While some individuals consider reading in English to be unproductive, it is a widely debated notion. The writer vehemently disagrees with the given statement, and this essay will give two reasons for this in the following paragraphs.
First of all, regular engagement with English texts can lead to improved linguistic proficiency, providing non-native speakers with greater command over the language. That is to say, they can expand their vocabulary and gain their understanding of various grammar structures in said language as they read. Perhaps the best example of this would be Kien Luyen, a well-known influencer in Vietnam who was once a beginner of the language back in the year 2010 when he was 18 years old. He started learning the language properly a year after that, and he worked hard on different aspects of it including reading in English. After extended periods of time of extensive and intensive reading in the language, he finally achieved a band 9 in the IELTS exam in 2022. This demonstrated, I believe, that reading in English is an essential part of an English learning journey in general.
Just as it helps these learners improve their English, it also provides them cultural insights and global perspectives which are crucial in the interconnected world of today. To elaborate, due to the fact that English is now the global lingua franca, when readers encounter different types of text in the language, such as novels, articles and blog posts, written by various authors from different nations with different viewpoints and cultural backgrounds, their cultural literacy will improve. This means they will be more aware of different culture-related features of many parts of this increasingly multicultural world, and their minds may also be less conservative. That would explain why in the Vietnamese community of social media users, there are numerous individuals who are continuously bashing almost all the cultural differences in the world without knowing. To explain, this is not because they are truly ignorant, that is due to their cultural ignorance and insensitivity, which may become serious cultural misconceptions. All that would support the writer’s idea that reading in English is a must in this modern era.
To conclude, reading in English is beneficial to one’s language proficiency and culture awareness. From the writer’s perspective, doing so is not a waste of time, and it is the crux of personal development of today.