Reading in foreign language as comfortable as in native.?

Question

I'm Ukrainian, with Russian background, I use Russian for daily communications, read and write mostly in Russian. I also speak English and some French. On my resume I state that my English is fluent, although obviously not as fluent as that of Byron.

In high school I was studying French for the first 6 years, and switched to English only for the last 4, giving up French completely. Nowadays my job requires me to read a lot in English, and I've been doing this for 4-5 years, I also read novels and history books in English. Approximately one of these years was spent in the USA on business trips. So I had quite a bit of exposure to the English speaking culture.

Nevertheless I always catch myself thinking that reading English texts is not as easy, comfortable and pleasant as reading Russian. Part of the reason is the vocabulary which is very sporadic in English with all the borrowings from Greek, Latin, German, etc.

So I was wondering if it is possible to master a foreign language to the extent where the overall experience of reading, talking or writing is comparable to that in native language? Are there any special tricks to speed this process up? How much more time will it take to get there? Eventually I plan to pick up more languages, French in particular. Will it be more (due to aging) or less (due to experience) complicated to bring it to the same level? Does it depend a lot on the language group? What if I pick up Chinese or Arabic?

Answer 1

I know what you mean.



I'm Swedish and I use Swedish every day as my main form of communication. I'm perfectly fluent in English, as are most Swedes, but still when I read an English text, especially a text about a complicated subject, it's just very tiresome to read it and my brain has a hard time following (even though I understand every individual word, it's still hard to understand). If I read the same text in Swedish, it's a lot easier and it comes more natural to me.



I think it has to do with exposure. Think about it, all through school everything you read was in Russian, you wrote essays in Russian, read complicated texts in Russian etc. You haven't had this kind of exposure to English, so of course reading Russian comes more easily to you than reading English.



I think the best thing you can do is to keep reading hard and complicated texts in English, and I'm sure you will get more used to it over time. I don't think, however, it's possible to be as good in English as you are in your native language, this is only possible if you've spoken the language from birth or from an early age. Good luck!

Answer 2

I have the same experience. After 20 years of reading in English, it became my preferred language. I think the key to speeding up the process is to switch your daily reading to your target languages. Instead of reading dry school material, read blogs or websites that interest you. Switch interface of your e-mail client, search engine, phone etc. to the language you are trying to learn. This may not be easy at first, and you can easily become frustrated, but there are tools that can help. I use http://www.babelreader.com to read in different languages. You can set it up for learning more than one language. The only problem that I have with the software is that you have to know exactly what to read and find your own blogs. I am studying Russian, and since my knowledge is limited I have problems finding interesting websites.

Answer 3

You know what I would do if I were you? I would watch lots of movies in that language, try to translate them by my self. Also my teachers always suggests that i read newspapers in that specific language. You should also find a partner to talk to and practice your speaking skills not just the writing..I find reading literature, poems specifically so helpful in learning new vocabulary as well.

Answer 4

I've been bilingual since I was a child (English & Russian) & I can read, speak & talk in both languages. if you know 2 languages fluently then you have no problem, this means your English isn't up to scratch then. (maybe you have a hard time with homonyms, synonyms,etc)

Answer 5

I do not talk French however I understand that "semantic density" (or probably it will have to be referred to as "linguistic density"? I dunno) of English is undoubtedly bigger than that of Russian and German. Once I needed to perform a little localization-comparable stuff at paintings and I do not forget that English terms had been constantly shorter than Russian, and German terms had been longer than Russian. I suppose French may be much less dense than English. This final result, coupled with the truth that that the language is non-local, might supply your 2x effect simply. three years of enjoy isn't that so much. Btw, I additionally suspect you are a gorgeous speedy reader in French in comparison to your natural compatriot, and this used to be often obtained by way of studying a lot more than natural, which could be very rough to acquire with non-local language in maturity. I learn beautiful speedy in Russian, however that is simplest since I used to be studying because I used to be three, and I learn TONS of books.

Answer 6

Personally, I now prefer to read in English rather than in my native tongue. I've been reading English texts for more than twenty years, mind you. Obviously, your mileage may vary.

Answer 7

Yes there are. Practice makes perfect, and studying in the forign country really will help. It will become harder due to aging, the younger, the better.