When to start reading in a target language is one heavily debated in the language learning community, and one I don’t have a firm opinion on.

Yesterday I signed up to the Dreaming Spanish website, and was sent a language learning roadmap. Their recommendation is to not start reading until at least level 3 (150 hours input, give or take 100% depending on the language!), or level 5 (600 hours) “if you care about your final achievement in pronunciation”.

I taught myself the Ukrainian alphabet months ago (as such I’ve picked up the Russian one quite easily), and as a visual person I saw being able to read along as I listen to the language to be a great benefit. One of the resources I use, LingQ, is based on reading and listening at the same time. I bought Olly Richards’ Short Stories in Russian for Beginners as both physical and audio book, planning to listen as I read.

The idea of not reading until you’re at an advanced level, as I understand it, is so that you can’t get a wrong idea of pronunciation by reading words you haven’t heard enough yet. However I have encountered the opposite problem on occasion, where I hear a new word and visualise it written (not on purpose!), only to be wrong. Obviously that way around can be corrected later as one learns to read the language, just as children learn correct spelling.

But still, it is an extra step towards reading fluency. And I’ve always been a good reader. Apparently I was starting to read along to books my mum read me when I was very young! Reading was never something I struggled with until I got ME, and then it wasn’t the literal act of reading, just focusing on the story or text, that became a problem.

Fluency is more important to me than pronunciation, and being able to communicate verbally in the target language is a priority over written, simply because I struggle much more in that area. But, while I’ll hold off on reading without accompanying audio in my target languages for now, I don’t see a problem in reading while listening.

That said, I would like a second opinion on this from an ALG expert. I’m mentally compiling a list of questions for one when I get an opportunity.

I did start turning Russian subtitles off a while ago, as I found when I was reading along, my focus was on reading the words and I wasn’t consciously taking much else in. (This is why, outside of language acquisition, I avoid foreign language films and TV shows unless they’re dubbed—I can’t process action and subtitles simultaneously.)

However, in light of the realisation I’ve been too conscious with my input, I’m rethinking this. On the videos I watch where I know a larger amount of the words, reading subtitles would probably help take me take the focus off the meaning and allow it to become more subconscious. That’s my theory, anyway. I haven’t tried it yet.