As you can see from the title, this week’s focus is on books, magazines and newspapers. Accessing these three online is a great way to practise English and not just reading practice either. You can also practise pronunciation, spelling, sentence construction, improve your vocabulary and learn about intonation.
Books
Books are easily found online. In fact, almost every book that is out of copyright can be found online in one place or another for free. If you know the name of the book you’d like to read, simply type it into Google, or your search engine of choice, add the words ‘read online for free’ and click go.
If you are not sure what you’d like to read you can always use a website such as the superb Project Gutenberg. With over 38,000 books to choose from, this website allows you to use a number of search terms to find what you want, including author, title, subject, most popular and so on.
Once you’ve got the downloaded version you can either print it off to read like a normal book, or you can read it directly on the computer screen. As you read through the text, note down any words you do not know and look them up using a website such as http://dictionary.reference.com/. This website also offers a recording of the pronunciation of the word too. So, you’ll not only be improving your reading skills, but your comprehension and pronunciation skills too.
Another great way to learn once you’ve found the book you want to read is to then find the same book as an audio recording. For example, you can download ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ by Mark Twain from Project Gutenberg and then visit a website such as Librivox http://librivox.org/tom-sawyer-by-mark-twain/ to access the audio book for free. Now you can read the paper version and listen to the audio version at the same time. This will help you improve your pronunciation, vocabulary and will also teach you about intonation too.
Other websites where you can find books online for free are:
www.readcentral.com/read-online-books
Other websites where you can download audio versions for free are:
http://freeclassicaudiobooks.com/audiobooks/Sawyer/mp3/
www.openculture.com/freeaudiobooks
Of course it’s not only the old classics that are available for free. There are plenty of authors who are willing to let you read their work just to get some feedback. This website: www.free-ebooks.net/ is one such place where you can access free e-books.
Magazines
www.free-ebooks.net website also hosts a number of free magazines you can subscribe to. The beauty of magazines is that you can tailor your study to reflect the areas that interest you the most. So if you plan on entering the food industry once you’ve completed your course with us, you could choose a magazine that specialises in that area. This will allow you to familiarise yourself with the vocabulary used and current issues within that industry. Some other websites that offer the same service are:
http://bpubs.tradepub.com/free/dr/
And that’s not all! Many websites have free online magazines you can subscribe to, for example http://bit.ly/g0BmVd is the free Lego magazine.
Newspapers
Newspapers are another great way of adding to your English practice. There are lots and lots of English language newspapers available free online from all over the world. So, not only can you improve your understanding of the English language, you can also improve your knowledge of sport, fashion, food, culture, business, money, travel and current affairs – brilliant!
In the UK there are a wide range of newspapers from broadsheets such as The Independent to tabloids like The Sun. The same applies to newspapers from all over the globe – some are better quality than others so bear this in mind when choosing. Here are the ones I’d suggest you have a look at first:
www.themoscowtimes.com/index.php
This website www.thebigproject.co.uk/news/#europe is a great resource for online newspapers if you want some more to read. It details links to papers in English from all over the world.
Next week we’re moving on to blogs and forums and how they can help you with your study.
