As I said in my previous post, it’s important to read when learning a new language. Immerse yourself in a book and you’ll be amazed at what you learn.

There are different theories about the best way to go about reading when you don’t know all the words — should you stop every time you don’t know a word? Underline words you don’t know? Personally I think it’s really important to enjoy what you’re doing — learning a new language is an amazing experience and should be fun, not a constant struggle. So the first time I read a book, I ignore all the words I don’t know, and plough on regardless of not understanding everything. If a new word comes up over and over, I might write it down and look it up at the end of the chapter, but generally I just try to understand the story and not each individual word.

Later, I’ll re-read the story and look up new words. I find it helpful to read one page at a time, writing down each new word in a notebook. I look at the context and try to guess what the word might mean, and write that down too. Next, I look up all of the new words from that page and take note of the definition. And finally, I read the page again, so I can see each new word in context, and this time understand them.

Short stories are a really good place to start, because after completing this process, you can go back and read the whole story again.

Remember, it’s important to read things you’re interested in. Don’t read a book you find really boring just because it’s in Spanish, try to find one that interests you for other reasons. I love reading kids’ books in English, (I find them relaxing) so I also read them in Spanish – in fact the first book I read in Spanish was “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Of course, kids’ books are also usually written in simpler language, so that helps too.

Reading is an important part of learning a new language. It’s important to immerse yourself as much as possible in the language, and half an hour of reading a day is a good way to do that. Personally, I love to read — I’ve always got a book on the go, and when I travel far too much of my bag is made up of books. Especially at the moment – I bought some grammar books in Barcelona and some novels in South America and because they’re in Spanish I don’t want to leave them behind or throw them away.

So fitting reading in Spanish into my day wasn’t a problem, and it doesn’t have to be a problem for you either. Read while eating breakfast, while waiting for the bus, or just before going to sleep — just find fifteen minutes a day to start with and lengthen the time if it’s working for you. Try to make a routine of it.

Then, of course, you have to find some books to read. Many local libraries have a foreign-language section, or one of their sister branches might stock a few books in the language you’re studying. I was in Auckland when I started studying Spanish seriously, and the Central Library has a great selection of books in Spanish. I used to go every Friday after work and browse through the books on offer, sometimes reading a kids’ picture book cover-to-cover before choosing a more serious book, like Tintin. Actually, comics are a great place to start, since the pictures give you context and the dialogue is all, well, dialogue — spoken language, the kind you need to know to communicate.

We’ve just arrived here in Adelaide, and yesterday I joined the local library. Sadly, their offering of Spanish books was limited to a Spanish-English dictionary or two and a couple of kids’ picture dictionaries. Apparently another branch stocks 12 (12!) novels in Spanish, so I’m off there today to check out as many as I can.

A local library can be a great resource when learning Spanish. At least see if they have any books in Spanish for you to borrow, and if not, they might be able to help you find somewhere that does.

I think one of the most important things you can do when learning a language, is to do the things you enjoy with that language. For example, if you like watching TV, watch TV in Spanish. If you like chatting to your friends, do it in Spanish. Personally, I love to read, and recently I have been enjoying reading books in Spanish.

My problem is, I can’t give up the books I buy. While we were in South America I bought a book in almost all of the countries we visited (and lots in Argentina), and now I don’t want to throw them away. They’re mementos. The problem is, I live out of a carry-on sized backpack, and the ten Spanish non-fiction books I have are rather heavy. And that’s not even counting the five grammar books we have.

My task for this afternoon: choose seven. One for each of the weeks we’re going to be in Asia. And sadly, that has to include the grammar books. Oh, how I need a Kindle.

So, you might have picked up on the idea that I’m a bit of a Spanish addict. I’m not entirely sure why, sometimes I have enthusiasms that last a couple of months then die away – like the Tetris phase or the period of running. I thought that my love of Spanish would go the same way – that it would burn strong then burn out. This does not appear to have happened. It’s been almost a year since I started seriously studying and I still really really want to keep going.

Anyway, we’ve just spent five days in Switzerland, and I despaired of having any chance to improve my Spanish. Switzerland has four official languages, with English as a de facto fifth, but none of these are Spanish. However, it is not too far away from Spain, and is apparently a pretty popular destination for Spanish tourists.

When we arrived in Geneva, we stopped in at the tourist office to pick up a map, and I noticed that there were city guide brochures in many languages – including Spanish! So, I took one, which gave me a chance to practice some reading.

In St Peter’s Cathedral the group ahead of us were from Spain, and I eavesdropped on their conversation – listening practice. And at a party I went to in Thun, my friend’s boyfriend’s sister had studied Spanish at school, so we chatted for an hour. Speaking practice. So all I had to do to fill in the gaps was study a bit of grammar and vocab, and write an email or two, and I had a well-rounded week of Spanish.