Can you ever read as quickly in a second language as you can in your native tongue?

Question

Even though 99% of what I've been reading for the last 3 years was in English and I've been living and working in an english-speaking environment for the last three years, I still read 2x faster in French than in English.

Is it just me or is it typical of a second language? Could it be that English has a higher "semantic density" than French?

Answer 1

It really depends how comfortable you are in both languages. As long as you still speak and read regularly in your native tongue you will stay comfortable in your native tongue. If you stop practicing your native tongue you will find that over time you lose your active vocabulary.

I found that even after six years in an English speaking environment I am not as fast reading and writing English texts as I am using my native tongue, with the exception of plainly work related communication, but ... my spouse and I still speak our native tongue at home and I still read lots of books in my native tongue.

I don't think it has to do with "semantic density". While it is common that English texts are shorter than French texts, it is as well the case that translations tends to elongate a text independent into which language you translate.

As long as you think in French and - perhaps unconsciously - translate everything back into French you will need more time to read an English text because you are doing much more than reading. When you start thinking and dreaming in English your English reading speed should improve and get close to your French reading speed. Don't forget that most probably you don't read letter by letter in French but full words at a time. It take lots of training and exercise to achieve the same reading style in a foreign language. And only when you see a word and directly associate its full semantic you will be as fast reading English texts as you are reading French texts.

Answer 2

I don't speak French but I know that "semantic density" (or maybe it should be called "linguistic density"? I dunno) of English is definitely higher than that of Russian and German. Once I had to do some localization-related stuff at work and I remember that English phrases were consistently shorter than Russian, and German phrases were longer than Russian. I think French is also less dense than English. This effect, coupled with the fact that that the language is non-native, may give your 2x result easily. 3 years of experience is not that much.

Btw, I also suspect you're a pretty fast reader in French compared to your average compatriot, and this was probably acquired through reading much more than average, which is very hard to achieve with non-native language in adulthood. I read pretty fast in Russian, but that's only because I was reading since I was 3, and I read TONS of books.

Answer 3

I think that it depends on what you're reading. My native language is English, but I read/ speak French and Spanish on a Daily basis (I have degrees in them and I have been reading them for close to a decade --from Highschool to present). I have no difficulty reading Spanish (which I think comes from the fact that I speak it more living in Texas than I do French).

From what I've observed, though, I read a Spanish article at roughly the same speed I read English. BUT, I have observed that I do not speed-read or skim in Spanish or French. In my French, I find I have to use a dictionary more often and I have to get the word-order sorted out.

I think Semantic Density will always depending on the depth of what you're reading,

Answer 4

english is a second language for me.
i can read and comprehend english as fast as the other language but the difference is in speaking and conversation.
my university education was in english so maybe thats why.
i think it depends on how much you are exposed to a certain language rather than a difference in semantic density or whatever.
on the other hand anyone who studied french as a second language would find it much more dense than english with all its unpronounced letters and various conjugations.

Answer 5

It could be a lot of things.

Yes, it could be that there is a difference between your abilities to read English and French, but it might not just be a difference of speed. If you forced yourself, you probably could read English as fast as you read French, but you might comprehend less. So there is a balance between speed and comprehension.

Also, there is probably a great chance that you read different kinds of material in English and French. Perhaps you read work-related technical journals in English, for example, but in French, you mostly read e-mail messages from family and friends. These different kinds of texts take different amounts of mental processing and include different kinds of vocabulary and sentence structure, for example. So it might not just be your language ability; it can be affected by the text, too.

Answer 6

Reading in another language than my own is much slower. I took 4 yrs of french in highschool and 2 more yrs in college and I swear i learned nothing. It take me a while to put all the words together and make sense out of them. So yea i think its typical for people to read slower in a second language.

Answer 7

♡Well my native tongue is English and my second languages are Japanese and Spanish. I can read Spanish just as quickly as I can English, but Japanese is another story! For some reason it takes longer for the kanji, hiragana and katakana to register. (*^o^*) I'll keep trying though since I live here in Japan.♡

Answer 8

I suppose that you could. My mother had some friends who left their native country when they were very young and now can't speak its language at all. So, I think that it is just a question of time and then too how much you read in your second language.

Answer 9

My native language is not written, just spoken, so every time someone writes a statment in my language, it's really hard and tedious to read. I read a lot a English, and it is my second language, therefore i can read a lot faster in my second langauge.

Answer 10

I don't think so. English is a very easy language. French, Spanish, etc. All the romance langues are harder than English, but we find them easier because their similar. For example, in english you do not use accents, but in Spanish (my native laguage) we have a lot of them and special rules for them, and in French there are even more accents.

I think that our reading skills develop with time and it changes in every kind of reading, some are harder than others.

And, I can read almost as fast in English as I do in Spanish.