One of the big milestones in language learning progress is reading a full-length book in your new language for the first time. Can you remember what the first book you ever read in any of your learning languages was?

While Spanish was so long ago I have forgotten, my first book in Portuguese was "Dom Casmurro" by Machado de Assis and my first book in Chinese was "活着" by 余华. Share yours in the comments, and if you want to be able to read some of the best books in English while you learn, feel free to book a "learn English through literature" lesson with me!

Question

One of the big milestones in language learning progress is reading a full-length book in your new language for the first time. Can you remember what the first book you ever read in any of your learning languages was?

While Spanish was so long ago I have forgotten, my first book in Portuguese was "Dom Casmurro" by Machado de Assis and my first book in Chinese was "活着" by 余华. Share yours in the comments, and if you want to be able to read some of the best books in English while you learn, feel free to book a "learn English through literature" lesson with me!

Answer

I can't remember, actually.  It was so long ago.  As for the languages I'm currently learning, I always feel as though I need to improve a bit more before starting a proper book, not one of those written for learners.  At what stage do you feel ready to read your first book? :)

Answer

Hi, Chris! 🙂 How's it going? Machado de Assis is a great author!

By the way, I'm a brazilian portuguese tutor here on italki, I live in Rio, I'm an actress, I love brazilian literature and I invite you to visit my profile to book a lesson!

Oh! And my trial lesson is only $1,00!

I've been helping my students with grammatical questions, vocabulary gaining, lots of pronunciation improvement and accent reduction, cultural expressions and so on! All in conversation format. Light, informal and fun!

Um abraço!

Answer

Hello!

I think for me the first "real" English book I read that wasn't adapted to learners was Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence. I had to read it in the first year of university when I was an English student! To this date, it's still one of my favourite books and I'm so glad I got to read it back then.

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