Comments on the Antimoon article about reading

I devote this topic to discussing the Antimoon article about reading:
http://www.antimoon.com/how/reading.htm

Not long ago, I read this article again and I decided to share my observations.

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You can't speak English if you have never seen an English sentence in your life.
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I think it is possible to speak English without "seeing" an English sentence in one's life. Perhaps it could be enough to hear a lot of English sentences. Probably you can't write in English, if you haven't seen an English sentence in your life.

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There are two ways to get correct English sentences: listening and reading. Both are good, but reading is usually much easier than listening. With the help of a good dictionary, you will be able to understand English texts much more easily than, for example, English television or movies.
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It could be argued that listening is much easier than reading. You can perform listening without focusing your attention. It can be a background activity - performed while doing something else. I think that in the eighth grade of high school I did more listening than reading. I listened to simplified English: Kernel 1,2,3 for example. I did a lot of listening in the kitchen, while eating or washing the dishes.

Listening was quite easy because I could understand most of the words. Perhaps I understood 81%.

Reading is more difficult because it requires time specially devoted. You cannot read while doing something else. It has to be the main activity.

I recommend listening to simple English as much as possible. It could fill a large part of a learner's day without requiring special time for English. Nowadays, I listen to Norwegian a lot without spending time on Norwegian. I often listen while answering email, or while doing mathematics. This is time spent on learning Norwegian without actually spending time.

I call it "easy". Listening is easier than reading.

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If you read just one book in English, you will see that your English has become much better. You will start using lots of new vocabulary and grammar in your school compositions and e-mail messages. You will be surprised, but English phrases will just come to you when you are writing or speaking! Things like the past simple tense and how to use the word "since" will become part of you. You will use them automatically, without thinking. Correct phrases will just appear in your head.
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I have read one Norwegian book, one textbook for advanced learners, some texts from the Internet, and now I am reading a second Norwegian book. I think I read more than the equivalent of "just one book in English".

But I can definitely report that the Norwegian simple past tense is not part of me, in the sense used in the paragraph that I am commenting on. Also, it is not part of me how to use the Norwegian equivalent of "since". I could not use them automatically, without thinking. I would have to concentrate hard and look through a Norwegian book searching for example sentences with the equivalent of "since".

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This is true for hundreds of words and grammar structures. If you read in English, you can forget about grammar rules. Throw away your grammar book! You don't need to know the rules for the present perfect tense. You don't even have to know the name "present perfect". Instead, read a few books in English, and soon you will feel that "I have seen Paul yesterday" is wrong, and "I saw Paul yesterday" is correct. How? Simple. Your brain has seen the second kind of sentence 192 times, and the first kind 0 times.
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I have read in Norwegian as much as I described in my previous remark. But I admit that I have not grasped the difference between the usage of the different past tenses in Norwegian. I can recognize the past tenses and understand sentences properly but I have no idea what governs the choice of one tense rather than the other. If I was to write my own sentences, I could make many mistakes. I wouldn't know.

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This is what we call grammar intuition. This is how native speakers know what is correct. It's no magic. You can do it, too. The only difference between you and native speakers is that they have heard and read more English sentences than you have.
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Perhaps when I read 17 Norwegian books, I will develop the kind of grammar intuition that is mentioned in this paragraph. Perhaps reading is enough to develop a grammar intuition that is equivalent to that of the native speakers. Perhaps. But not "just one book". Most probably one has to read at least 21 books.