Hello, M26 here, motherlanguage is arabic, but fluent in English and German.
I started the hobby of reading 2 months ago for multiple reasons, mainly to strengthen my very weak imagination, to improve myself and to be a reader.
the amount of books available is too much and i am paralysed by the amount of genres and authors, fiction vs non fiction and so on, and i **really dont want to be dissapointed,** youll see what i mean by the end of the post.
should i read from paper-books, digital books (PC, iPad), eReaders or Meta Quest?
How do i sit when i read? should i bring sthn to drink? eat?
do i read a chapter at a time? do i stop after an hour?
do i listen to audio books first then read the book itself?
when i ask people what to read, they say, what do you like?
my response is i dont know i never read!
which writing style do you prefer?
i also dont know because i never read!
theres a person i know who reads a lot!
i asked him can you please teach me how to read, he literally said: just read, whats stopping you!? he also said imagine every single word in the text! that was it. he didnt give me any examples of books, what book to start with, what his favorite book was, or the different types of books that are available.
can you please recommend me sthn to start with? should i read in arabic, or english? when should i start reading in german (since i want to also improve my german and im living in germany)
if you want the backstory of me:
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I never read for fun, i always saw reading books as a task that needs to be done, to reach the end (instead of enjoying the journey), therefore id rather watch a movie instead.
As a kid, the people around me told me to read the newspapers, that was written in arabic, and was so boring, in each parapragh were a few words that i dont understand so i gave it up, they also advised me to read old novels from Shakespeare, that was the worst advice, that i was ever given, i was so shocked from reading them that i considered it sthn really really really hard to read simple things.
in school in english classes we used to read short novels, but it was also a task, without any imagination or engagment or fun.
i recall one day a friend of my brother gave him “the secret”, so i read it, i guess that was a bad choice as the first book to read.
so i stopped reading for some years, and then a friend of mine in uni gave me “a thousand splendid suns”, which i really enjoyed reading, but i also just wanted to finish it to impress the friend (PS she was a girl lol), then i stopped reading.
anyway so fast forward to now 26 years old i know i am missing a lot because im not reading, i moved to germany, the culture here is different, everyone has a book in their hands, in my home country i owned a car so i never saw what the general public does, but i doubt they read, because the public tranportation system is messed up.
anyway, long story short, my imagination is near non existant, when i read sthn its text on paper unless i force myself to imagine, which takes the fun out of reading because its tedious (note: its not aphantasia)
i also figured that all my life i have been trying to read in english, because i consider the books in english are better? but once again Shakespeare’s books made me have PTSD lol.
so unfortunaltey i am now unemployed but looking forward to improve my self, i started reading in arabic, since i also miss it, and sthn to ignite my imagination, so its getting better and better.
and since i want to improve myself, im really interested in books like:
The 1% rule (which i read)
No more Mr nice guy. (i read it, but didnt understand why it is highly rated!)
how to make freinds and influence people (started reading but stopped)
i also listend to you cant hurt me audio book, and planning to read it some time soon.
i read around 3 parts of a novel in arabic, at the start it was nice, but then it started to be complicated, so i lost interest and didnt bother to imagine things, so i just read it to get done with it.
i read a novel for kids, which was also nice.
i read the Crime and Punishment part 1 in arabic and now reading Part 2.
i was only able to read these books because i have nothing esle to do since i am unemployed and after reading these books, i am actually **quite dissapointed**, because they didnt really help me, nor did i have fun, i would still rather watch movies or series, or youtube.
PS: i am a medical doctor, so books for me were always a task to be done, and i actually just wrote every single word in text books in order to memorize them, because i didnt have an imagination of diseases or from the organs of the body to visulaise the disease process and such. Anatomy for me was also just pictures on paper, i **cant** imagine for example the exact size of the heart or where it is in my own body and its anatomical rotation and valves and so on.
im sure that not reading also affected my writing skills, as you can see in this post.
In essay exams or writing part of language tests in arabic english and german i always just barely pass.
if you have read all of the post, thank you so so much for your time, and please write an advice for me :)New to Reading (Please Help)
by Temporaryuser1997