The most rewarding personal activity (8) - Reading aloud improves expression ability

By Xiaolai Li, rewritten in English by Mr. Y

Reading aloud improves a person's expression ability, whether speaking or writing. Extensive reading aloud will unconsciously help you memorize many expressions. The more frequently used and necessary an expression is, the more often it appears in various articles. Through extensive repetition, these expressions will gradually be etched into your mind. According to psychologists, this information will gradually move from the short-term memory area to the long-term memory area; that is, these expressions will gradually become your "built-in" means of expression.

When learning a foreign language, grammar is always one of the biggest challenges. In English, some nouns have the same singular and plural forms, while others have special plural forms; some verbs can be transitive or intransitive, and if used as intransitive, they must be paired with an appropriate preposition; some verbs can only be followed by the "ing" form, while others can only be followed by the "to do" form... Although these rules are clearly outlined in grammar books, it is extremely difficult to memorize them simply by reading them - otherwise, why would so many people repeatedly fail to get full marks in English exams and keep making mistakes?

If you have read aloud similar example sentences for those grammar test points, then when doing the questions, you will feel that "the correct answer sounds natural" and "the wrong answer sounds awkward". In your daily speaking or writing, you will naturally use the correct way, rather than "inventing a new English" without even knowing it.

Reading aloud also cultivates a sense of rhythm in language unconsciously. This aspect is emphasized far too little even in our formal language education system. Our understanding of the rhythm of our native language is almost entirely acquired unconsciously through reading aloud, rather than through deliberate learning in school (because schools rarely teach it). During our growth, we have read aloud many texts (often quite elegant) and many poems (modern poems, Tang poems, Song Ci, etc.), whether actively or passively.

Many people, even if they haven't read many articles or poems, can at least sing many popular songs (in a sense, most popular song lyrics also strive for rhythm to be catchy). Therefore, when using our native language, it seems that we "naturally" possess a certain sense of rhythm "without learning, practicing or being taught".

If you've ever worked as a copy editor at a publishing house for even a day or two, you'll know that many people write in a way that's simply unreadable, completely lacking even the most basic rhythm and flow. And the authors were clearly unaware of just how awkward their writing was - authors who submitted their work to publishers often believed their writing was quite good… This is the disastrous consequence of insufficient native language reading aloud training.

Copyright & Republication

Original Chinese text by Xiaolai Li (copyright released). English translation ©2025 Mr. Y.

Republication of this translation is permitted, provided that both the original author (Xiaolai Li) and the translator (Mr. Y) are credited, and a link to the original translation on blossomsblog.com is included.

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