Extensive reading
Reading a lot, mostly easy material, for pleasure rather than analysis. The high-volume side of reading-based language learning.
What it means
Extensive reading is reading lots of text in your target language at a level you find comfortable. The defining features: volume (many pages, many books), relative ease (95-98% of words known on average), and pleasure (you'd want to read this on a Sunday afternoon).
Stephen Krashen, Paul Nation, Rob Waring and others have argued that extensive reading is the single most efficient activity for vocabulary growth, fluency, and reading speed in a foreign language. The numbers usually cited: a million words of pleasure reading in your target language is roughly equivalent to three years of formal study for vocabulary uptake.
How it differs from intensive reading
Intensive reading is the opposite mode: short text, careful analysis, every word looked up, grammar examined. It's useful for short bursts. Extensive reading is the long game.
You need both, but in different proportions. Most learners over-do intensive reading and skip extensive entirely. They translate one paragraph perfectly, then call it a day.
How to do it
- Pick a book at i+1 — comfortable but not trivial.
- Don't translate. Don't analyze grammar. Just read.
- Look up only the words that block comprehension. Skip everything else.
- Aim for volume: 30 minutes a day, every day, for a few weeks.
- If a book bores you, stop. Pick another one.