Many of the super-learners are bilingual. Each of the course authors is fluent in 3-6 languages and can speed-read in 2-3. We have students in nearly 100 countries speaking many languages. These students are proud of their multilingual abilities and their achievements. Below are some discussions from the course pages.
Question:
Hi! First of all, I’d like to say I’m enjoying every second of this course so, THANK U!
Now, I have a question. My reading speed, according to the text and instructions, was only 190 wpm (luckily English is not my mother tongue, LOL) and my score in the quiz was 62.5 points – is this the retention/comprehension score?
I’ve got a CPE in English and have been a teacher for over 13 years… do you think I’d still benefit more from practicing in my own language?
Thank you!!
Viviane (Brazil)
Answer:
Thank you for your kind words. If you would like to leave a review for the course, appreciated. I do recommend to train first in your mother tongue and then retrain in a different language.
Initially I trained in Russian, and when I retrained for English there was a small adaptation period. My speedreading in Hebrew is not very good [800wpm], and I cannot speedread German or French. The reason is the brainpower dedicated to processing each language. When working with a different language the brain allocates a dedicated set of neurons, and you have a lot neurons allocated to your mother tongue.
ou should try different things and see what works best for you. I suggest you to practice both languages.
Typically bilingual people learn language skills somewhat slower, but with higher success rate and proficiency. So I would recommend patience.
David S.
Just wanted to share my experience, so far, improving my reading skills: I’m a native Spanish speaker, but most of the reading i do is in English, so I decided to practice and develop the skill in the context I’m most likely to need it: English texts.
Until now, I have almost doubled my reading speed in English, but i noticed that when i read in Spanish I can actually go faster. I could measure it using one of the links in the bookmarks, but i would still miss the comprehension part so i think it could be misleading.
Bottom line: It might be a good idea to push oneself to speed read in one’s second or third language to further improve the first 😀
