Spanish Reading – Aloud Or Silent?

It is the key to learning Spanish painlessly. Immersion is what got you fluent in your native tongue. Not your elementary-grade grammar classes, not your incessant reps memorizing difficult vocabulary, not your neighborhood spelling-bees, and not your grandfather’s ten-pound Merriam-Webster®. None of those could or can ever get you from mute to rattlesnake-fluent in that span of time. Total, unabashed immersion can. Unescapable immersion can. There are some subtle immersion techniques and then there are some crazy ones. Here, we’ll explore one of them – reading. We will discuss how to read for maximum linguistic juice.

Much has already been discussed around how reading Spanish language materials is integral to any wholesome immersion program. What many often fail to realize, however, is that reading aloud and silent reading don’t have the same impact on one’s Spanish absorption rate. I would stay away from favoring either one of them and can only affirm that they both have different sets of benefits. A combination worked for me and should, hopefully, work for you as well.

Why silent?

Reading silently exercises our minds which is very important. It lets our brains ignore all other senses and focus singularly on understanding the text being read, the context, the meaning, and the language. Few immersion techniques are as unobtrusive yet effective as silent reading and I recommend reading leastwise a page of some Spanish novella, short-story, etc. everyday. Even newspapers or online materials like the Spanish language Wikipedia are good enough for silent reading. Even comics in the Spanish language!

Silent reading helps Spanish vocabulary and grammar
Photo credit: Alexandre Dulaunoy licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

The benefit of silent reading over reading aloud is that the former provides a much better insight into what is being read. This is mainly because while reading silently, the meaning of the text becomes far more important than the text itself. Even absorption of aspects such as usage, patterns, and vocabulary is greatly enhanced with this method of reading. In reading aloud, on the other hand, you must spare a significant amount of your attention to absorbing and understanding the pronunciation.

Another important benefit of silent reading is enhanced speed. Since you are just skimming through the content without wasting precious time in pronouncing what you read, you end up covering more ground than you would reading aloud. And needless to say, the more text you cover, the more grammar and vocabulary you absorb and the faster you acquire Spanish. Always remember, when it comes to learning a language, quantity matters a lot. No matter what you do, there must be a lot of it. If you are listening, listen to a lot of it. If reading, read a lot of it. If writing, write a lot. Get my drift?

Loud and proud

Reading aloud helps absorb pronunciation and accent
Photo credit: leadercorps20102011 licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Reading aloud, on the other hand, has another important advantage: It exercises your mouth, more so than your brain. Since you have to reproduce the text while understand it all the same in this activity, the focus of your mind is divided between the two goals. Hence, while understanding every aspect is somewhat diminished while reading aloud, your facial muscles benefit from the workout provided.

Every language has a unique “ring” to it, a “prosody”  and so does Spanish. So, if you have been speaking English thus far, your mouth is hardwired to reproduce the English sound system. Spanish, with it’s slightly different sound system, would require a completely different set of articulations; you would need to draw a different combination of the muscles in your cheeks, lips, throat, tongue, etc., in order to be able to articulate Spanish. This muscle-movement pattern that is alien to you till now, needs to become your second nature if fluency is your goal. And reading aloud provides an excellent opportunity to accelerate this process, especially if you live far from any Spanish-speaking community.

Making the most out of reading

Whatever you read, read a lot of it – and only in Spanish
Photo credit: dvortygirl licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

To make it more productive, add as much nonsense to the process as possible; the more bizzare your technique, the better the effect. Try to emulate not only the sound pattern but also the expressions, the accent, the situation (for example, the sing-song accent of a Mexican character). This way, you’ll be sounding like the natives in no time as you will be unknowingly picking up and absorbing many nuances of the native Spanish speech.

Though you could read virtually anything written in Spanish, the most amusing thing to read aloud would be, in my personal opinion, comic books. They provide ample number of expressions and emotions to thoroughly emulate. Read them, make funny expressions, make funny sounds, go beserk! This will not only amuse you, but also rewire your facial muscles for combinations you never drew before.

As you now see, both methods have their own merits and what works best for you might not be the same as what did for me or your neighbor. I would suggest trying out a combination of the two in varying proportions until you strike the most optimal balance. Just be sure to overwhelm yourself with Spanish, whichever way you choose.

If, however, you were to emulate my experience, try silent reading exclusively during your initial phase of learning Spanish. This is because any attempt to orally produce Spanish without a reasonable amount of exposure to the language is more likely to get you a permanently damaged accent.