How to read and understand an English book 🔴LIVE

hello everybody and welcome to another kangaroo English live livestream today of course is Wednesday the best day of the week and obviously I'm super excited to be here with you all today and today I'm going to be showing you how to read a book because reading is one of the most important things that we can do as as people learning languages reading books is really really important so just a quick technical note this is the first time that I have used this new setup ok this new streaming setup so if there's any technical difficulties I apologize in advance but I think I think we're going to be good I don't really want to spend a lot of time talking you know I don't want to talk for 10 minutes and wait for people to arrive in the class I just want to get going if if students are late to class it's not my fault promotes not my fault be on time ok everything seems to be working fine I can see all your comments people from all over the world it makes me so happy to to be here with you all I'm honored thank you so today we're going to be reading a book called tabby maquette ok and tabby mchte at is written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by Axel Scheffler and I think that the books the books that these two create together they're my favorite books like of any type my favorite type of book at all and I think when you're when you're an adult you are afraid to read children's books right you think you know children's books it's so you know maybe boring or like childish but but actually as you will discover today children's books can can be really really entertaining and they can contain deep powerful messages could help about humanity about being human and and most importantly these these children's books are normally at a good level so before we start reading I want to tell you a couple of important things ok so as I said at the beginning reading ok is probably the best thing you can do to improve your vocabulary and the research shows that you should be spending about 25% of your study time reading so 1/4 of your total time you should be reading books I don't know how much I don't know how much you're reading but you should be reading you know a lot now the question is what type of books so you know a lot of students think that it's a good idea to kind of get a big you know a big a big heavy book and start start reading you know reading the book dictionary reading the book dictionary you know this this some you know arduous difficult task of of like looking up every word but again the research shows that if you reading material that's too difficult you're not going to learn ok so how much should you understand well if you if you if you look at a book like this and you know we can we can divide the text into lines then there should be one new word for every five lines approximately so the perfect book for you is in this paragraph of five lines there's one new word so if you're reading a book and it's like every word you're like oh my god you know what is what is that you know then the book is too difficult go back and find something easier and it's really important because vocabulary adds up very quickly think about it one new word two new words three new words four or five by the end of the book you know you have 30 new words it depends how big the book is you know maybe maybe you have a hundred new words you are not going to remember a hundred new words okay so don't don't think that it is an amazing thing to have this big list you know this big list of new words okay you're not going to remember them so it's not it's not something to be proud of don't put too much pressure on yourself okay a lot of students they put too much pressure on themselves to try and remember too much okay it's not it's not going to work that's not how that's not how memory works so so so one final thing if you don't want to read specifically children's books then you can find what are called graded readers okay graded readers are books that are specifically designed for people learning a language and so there's different systems like Cambridge have a graded reader system there's Lexile levels scholastic have a graded reader system so you can google it Google graded readers find find some books that you like and and find some books at your level and then start reading okay now just one one final thing before we before we actually start start reading so I just wanted to show you some more science about reading okay so this this chart here shows how many minutes you'll need to read every day if you want to know a thousand words 2,000 words 3000 words up to up to 10,000 words okay so you'll see that the first level which is to know a thousand words okay if you want to know a thousand words which is that the first level then you need to read two hundred thousand words in total which means you need to read for 33 minutes per week or seven minutes per day and if you want to know the top level if you want to know ten thousand words then you're going to need to read for one hour and 40 minutes per day right at the end you'll see the final the final level the ninth level in there in there in the list now why like surely if you want to learn more words then we just add the time so it's seven minutes plus seven minutes why is it nearly two hours because of something called Zipf's law okay this is something very important to know about vocabulary okay so I want to show you another little little slide here okay so this here is a chart of how vocabulary works in all languages not just English not not just you know Arabic or French or any not not just the big languages all languages work like this so you can see that the words which are the most common right are much much much much more frequent than the uncommon words okay so what I'm saying is what I'm saying is that when you read a book any book okay the vocabulary in the book follows Zipz law which means that you are going to see that high-frequency vocabulary again and again and again and again and again and again and again and maybe that low-frequency vocabulary the the words that are really uncommon you'll only see them once per book or maybe once per five books or once per 10 books so you have to read a lot more quantity to have the same amount of repetition so that's why when you're trying to read and you're trying to learn vocabulary that's why it's so frustrating right because you have to read more and more and more and more to learn the same amount of vocabulary as at the beginning when you only had to read for seven minutes it's not fair damn it okay so listen I think I think I've I think I've told you enough about the science of of reading and vocabulary learning so let's actually start to read this book tab emic tat and I think that you'll enjoy it so I'm gonna switch to my little book camera here okay tabby mchte at by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler tabbing mitat okay here we go it's just a little picture tabby Mac tat was a buskers cat with a meal that was loud and strong the two of them sang of this in that and people threw coins in the old checked hat and this was their favorite song me you and the old guitar how perfectly perfectly happy we are me you and the old guitar how perfectly happy we are one morning while Fred ate some bacon and bread maquette took a stroll around the block then stopped for there on a doorstep sat a gorgeously glossy and green eyed cat she was black with one snowy white sock sock and mocked at had a cat to catch at and that's how their story began for while they were chatting of this in that a thief had his eye on the old checked hat he eyed it he snatched it he ran the busker gave chase but he tripped on a lace and crash in a flash he was down he broke his leg and banged his head and ended up in a hospital bed in a faraway part of town goodbye Mac tat said I must get back to Fred but where had the busker gone the Sun went down and the sky grew black the stars came out but he didn't come back maquette lingered on and on a week later sock took a stroll around the block and found her new friend looking thin he's gone off and left me said tabby mocked at then sock said my people prunella and pat would gladly find room for a fine tabby cat she was right and they took a maquette in next morning old Fred left his hospital bed and found his way back to the square but a brass band stood where the pair once sat and the band played this and the band played that and Fred looked all round for his loud meowed cat but tabby maquette wasn't there now mocked at had a wife and a very full life with plenty of things to do like washing prunella and pouncing on pat and hiding the car keys under the mat and keeping the newspapers nice and flat and giving the Pens an occasional bat and nibbling this and nibbling that but he dreamed of his friend with the old checked hat and always woke up with a Mew and often he said what's happened to Fred and his paws took him back to the square but a conjurer stood where the pair once sat and he pulled out this and he pulled out that and people threw coins in the tall black hat but the busker was never there one morning sock said look under the bed and see the three kittens I've had and Soames looked like this and Susan like that and the littlest kitten called Samuel Spratt looked exactly the same as his dad the three kittens grew and they learned how to Moo and mocked at sometimes sang them his song and Samuel Spratt with his tabby gray fur had a deafening meow and a very loud purr and he simply loved singing along me you and the old guitar how perfectly perfectly happy we are me you and the old guitar how perfectly happy we are when Susan and Soames found very good homes their parents were happy and proud there was one home like this and another like that but nobody wanted poor Samuel Spratt they all said his voice is too loud now tabby maquette was a home loving cat but he couldn't stop dreaming of Fred and one day he called for his wife and son and he told them there's something that has to be done I must go and find him he said so up and down and all over town he wandered a whole week long for many a morning an afternoon by the light of the Sun and the light of the moon until he heard a familiar song just me and the old guitar if I had a cat I'd be happy afar just me and the old guitar with my cat I'd be happy afar its tabby mchte at its my long-lost cat old fred was ecstatically glad then the two of them sang of this and that and people threw coins in the new checked hat but why did maquette feel sad he was missing his wife and his comfortable life and the dozens of things to do like washing prunella and pouncing on pat and hiding the car keys under the mat and keeping the newspapers nice and flat and giving the pens and occasional bats but how could he tell the busker that then from out of a shadow sprang samuel Spratt oh please let me be the buskers cat he said with his deafening Mew now Samuel Spratt is the buskers cat with a meow that is loud and strong the two of them sing of this and that though Samuel sings just a little bit flat and people throw coins in the old checked hat and this is their favorite song me you and the old guitar how perfectly perfectly happy we are me you and the old guitar how perfectly happy we are okay so so that was the book what an amazing book and for example if you if you read this book and you understood most of the vocabulary and you enjoyed the story that's it mission accomplished I I want you to remember that although knowing every single technical detail about language is nice although knowing the meaning of every word is nice language is about communicating meaning it doesn't matter if you didn't understand everything if you understood the story and the emotions that's enough okay but we're going to go a little bit deeper okay because the joy of reading is curiosity the joy of reading is what we can learn about language and the history of words and just all of the things that make language exciting and interesting okay so this is how I would recommend you to read a book first you read the book enjoy the book enjoy the meaning enjoy the story and then now we're going to go into study mode okay so a big part of the psychology of study mode is just paying attention right it's about being curious it's about saying wow that's interesting why where did that word come from how can I remember that word okay so we're gonna start with we're gonna start with the first page so let's have a look here so tab emic tattwas a bus Ska's cat okay so here we can see that obviously he's a buskers cat right so do any of you can any of you guess the meaning of the word busker do you have any ideas what it what it could mean and that's another great thing about children's books is they have pictures to help you to understand the vocabulary right which helps a lot so if any of you know what a busker is you can take a guess by by looking at this picture you know so you can see that you know we have a man in the street playing playing guitar he's sitting on a seat he has a hat okay so I've noticed that a few of you are saying that it could be a poor person or a beggar right so there's that kind of relationship between you know being on the streets and not having money and Angel Sanchez is a trainer of cats but a busker is basically a street a street performer okay so a busker could play music they could do magic shows they could do any any kind of street performing normally for money okay so how can we how can we remember this word busker well luckily if you're a European language user right if you're speaking Italian Spanish French you might see that this word busker is similar to a verb in those languages right which is buscar okay in Spanish it's postcard in French is Bousquet in Italian it's a scholar as well I think yes biscotti biscotti um now what does that mean it means to look for something to search for something and originally these buskers they lived a life like a pirate okay they didn't stay in one place for very long they traveled around to different places they were maybe a little bit you know dodgy a little bit not criminals but you know they they're asking for money they're kind of suspicious people right so they were compared to pirates and pirates were also buskers why because pirates were bull scarring pirates were looking for the wind so when Pirates are sailing along they're always looking for the wind okay so we have this fantastic relationship between looking for something moving around being like a pirate and and being a busker maybe that will help you to remember that word I don't know let's uh let's let's let's have another look here so this line with a meow that was loud and strong meow now this is one type of sound symbolism and when you're when you're learning new vocabulary sound symbolism is really important and I want to give you I want to give you an example ok so again let's look at some some really cool kind of research so here you can see the cat sounds from all over the world right we have in Sweden we have cow in Russian meow in English meow in Spanish meow you know they're all very similar sounds right the meow sounds and so this this is a type of sound symbolism basically like onomatopoeia it's called where the sound of the word sounds like the thing right it's like imitation and you're going to you're going to see more of this type of imitation after but meow was the same in a lot of languages but it's not always the same for example let's look at dogs now right so you can see that in Russian we have gov in Spanish we have wow in Japanese we have one in Icelandic we have vuf and in let's look at another one in Korean we have Myung so why like why would meows all be so similar but but when it comes to dogs it's different well because every language has rules about which sounds are permitted right which sounds combinations are legal in in that language so for example and I don't know this it's just a guess just an example like maybe in in Dutch it's not normal it's not part of the sound system of Dutch for a word to start with what with the worst sound so when they when they imitate a dog or when they listen to the dog and they're imitating that sound you know they choose a word which is permitted in in the Dutch language so we have Bluff you know maybe that burst sound is is something more common right and and then again we have this other interesting example okay which I love which is farm animals right cows so you can see in English we have Moo in Dutch we have boar finish we have a Moo and Korean we have ml and Boo again in Dutch now again what's really cool about this is that probably the differences follow the sound systems of those languages right but if we look we have both M's and B's right there the most common combinations like either an M for the cow or a B for the cow now what do an M and a B have in common that's right if you want to make the M or the B sound you have to close your mouth you have to put your lips together right so although you know the orthography you know the writing is different really the the idea to imitate the sound is from this is from the same kind of phonetics super cool okay so why am I telling you all this I'm telling you this because sound symbolism is really important in languages for for this reason okay so let's go back and and and that is actually a great question I just want to someone's just asked if I'm wearing trousers no I'm not it's just hoody and then in Pelotas okay let's keep going okay so um the two of them sang of this in that and people threw coins in the old checked hat okay so now I'm going to put the question back to you what does this mean check and again that's a great thing about having a children's book is that we have pictures okay so can any of you guess what it might mean if the Hat is checked does anyone know what it might mean checked the the picture definitely gives away the the meaning of checked right so but I'm curious to see if anybody can can guess so Ellison Silva Santos that's exactly right it's about squares right so if we if we look at if we look at the Hat we can see it's made up of these little these little squares right and checked check check check can anyone here does anyone here let's go to the next level can anyone think of a word that sounds like check that's related to check that involves squares okay I'll give you another clue it's a game does anybody know a game that sounds similar to check that involves squares yes very good Pavel our boos off and Ulrika saga bath I'm sorry about the pronunciation checked is related to the game of chess chess little squares and Tony 32 yes another another what's the word I'm looking for another variation another variation of this of the word checked is checkered there means the same thing checkered and so we have this great relationship the easy way to remember this adjective checked is about squares because of the game of chess and the word chess comes from Persian from the beautiful Persian language and it actually comes from the word Shah in Persian which means King because of course in King in chess you know the objective is to basically kill the king well the Queen you know kings queens there and that's where that's where you know that's where we have the famous checkmate checkmate was originally again for Persian schemata the king is dead okay let's get let's go back to to reading the book okay so well let's let's have a look at something interesting on another page here one morning while Fred ate some bacon and bread mitat took a stroll around the block bacon and bread now not only are we learning vocabulary we're learning about culture right it's the morning and Fred is eating a bacon sandwich that's a really normal thing to do in in England this is this book was written by an English author think about think about how that relates to your culture you know here in Spain people don't eat bacon sandwiches in the morning you know it's like what what's wrong with you you know like here a really common breakfast is his biscuits you know the Morea biscuits with with a hot chocolate with a Cola cow hot chocolate that's a really common breakfast a lot of Spanish people I know don't eat any breakfast think about how different that is to you know to what we're seeing in this book here but that's that's not what I'm um that's not what I'm interested in I'm interested in this maquette took a stroll around the block so again thankfully because it's a children's book we have a picture so can anybody guess what the word stroll means I mean it looks like he's walking right looks like he's walking what could be the difference between walking and strolling can anybody guess about what strolling is and how it's different to other types of walking okay so well Rico says what to walk slowly Pavel says to slow walk right to go around uh-huh Luciana to walk in a slow and relaxed way okay it's good now again this word has a really interesting history and it is related to astrology right astrology so you can see you can see you know in in this word we have the middle of that word astrology so now some people believe in astrology as a kind of science right so you know you have star signs like Aquarius or Virgo and you have the different movements of the planets that can affect your life and also related to this kind of world you know this world of mystical planets aligning is of course tarot card readers and mystics you know old women with hoods right and crystal balls I can see your future okay so this this one old this world is related to astrology and again again similar to the pirates similar to the pirates from from the first page from the buskers these astrologers these kind of these gypsy mystics they would move around from place to place right so strolling is the idea of walking without really any purpose right you're not walking quickly to a specific destination you're just strolling like her like an astrologer mystic you have no you have no job you have no appointments you have no meetings right you're just strolling around cuz you're an astrologer okay so now part of the reason that I tell these stories is because I think they help you to make connections right you know a lot of teachers say to students don't think in Spanish or Arabic or whatever your languages you know don't think in your language think in English which which is a crazy thing to say because well number one because there's no evidence that language and thought are related okay we don't think in language but anyway but the main reason is because it's impossible to separate you know the idea of connecting languages right actually it's a good thing research shows it helps you to remember vocabulary if you make connections so don't be afraid to say are okay you know astrology in my language is this so I can relate it you know that's okay that's good we're all about making connections man okay okay let's uh let's just go down to this section here so this is this is a description of of tabi are no sort of sock so sock is a gorgeously glossy and green eyed cat glossy okay now this is a different type of sound symbolism okay now some sound symbolism is obvious like onomatopoeia meow Moo that's obvious but some sound symbolism is deep okay it's deep and in English one kind of association between sound and and reality is with light and we have a lot of words in English that begin with GL and are related to light like glow glossy glimmer gleam glitter all of these gula words are all related to this idea of light right so glassy is something that's very shiny something that's you know polished and very shiny and this sound symbolism can be used for good like like in this book but it can also be used for evil so I'm gonna I want to show you an example of of of another piece of sound symbolism right so this is the logo of one of the biggest companies in America it's called Altria okay Altria now if you look at the logo and you look at the colors right look at all the colors of the logo and you you listen to that word that Altria word i i'm curious what do you think this company does what if you had to make a guess what would you what would you say is is the business of that company right I'm curious to know if you can guess and don't google it don't cheat okay hello everybody is polish related to Polish people no but it's a good question and when you see when you see polish and polish written down sometimes you like what polish the Polish Wow okay so Louis Leandro Eliana says that maybe that company does paper or printing it's a bank it sells paints or toys it builds something it's related to art something with colors digitalization okay now this is an example of how a company has taken sound symbolism and used it to their advantage they've used it for evil instead of good because this company Altria their product kills more people than murder AIDS suicide drugs alcohol and car crashes combined the product of this company with this colorful logo and that sound symbolism has kills thousands of people every day because what do they do they make cigarettes they make tobacco products ok Altria is you know responsible for Marlboro some of the biggest tobacco brands in the world ok now think about what they've done ok with the sound symbolism alt out it's about high it's about altitude it's about being true about being altruistic ok when you hear that word you make all of these associations in your brain that this company does good things when really they do horrible things and it's deliberate okay so that's the power of sound symbolism and so when you see words like glossy and glimmering and and then you see other words like for example let's have a look at this piece of sound symbolism the busker gave chase but he tripped on a lace and crash I mean think about that it is the word tells you right what it means crash I mean listen to it crash it's about noise it's kind of the word is like right you can you can feel the word and again a flash right so it's this you can you can you can feel the meaning of the word in the sound it's like it's kind of quick and and noisy right another great example of sound symbolism okay okay what else are we going to look at so okay let's have a look at this page here so the Sun went down and sky grew black and the stars came out they didn't come back and make tat lingered on and on so can any of you guess about the meaning of this word to linger I mean probably you get the idea from the from the from the book from the picture from the context but Linga what what what could it mean any anybody have any ideas about what lingering is I'm curious so it's not about walking okay it's not about walking very good all the reek a it's about staying around and waiting for something also Pavel Ellison Rasha Tanja now Tanya actually Tanja actually went right to the to the heart of the way to remember this word okay Linga if we imagine if we changed this eye to an O linger longer right lingering is from the same root as to make something long so it's about waiting but waiting for a long time you know it gives you this it gives you an idea of this long period of of waiting and again I think it's it it helps to to remember the word right okay let's um let's let's have a look at because there was something I wanted to to talk about which was compound adjectives and I know that there are some in here but okay let's just go back to this for a second so here we can see this thing called the compound adjectives a green eyed cat okay and you can see that the adjective green and the adjective I'd are connected with a little - a little little line and this line this - an easy and easy way to think about it is word glue what it does is it actually joins the words together so that those words have one meaning and not two independent meanings and that can be really important because sometimes if we don't use a - it can create problems with understanding for example a modern art studio I should probably try to actually type something on here let's just let me see if I can actually type something okay modern arts studio okay let me just make this a bit bigger as well okay why you're not getting bigger okay here we go here we go this is enormous okay here we go a modern art studio okay now if we look at these two adjectives okay modern art studio what we're saying is that it is an art studio okay it's an art studio that is modern so those two those two adjectives have independent connections to the word it's an art studio connection it's a modern studio connection but maybe that's not what we mean right maybe what we actually mean is that it is a studio for modern art okay maybe the studio is really really really old but it contains modern art so that's a completely different meaning and let me give you another let me give you another of my favorite examples right okay so here's a man-eating tiger so is it a man is it a guy you know some crazy Australian guy sitting in a sitting in a forest eating a tiger is it a man eating a tiger right or or or are we do we want to make this one adjective to describe the tiger right and we want to have a man-eating tiger and that's obviously very different because that's a tiger that eats men or women or children or babies okay that was a little bit dark I'm sorry about that donating babies so I'm trying to illustrate the importance of the the compound adjective it can really make a difference in understanding right super important okay let's um let's go back to our book and I wanted to show you another piece of vocabulary here so because when when he goes to his new home he has and he's talking about he has lots of things to do oh my god okay let me just you know just oh yeah okay okay good one right so this is this is when the the cat is describing all of the activities that that he does during the day so he's washing prunella but licking the toes and but this one here right pouncing on Pat pouncing so again because it's a children's book we have a picture super super helpful so does anybody want to guess what pouncing that means if you pounce on somebody and maybe there's a student out there who can go to the next level and can guess the connection between pouncing and another very common word that exists in English okay so Francesca Braithwaite is guessing that it means jumping um not really sort of but not really like a tiger yes Tigers pounce people can pounce anything can pounce jumping on yeah yeah jumping on um jumping suddenly yes this is part of it right this is part of it but I'm gonna give you a clue I'm gonna give you a clue you see this object this might help you to understand how this is related to this does anybody know what this is anybody know what this is called does that help does that help looking at this object that's what I want to know so it's not actually related to bouncing no it looks similar but it's not okay Rasha Idris you're number one my friend and George Dimas as well and also alia on a shark serene lots of people yes so this is called a hole punch and what does it do the puncher the puncher actually punches through the paper right it punctures the paper to make this to make this hole so this is directly related to pouncing and pouncing was a word to describe the claw of an eagle you know oh you're the American Eagle has a claw these are called pounces because they punch through the skin of the animal right and so pouncing is this idea of kind of you see hmm so yeah it's you know doing it quickly doing it you know like on like a tiger like grabbing right pouncing okay now there's just one final one final piece of vocabulary that I wanted to show you in the book and maybe I should actually oh it's on this page now McTeer had a wife and a very full life now two things to notice here another great thing about children's books is that they rhyme okay so if you're not sure about the pronunciation of a word we can look at the rhyme to we know you know we know that these two words we know that this has to be the same pronunciation as this because they rhyme so we know that wife and life rhyme it's not you know life and whiffy okay it has nothing it has nothing to do with whiffy signals nothing to do with Wi-Fi okay wife now this word wife now it's related to the idea of marriage right so you have husband and wife but originally this word meant just woman was a woman in general and of course because it's a word about women it became associated with all these horrible things so wife at one point in history was an insult it's like oh you stupid wife you know I'm not going to say I'm not to say the modern equivalent but it's a bad word right but now it means marriage and wife but originally it just meant woman and because of that we have some some other words in English some modern words that are that contain wife like for example housewife housewife does not necessarily mean that you're married a housewife is a role in the house because it was a traditional role and you know in in in ancient times you know in the past you know you had housewives who were women who cleaned and cooked and right you have a you have a house were a midwife so a midwife is a person who delivers a baby and they're not married to you you know the Midwife who delivers your baby is not married to you normally right and then finally my favorite you have a fishwife so a fishwife is basically a fish woman and this is a little bit of an insult right a fish wife is like a person who doesn't have a good education you know they're like they just they work with fish they're you know they're they're just they're they're what we say working-class people fish wives right so you know obviously I didn't go through every every word in the book but what I'm what I'm trying to show you is that by asking questions right by being curious about vocabulary by just noticing you know by saying well okay that word rhymes or or or what is the what is the line what is the - by asking where did the word come from you know by by paying attention by being curious that's how you learn okay and it can be really fun it's not about it's not about looking up in the dictionary make a note flashcard system repeat repeat repeat no okay learning must be joyful okay learning must spark joy otherwise there's no point in doing it there's no point in doing it and you won't learn so anyway guys listen I hope you've really enjoyed reading a book with me I had a fantastic time thank you so much for being a fantastic audience and for participating today and I'm really looking forward to doing another live stream very very soon and please enough with the study and more with the using okay because more hours in the books will not give you fluency fluency comes from practice so if you do one thing okay it's not about more study it's about putting yourself in a difficult situation where you're forced to use your language to do things I'm Christian this is kangaroo English and I'll see you in class thank you all very much for watching bye bye bye everybody bye

Channel: Canguro English

Views: 45,127

Keywords: canguro english, how to read a book in english, learn english, reading, english grammar, vocabulary, books to learn english, english vocabulary, reading skills, how to read a book, best books to read, english books, reading comprehension, improve vocabulary, reading in english, reading books in a foreign language, how to read a book in English and understand, which book should I read in English, story book in english, how to read english book easily

Id: 8xvMJXOyH6Y

Length: 60min 59sec (3659 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020