读书读观察

读英文书的正确姿势

HowtoReadaBook(2)...

呃...又是标题党把你骗进来... 如果要继续读的话，降低你的期望值:)

How to Read a Book 中把读书分为4 levels, 之所以是level而不是kind, 是因为这四个等级是环环相扣，你中有我的。

Elementary Reading
Inspectional Reading
Analytical Reading
Syntopical Reading

读这本读书指南的最低要求就是已经掌握了Elementary reading — 基本的字词已经不是障碍了，句子大多可以读的懂。虽然我们大多数都可以达到这个水平，但是不够熟练。提升阅读的方法只有一招: 读更多。只是读的时候要讲究方式方法，才能有所提高。

为什么我们“读不懂”这本书？我想其中的一个原因就是我们经常会忽略这个重要的阅读环节。付出的代价是：我们花费了很多时间在读一本“不值得”的书；或者是我们轻易的放弃了一本“一开始读不懂”的书。

不要随随便便的就跟一本书开始热恋，先要好好的观察一下ta — 否则的话分手的时候只会叹息“又碰到一个渣男”。通过这个观察，我们可以决定是“玩一下就好了不必认真”还是“这一次我要好好爱一回”。哪怕是你已经爱上ta了，先多了解一下探探底也是应该的。

你或许会说，“反正到头来不是还要分手吗，你又不会一辈子只读一本书吧？”

引用一句马大爷(George R.R. Martin)的话: A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only once. 借用这个句式，“读书的人一辈子都在谈不同的恋爱，不读书的人只爱一次。”

要观察哪里呢, 有以下主要几个部分，在此就不详细说明了，网上有很多介绍了。

The tittle page and its preface(if the book has one)
The table of contents
The index
The publisher’s blurb

如果这四点看完了之后没有把书扔到一旁的话，那我们就可以开始进一步亲密接触了:

Look now at the chapters that seem to be pivotal to its argument. If these chapters have summary statements in their opening or closing pages, as they often do, read these statements carefully.

Inspectioanl Reading的最后一步:

“Finally, turn the pages, dipping in here and there, reading a paragraph or two, sometimes several pages in sequence, never more than that.

以上就是基本的inspection reading, 花费的时间短则几分钟，长则一小时就够了。这时候我们就知道这本书值不值得读，该怎么读了。如果你喜欢逛书店买纸质书的话，这是必须掌握的技能，也是应该有的态度。在这个过程中我们我们像是侦探一样主动出击，保持机警:

“Think of yourself as a detective looking for clues to a book’s general theme or idea, alert for anything that will make it clearer. Heeding the suggestions we have made will help you sustain this attitude. You will be surprised to find out how much time you will save, pleased to see how much more you will grasp, and relieved to discover how much easier it all can be than you supposed.”

有没有过这样的感受，拿到一本书，本着膜拜的心态来读，结果读不懂，非常受挫，然后觉得 — 读这本书就是个错误! 实则不然，这种情况产生的原因或许是我们太急了 —如果根据我们以上的判断这是一本值得读的书的话，那么一遍就能吃透几乎是不可能的。我们要做的是“至少要通读一次”(give a book a first superficial reading)

“In tackling a difficult book for the first time, read it through without ever stopping to look-up or ponder the things you do not understand right away.”

值得注意的是:many books are hardly worth even skimming; some should be read quickly; and a few should be read at a rate, usually quite slow, that allow for complete comprehension.

“读书百遍，其义自现”或许就是这个道理。我们刚开始读一本书，碰到读不懂的地方就开始冥思苦想，一头雾水，然后就读不下去了。实际上，如果我们先把这个问题放一放，继续读，或许这个问题的答案满满就水落石出了。读读停停，让我们很快失去了耐心。答案就在字里行间里，我们要从细节问题跳出来 — Otherwise you will miss the forest for the trees。先“宏观”的了解它，然后再第二次阅读的时候再“较真”。

“If you insist on understanding everything on every page before you go on to the next, you will not get very far. In your effort to master the fine points, you will miss the big points.”

哪怕我们不“二刷”这本书的话，我们“避重就轻”的通读方式也比“半途而废”要有所收获:

“And even if you never go back, understanding half of a really tough book is much better than not understanding it at all, which will be the case if you allow yourself to be stopped by the first difficult passage you come to.”

从“读书优先”而不是“学英文优先”的角度来说，在这个阶段，我们不要一碰到不认识的词就查字典，不懂的概念就立刻去查Wikipedia, 或者立刻就向他人发问 — 因为“时机还未到”，这些行为会打断我们的阅读。有不认识的词或者概念的话，先标注一下，回头再看就好了。

Do not try to understand every word or page of a difficult book the first time through. Do not be afraid to be, or to seem to be, superficial. Race through even the hardest book. You will then be prepared to read it well the second time.

或许你会说：“我有好多词都不认识啊，读都读不下去。”如果是这样的话，这本书对你来说是太难了，你还没有可以读这本书的水平 — 上面提到了，至少要要掌握了elementary reading之后才有能力做inspectional reading。

注意我说的这种方法的前提是“读书优先”，也就是“享受读书为主，顺便学一下英文”。我觉得把一本好书纯当成英语教材来读，实在是可惜了。之前提到的读《经济学人》也是这样，大家觉得这本杂志可读性强，首先是它的新闻态度，其次是其语言使用精准犀利。我们可以先通读一下了解这篇文章说了什么事，各方的观点如何后，再回头去查单词，品句段，把一些没有理解的地方解决掉 -- 真的没必要精读每一个字。

书中举了这样一个例子:

“The tremendous pleasure that can come from reading Shakespeare, for instance, was spoiled for generations of high school students who were forced to go through Julius Caesar, As You Like It, or Hamlet, scene by scene, looking up all the strange words in a glossary and studying all the scholarly footnotes. As a result, they never really read a Shakespearean play. By the time they reached the end, they had forgotten the beginning and lost sight of the whole. Instead of being forced to take this pedantic approach, they should have been encouraged to read the play at one sitting and discuss what they got out of that first quick reading. Only then would they have been ready to study the play carefully and closely because then they would have understood enough of it to learn more.”

关于inspectional reading先分享到这里，如果你有兴趣的话，去找这本书来读。看我的笔记是相比来说是less active，我们要主动的去阅读和思考。

读书社群里有朋友说自己读的太慢，或者没时间读 — 之前和大家分享过“读的太快或者太慢都不好”，要“有节奏的读”，在此分享一下我的一个“方法”。

我们要学会规划一下阅读进度。例如这本How to Read a Book 400页左右，我们一天20页，20天读完。一天20页分成4个5页，早起读5页，坐车上厕所的时间读5页，吃完饭散步完读五页，睡前读5页。我们有压力是因为心里没数。而且这种心理暗示会让我们很有成就感 — 就像是番茄法则一样。

我开始读书总觉得那么厚怎么读的完! 把它分解一下就好了。我特别喜欢kindle那个进度显示“xx mins left in chapter" “xx mins left in book" 我心里就有底儿了。我把一本书分为10个10%, 也就是说我10天就可以读完一本书。周末的时候就可以贪一点，读20%，甚至30% 。而且我觉得那本书里都有一些“废话”可以跳过的。

Every book no matter how difficult, contains interstitial material that can be and should be read quickly; and every good book also contains matter that is difficult and should read very slowly.

如果是边读书边学英文的话Kindle的Vocabulary Builder是个非常好的工具。它可以记录我们的生词，利用flashcard的方式帮助我们记忆 — 最棒的一点是它会同样记录含有这个生词的原文中的句子，可以帮助我们在context下记忆。注意，有的词真的是认识一下就好了，根本就是记不住 — 这些词“千年等一回”；我们要着重记得是那些我们觉得自己可以用上的词，或者是见过好多次的词。一回生二回熟，多读一些就有这个“单词鉴别能力”了。

有些朋友问: Kindle值不值得买? 买哪一款好? Kindle和iPad有什么区别，好在哪里? 我觉得这样的问题不是好问题。非要回答的话那就是: 值得买，钱多就买贵的，钱少就买便宜的，没钱就攒。

为什么“读书是很个人的体验”？

在微博帐号“莫水田”(金雯)里看到了一个网站分享给大家: