6 reasons I still buy language books in 2025

In this digital age, in this age of the internet and, uh, podcasts, why buy books? I buy a lot of books. So today I want to talk a bit about why, and that provides six reasons.

And three, what I would say are cautions about books, real books. Why do I buy them? First of all, as you know, I am a great fan of the digital environment for language learning that we live in.

Access to content all over the world in so many different forms, audio, e text, podcast, YouTube videos, Netflix, any information you need about the language. It's all available at our fingertips and it's available on the internet. So it's sort of a digital world.

Also, I spent a lot of my language learning time on LingQ, where I can look up words, where I have audio, where I have statistics that keep me going. I can keep track of what I've been doing and targets and so forth. So I'm very much into that.

And I spent most of my language learning time in a digital environment. So why do I buy books? And I'm in Palm Springs.

I'm not up in Vancouver. I can't show you my vast library of books in different languages and language learning books. So I'm going to talk about.

Some of the reasons why I think it's a good idea to buy books. The first thing about books is books are handy. Books are easy to pick up, take with you to the toilet, read before going to bed or in bed.

It's tactile. It's nice to hold on to. I like books.

So any language that I get into, I'm going to begin by buying a starter book. I'm holding here, for example, Complete Ukrainian by Teach Yourself. As I've said before, I like Teach Yourself.

I think they're good value for money. They're a good series in their complete series, complete Turkish, complete Ukrainian, complete Romanian. I've got lots of them.

So, handy, tactile. I like the feel of having a book in my hand. A second reason that I like books is that in these starter books, Like Teach Yourself or Assimil or Living Language, I think it's called, you get some explanations.

Now, I don't believe that I remember the explanations, but if the language is completely new to me, even though I'm doing the mini stories and I'm being exposed to the language over and over again, I'm getting exposure to the patterns of the language, it helps to have an explanation. It gets you through the content. Even if you forget the explanation, it helps so that you're not totally like a blind person feeling your way forward in this new language.

You get some explanation, the explanation remains somewhat fuzzy until you have enough exposure in the language, but it nevertheless does help. So the second reason why I buy books is because I buy starter books that help me. Get an introduction to the language, the language, which at first is very, very strange.

The third reason why I like books is because I like variety. And I've said this many times. You need to get the same content in a variety of different ways, in a variety of different forms.

You want the same vocabulary to appear in different contexts. But also if I've been listening to something or reading it in a digital format, and I can then read it again in, Some kind of a hard copy, you know, paper feel type of environment. I believe it's handled somewhat differently in our brains.

There's no distraction. There's no shine of the screen. So it introduces a different way of accessing the same content.

And I enjoy doing that. Now, the next thing about books is that they are sort of an enticement. If I'm starting in a language and I go into a book, into a bookstore and I see a book on how to learn Catalan, for example, this happens to be complete Ukrainian, but it could be complete Catalan.

It's very enticing. I have this feeling that just by buying the book, I've taken that all important first step towards learning the language. And in many languages, there are sayings that basically say the first step is the biggest step.

And so the books kind of entice you into getting started. Not only that, at a later stage, If I see books, for example, I have this Korean book here, which I bought a long time ago when I was in Korea, or maybe was in a Korean bookstore in Vancouver, and, uh, I have this feeling that one day I will read this book, even if now it's a little difficult for me, uh, you know, to read it. And, uh, so, that's why I'm, uh, paying, I'm paying for it.

Tough for me to read. But every time I read it, it's a stimulus. It's a bit of content, plus it's that sense of one day I'm going to get there.

I haven't really cracked this book open since I bought it, but it's there, something that I can get to. So there is this sense of a mirage. Something that is moving you forward because in language learning, you know, the, the motivation is so important.

So just as every little bit of input, listening and reading helps, every little bit of motivation helps. So for me, books are an enticement. Even if I have 30 percent books at home that I have never really spent a lot of time with, it's kind of entices me to keep going.

Now, the fifth reason why books are so important to me is because they are a permanent reference. I remember my first, you know, teach yourself Russian or teach yourself Portuguese. I remember those and I can go back to them because there are always points of grammar or patterns there that I have maybe neglected or I never noticed the first time through it.

You can always go back to them as a quick reference to the language. So I, I enjoy having books around as a handy reference back to the language. And of course, the sixth thing is that when we do get to the stage, I'm not at the stage yet in Korean where I can read this book comfortably, but when I do get to that stage, that's a major achievement.

So this is sort of a, you know, a goal and ambition to be able to read these books. And very often I will read the book again at a later stage and find that, you know, it's much easier for me. For example, this intermediate Persian course, which I found very difficult because I have so much trouble reading.

In the Arabic script, uh, I've done so much reading on LingQ now that I'm getting better at it. And I was reading it the other day and I felt quite proud of myself that I was able to read it more comfortably than before. But all of this is happening on that sort of print paper book.

Environment, which is a supplement and a reinforcement of the learning that I do in the digital environment. Now, there are some cautions. First of all, without the digital support, I simply find it too difficult to get into the language.

There's not enough repetition, even in the, uh, Complete, you know, teach yourself series. They tend to go from one lesson to the next, to the next. And there's not a lot of repetition of the vocabulary.

That's where I think our, uh, many stories at LingQ are so powerful. The other thing is that inevitably, even though they have a glossary for each lesson, very often the words in the glossary Are not the ones that you don't know, you know, those, the ones that you need to know are not in the glossary and words that were introduced in chapter one, you've already forgotten them, but they're not in the glossary for lesson two. So it's like pushing on a rope to get going in the language without that digital support.

The goal eventually is to be able to operate, you know, on paper, but initially without the digital support, it's Another problem with these books is they assume that if you go from chapter 1 to chapter 2 to chapter 3, you are therefore improving. Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Many words remain difficult.

In many ways, you could take chapter 1 and chapter 5 and it would be just as easy as going from chapter 1 to chapter 2. So that it's almost misleading to have these books there with, you know, chapter 1, chapter 2. So you got to be aware of that, that the books, you know, just by themselves are not enough to get you going in the language.

That's why the digital support is so important. The functionality, the audio, being able to look at the text sentence by sentence, being able to look words up, being able to, you know, review the words that you didn't know, which may or may not be the ones that are on the glossary list, all of this is very powerful support from the digital environment. So in summary, you know, the digital support is important, but the books are important and they work together.

You need the digital support. And I, in fact, spend most of my time in that sort of digital environment, but I derived tremendous pleasure for the reasons that I indicated from owning books, from reading books, by having books with me, holding books. And I think that having the two operating together increases our effectiveness and, uh, our ability to progress in the language.

And I wonder if other people. Share my experience in this regard. Thank you.

Look forward to hearing your views. Bye for now.