About Reading
Recently I borrowed a novel called Kary Sister from our school library. It is a very famous novel written by American Novelist Theodore Dreiser. I have just started reading it. the reason i want to read it is because i like British and American literature very much. when i was in the fifth grade in my primary school. I started to read the first novel called Little Princess, which made me interested in world-famous classic novels since then. Of course, at that time i could only the Chinese translated version. i remember during my fifth grade and sixth grade, I had finished reading about more than 20 novels like that, among them are novels like Little Prince, Pirde and Prejudice，The Count of Monte Cristo, Robinson Crusoe, The Lady of the Camellias，The Hunchback of Notre Dame ，Gulliver's Travels，The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.....others i could not come up with their names right now.
Since now i am learning english, I began to read the original English verison, but i found there are so many hard words in the novel. Maybe wirters at that time they just had a larger vacubulary? or Maybe some of those words are no longer used by people today? Or maybe it is just that i have to get a much larger vacubulary?
i am confused that if reading this kind of novel could do me a lot of favor in improving my laguague ability? Should i try modern ones instead of those written hundreds of years ago? Do you have any good novels to introduce to me in order to improve my English skill?
Search from various English teachers...
Corrections · 3
0
About Reading
Recently I borrowed a novel called Kary Sister from our school library. It is a very famous novel written by the American Novelist Theodore Dreiser. I have just started reading it. The reason I want to read it is because I like British and American literature very much. When i was in the fifth grade in my primary school, I started to read the first novel called Little Princess, which made me interested in world-famous classic novels since then. Of course, at that time I could only the Chinese translated version. I remember during my fifth grade and sixth grade, I had finished reading about more than 20 more novels like that, among them are novels like Little Prince, Pirde and Prejudice，The Count of Monte Cristo, Robinson Crusoe, The Lady of the Camellias，The Hunchback of Notre Dame ，Gulliver's Travels，The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.....others I cannot come up with their names right now.
Since now I have been learning English, I began to read the original English verisons, but I found there are so many hard words in the novels. Maybe wirters at that time they just had a larger vacubulary? or Maybe some of those words are no longer used by people today? Or maybe it is just that I have to get a much larger vacubulary?
I am confused that about whether reading this kind of novel could do help me a lot of favor in improving my laguague ability? Should i try modern ones instead of those written hundreds of years ago? Do you have any good novels to introduce to me in order to improve my English skill?
Hi Cathy, Wow, you have read a lot! It is true that novels written 100 years ago tend to have a different vocabulary -- not necessarily larger, but the words we use frequently have changed. If you like reading classic novels, then by all means keep doing that, but if you want to improve your English faster, then I would recommend reading more more modern work. It depends on what you like. There are many books for young adults that are really good (Harry Potter, for example, but also books by Ursula LeGuin, Jean Craighead George, and many others). For more adult-themed books, you could try authors like Margaret Atwood, Toni Morrison, or Neil Gaiman. If you spend some time poking around on Amazon, I'm sure you'll find something you like!
Someday I hope I can read well enough in Chinese to ask for recommendations!
0
You writing is well organized and flows logically. You ask good questions but there are missing words from your sentences. Do you know that you can make your computer read back to you the sentences you wrote? That way, you can hear if any words are missing or if what you wrote sounds strange?
Do a Baidu Search for ... 朗读女主程序 and download this software. You can add voices to read in many languages.
Want to progress faster?
Join this learning community and try out free exercises!
Don’t miss out on the opportunity to learn a language from the comfort of your own home. Browse our selection of experienced language tutors and enroll in your first lesson now!
Start Learning Today
