I Read One Million Words in English: My Book List and Tips for Reading Every Day

Aim for 30 minutes a day#

I aimed for 30 minutes every weekday evening.

I set a timer for 30 minutes and stopped at a good place.
When I’d done my reading, I drew a circle in my planner.

Wanting to fill in the circles kept me going.

Choosing books#

In extensive reading, choosing books at the right level for you might be the hardest part.

You might think, “You studied abroad, so you can read English books easily, right?”
Honestly, not at all. Emails and conversation are one thing, but books are something else entirely.

Literature especially is full of expressions you hardly ever use in daily life.

Take the different ways to say someone laughs or smiles:

• Beam: smile broadly, face lit up
• Chuckle: laugh quietly, a little to yourself
• Giggle: laugh lightly, often a bit childish or girlish
• Grin: smile widely, showing your teeth
• Smirk: smile in a smug or slightly sarcastic way
• Sneer: smile or laugh with contempt

I only knew “smile” and “laugh”…!

At first there were so many words I didn’t know that I was stunned: “Is this really all I can read?”

So I went back to basics and started with books for elementary school kids.

At the bookstore, I’d flip through the first few pages and pick the ones I felt I could read.
Two or three unknown words per page is fine, and you can still enjoy the book. Any more than that feels a bit too hard.

The SSS book review site (in Japanese), which reviews children’s books and other books that are easy for beginners to read, also helped a lot.
It sorts books by YL (Yomiyasusa Level, a readability level used in Japan), so you can find books that match your level.

Books I recommend to start with#

The choice that worked best for me was books I loved reading as a child.

The Darren Shan series is my favorite

You already know the characters and the setting, so it’s easy to get into the story.

And with stories you read as a child, you might vaguely remember the plot but have forgotten the details or how it ends. So they still feel fresh.

I read these series one after another:

• My Father’s Dragon
• The Giver series
• The Saga of Darren Shan

By the way, my very first book was The Little Prince (which I’d never read before), and I struggled with it. It’s short, but kind of philosophical, and I was never sure whether I’d understood it or not.

How I read#

The way I read changed between the first half and the second half.

At first, I would:

• take notes
• look up words that came up often

I read carefully, making sure I understood what was written.

I wasn’t used to reading in English yet, so I’d quickly forget what had happened earlier and often got lost in the story.

With long novels especially, I made notes on the characters and how they were related.

People often recommend not looking up words at all. But reading on Kindle, I could check meanings quickly with the dictionary tool, so I looked things up all the time.

Underlining as I read

In the second half:

• I could do without notes
• I underlined words that caught my eye (without looking them up)

I could read much more lightly.
Wanting to know what happened next became stronger than wanting to spend time on words and notes.

Honestly, as long as you can read comfortably and enjoy it, I think any method you like is fine.

Keeping track of word counts#

I kept a list of the books I’d read in a notes app.

• Date finished
• Title
• Author
• Word count

I look up word counts on the SSS book review site (in Japanese).

When I can’t find a word count, I take a screenshot of one page, ask ChatGPT to count the words, and multiply words per page by the number of pages for a rough total.

Analog or digital, either works, but I recommend keeping a list of the books you’ve read.

My list of books read

Seeing how much you’ve done makes you want to read even more.

After 100,000 words, reading got much easier#

After about 100,000 words, maybe my brain had gotten used to processing English, because reading suddenly felt much easier.

At first it was like I was translating each sentence in front of me to understand it. Then it became, “Wait, am I reading smoothly?” “Wait, I’m not even tired?”

Rather than translating sentences, I started enjoying the story itself.

Staying up late to find out what happens next#

I love dystopian stories (stories that show a so-called utopia, an ideal world, in a dark light).
When I read The Giver as a child, I thought it was amazing!!

Back then, the sequels hadn’t come out in Japanese, so I never got to enjoy the whole series to the end.

This time, when I started The Giver series in the original English, I was so desperate to know what happened next that what was meant to be 30 minutes before bed turned into racing straight through to the end.

A good story has power of its own. Even if you miss some nuances, you still catch what it’s trying to say, and you can still enjoy it.