Context reading for developing foreign language reading skills

In the next few days or so I’m going to try out “context reading” to develop my reading skills. I won’t try this with Japanese, though, since I think it’s a bit more difficult with non-Latin based writing systems.

So what do I mean by “context reading”? Basically, I’ll find some foreign language snippets, and try to understand it without using a dictionary. How can I do this? Well, the idea is to look for familiar words or phrases as guidance. To make the feat even easier, I’m not going to just be checking out random snippets. Instead, I’ll try to find something with a familiar context (recent news events, famous people, famous stories, etc.) That way I’ll have a general idea as to what the text is about and be able to make educated guess on the meaning of particular words or phrases.

Stay tuned…