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Comment by onli | Hacker News Reader

It's not like it's actually possible to comfortably read french books when you learn the language, with their specific grammatical tenses only used in literature. I speak French fluently and at home but I'd be incapable to read a complicated book in that language (while I'm absolutely able to read English books and do that all the time, and speak English way less often).

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You don't get better at what you don't do.

English books use different registers, vocabulary, and grammatical tenses than found in everyday speech also. Basically every language has differences in formally printed books and daily speech.

And it's not like you have to read dense texts only. There are plenty of short books, or books with lighter material, that learners can definitely read. It's a very good way to discover new vocabulary and see how words are used in what contexts.

Written English matches spoken English almost 1:1. Written French could as well be a different language (hyperbole, but not that much). "Just read books" is just not good advice in this case. Reading comics would work, maybe.

English is not my native language. I've been reading English books mostly for pleasure for years: when books main language is English that's what I get (thanks Amazon). At first it was hard, it is still hard when trying a book in a domain I've not encountered a lot. And I'm still reading faster in my language but there are not a lot of modern English books I'd consider impossible to read.

And I'm far from fluent.

That's kind of my point. Your advice to read books to learn more words is right, in languages like English and German. It does not work well for French because the written French is too complicated and different.

Absolutely true -- but read BD's instead. That will give you spoken language, context and fun in one package. Forget about Maupassant, La Peste, Tartarin de Tarascon, Seigneur de Brantome, Victor Hugo, Balzac or any of the other ancient French classics. Ancient language, weird sentences and -- not much good as a read either.

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