The title of the original text is “Reading in a Foreign Language”. It is written by Scott Esposito and published as a column on his blog “Conversational Reading” on January 26th 2007. The subject of the article is the author’s experience about reading in foreign languages.
The main idea of the text is that a person can guess the meaning of the unfamiliar words from the context. People who are beginners in reading in a foreign language consult dictionaries, but it makes reading harder. As a person advances, they rely more on their common sense in order to understand the meaning of new words. The author believes that it is not necessary to know what each word means precisely because it is enough to understand what the word represents. For example it may be something good or something bad and it can be figured out from the context.
The supporting evidence to the main idea is related to the fact that reading in a foreign language becomes easier with practice. It is also true that experienced readers read books in a foreign language with less effort. There are false friends and cognates, which can create a confusion in understanding because of the same origin or sound the word, but a different meaning. When people begin the process of adopting a new language, they eventually stop translating each sentence into their native language and start creating mental images instead.
Finally, it is important to adopt the new language as one’s own and to begin to feel it internally in one’s mind. A person should not translate the meaning into their native language while reading because it is better to make effort towards understanding the meaning as they read in the original language.
Works Cited
Esposito, Scott. "Reading in a Foreign Language." N.p., 26 Jan. 2007. Web. 30 May 2016. <http://conversationalreading.com/friday-column-reading-in-a-foreign-language/>.
