionary needs a dictionary.
Complex structures, political jargon, long paragraphs, sophisticated references…
❌ Novels (at the beginning)
Beautiful? Yes.
Helpful for beginners? Absolutely not.
Sentence length: half a page.
Vocabulary: words Shakespeare rejected for being too old-fashioned.
Save novels for when you stop sweating while reading. This will come later.
❌ Magazines (for later)
Magazines can be great once you reach an intermediate level, but the vocabulary is specialised and topic-specific.
Fashion magazines = fabrics, cuts, and trends
Travel magazines = poetic descriptions
Health magazines = medical-ish nightmares
Good later. Not now.
What You SHOULD Read
✅ Graded Readers (The Holy Grail)
These are books written exactly for your level.
You get:
- Controlled grammar
- Limited vocabulary
- Real plots
- Real-life language
- Short, manageable chapters
This is where confidence grows and confusion shrinks.
Example Levels
Spanish (A2 – B1):
- “Robo en el Museo” (A2)
- “El misterio del último piso” (B1)
- “La chica del tren” version graded (B1)
English (A2–B1):
- Fluently Sick in Spain: A Funny Story A2
- Wrong Way in Murcia B1
- How Cheese Nearly Killed Me B1
- The Work “Love Youuu” Moment! B1
- Locked Out Door Mystery Story B2
- The Sandwich Saga B1
- Penguin Readers A2 – Romeo and Juliet
- Cambridge Readers B1 – A Little Trouble in Dublin
- Oxford Bookworms B1 – The Elephant Man
If You Choose Only One Tip: Choose This One
Read at your level, not at your ego’s level.
Your brain learns faster when it feels safe, not when it’s drowning in literary chaos.
Ready to speak a new language without a safety net? 😎 Check out “Language-Learning Tips: No Magic, Just Messy Genius” for tips that actually work (chaos included). Then go all in with “Immersion Madness: How to Dive Headfirst into Language Learning (and Survive!)” and discover how fun surviving immersion can be. ➡️ For hilarious stories talking about living abroad and more Abroadien chaos, check out → Life in Translation