“What are you reading?” When I was a student, my friends and I often asked each other this question. Usually we didn’t want to know what our friends were reading for their classes, but what they were reading for fun. When we left our houses we always had a book with us. We read when were on the bus, or waiting for class to start, or waiting for a friend, or in bed before we fell asleep. We read fiction and non-fiction, books about serious topics and books that were less serious. Books of all sorts were a part of our lives.
I think young people today don’t read books as much as we used to. Of course they read Line messages and the captions under Instagram posts, but that’s not the same. Reading a book allows us to enter a new world, maybe a fictional world, or maybe a part of the real world we hadn’t explored before. But reading books isn’t always easy. How do you read a book?
Here are a few tips.
- Especially if you’re new to reading books, start with a book, either fiction or non-fiction, about something in which you are interested.
- Books are sometimes hard to get into. Don’t give up after a page or two. Read at least ten pages. Sometimes it takes that long to learn how to read the book.
- Read books not just in English, but also in Japanese. This will increase your knowledge of the world, and that will help you in many ways: in your English, in your other classes, and in your life
Ask a friend what she’s reading. She may be able to recommend a good book!