How to Learn a Language by Reading

When I started learning Dutch, I read every evening. The app I was building to read in had no audio yet, so reading was all I did. Then one day I was in a situation where everyone around me was speaking Dutch, and I understood almost all of it. I could watch films without subtitles too.

That is one person's experience, not a study. But there is research on learning a language by reading, and it says a lot about how to do it well: how easy the text should be, what to do with the words you don't know, and how often to read.

Can you learn a language by reading?

Reading helps, and it has been studied a lot. In a 2015 meta-analysis, Takayuki Nakanishi combined 34 studies with 3,942 participants. Learners who did extensive reading, meaning a lot of reading of easy texts, improved their reading proficiency more than learners who did not, with a medium-sized effect. He concluded that extensive reading should be part of language learning curricula.

Reading also teaches you words. In a study by Stuart Webb, learners knew more about at least one aspect of a word each time the number of encounters went up, and meeting a new word ten times in context could lead to sizeable learning gains. A book gives you those encounters without you planning them, because common words come back on page after page.

These studies measure reading and vocabulary. My Dutch listening came from reading too, but I don't know of a study that measured that, so treat it as my experience, not a promise.

How easy should the text be?

Easier than you might think. Marcella Hu and Paul Nation estimated that readers need to know about 98% of the words in a story to understand it without help, which is about one unknown word in every 50. The first of Richard Day and Julian Bamford's principles for extensive reading is that the reading material is easy, and they argue that until you're advanced, that usually means texts written or adapted for language learners.

So a good first book is one where you can follow the story and know most of the words on the page. Some places to start:

• Graded readers, stories written with controlled vocabulary and grammar
• Children's books
• A book you have already read in your own language, so you know the plot
• Short stories, so you finish something soon

I wrote more about choosing in how to pick your first book in another language.

What should you read?

Something you want to read. Day and Bamford say that learners choose what they want to read, the way they would in their own language, and are free to stop reading anything that turns out to be too difficult or not interesting. If you read thrillers in your own language, read a thriller. If a book bores you, put it down and pick another one.

What do you do with words you don't know?

You don't need to look up every one. If you can follow what happened, keep going. Many of the words you skip will come back later in the book. More on that in you don't have to understand every word.

When you do look a word up, it helps. In a 2020 meta-analysis of 42 studies, Akifumi Yanagisawa, Stuart Webb and Takumi Uchihara found that reading with glosses, where the meaning of an unknown word is given on the page, led to more words learned than reading without them: about 45% of the tested words against 27% right after reading, and about 33% against 20% on later tests. Glosses in the reader's first language led to more learning than glosses in the language being learned.

How you look words up matters too. When I first tried to read Harry Potter in Dutch, I had the paper book in one hand and Google Translate on my phone in the other. Every unknown word meant unlocking the phone, typing the word, spelling it right and finding my place on the page again, and I gave up after a couple of pages. That is why I built Simply Fluent: you select a word or phrase and see what it means in that sentence without leaving the page. A translation you save is shown above that word or phrase in every book you read in that language, so you don't look the same word up twice.

Whatever you read with, make each lookup quick so you stay in the story. If reading still wears you out, that is normal at first, and I wrote about why in why reading in another language is so tiring.

How often should you read?

A little, most days. Ten minutes a day adds up to more reading than a three-hour session once a month, and it is easier to keep up.

There is also research on spacing. In a 2006 review of 317 experiments, material studied across several sessions was remembered better than the same material studied in one go. Those experiments tested recall of words and facts, not reading a book, so treat the benefit for reading as likely, not measured.

Does it get easier?

Yes. The more you read, the more words you know, and the more words you know, the more of each page you can follow. I wrote more about this in how every page makes the next one easier.

With Dutch, the change for me was that reading itself became the goal. I finished my first book in Dutch and wanted to read another one, and then I read many more.

Where should you start?

Pick one book you can follow, about something you want to read. Read for ten minutes a day. Look up the words you want to know, skip the rest, and keep going.

Sources

All checked on November 1, 2026.

• Nakanishi, T. (2015). A meta-analysis of extensive reading research. TESOL Quarterly, 49(1), 6–37: doi.org/10.1002/tesq.157
• Webb, S. (2007). The effects of repetition on vocabulary knowledge. Applied Linguistics, 28(1), 46–65: doi.org/10.1093/applin/aml048
• Hu, M. H.-c., & Nation, P. (2000). Unknown vocabulary density and reading comprehension. Reading in a Foreign Language, 13(1), 403–430: doi.org/10.64152/10125/66973
• Day, R., & Bamford, J. (2002). Top ten principles for teaching extensive reading. Reading in a Foreign Language, 14(2), 136–141: doi.org/10.64152/10125/66761
• Extensive Reading Foundation, Graded Readers: erfoundation.org/wordpress/graded-readers
• Yanagisawa, A., Webb, S., & Uchihara, T. (2020). How do different forms of glossing contribute to L2 vocabulary learning from reading? Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 42(2), 411–438: doi.org/10.1017/S0272263119000688
• Cepeda, N. J., Pashler, H., Vul, E., Wixted, J. T., & Rohrer, D. (2006). Distributed practice in verbal recall tasks: A review and quantitative synthesis. Psychological Bulletin, 132(3), 354–380: doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.132.3.354
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