One Smart Way to Boost Your English Reading Skills [Updated]

For English learners, every paragraph, news article or book is like a mountain to climb. To get to the top, you need an important skill: paraphrasing. 

When you paraphrase, you use different words to talk about the same thing. Each time you recognize a paraphrase, you have a more complete understanding of the article. But each time you miss a paraphrase, the meaning will become harder to understand. If you miss too many, you’ll be lost and the article will make no sense to you.

This is why paraphrasing is such an important skill for learners to master. And in addition to improving your reading skills, it will also make you a better listener and speaker.

How to Recognize Paraphrases

So what do paraphrases look like? Well, you probably already know that they often involve pronouns like “it,” “she” or “they.” For example, if an article mentions someone named "Joe Smith," then says "he" later, you can probably guess that "he" means Joe.

These paraphrases are the simplest, but listed below are some other forms paraphrases can take.

1. “The …”

Most paraphrases start with the article “the.” That’s because “the” is often used to refer back to things that have already been mentioned. 

This Daily News lesson about Beyoncé gives us an example of this. Beyoncé's name is mentioned at the start of the article, but later she is referred to as "the influential artist" and then "the world-famous singer, songwriter and entrepreneur."

Even if you didn’t understand some of the words after it, like "entrepreneur," you could use the “the” before it to guess that it probably refers to something already mentioned – in this case, the main subject.

2. Category words

If you’re talking about bananas, grapes and apples, they can all be categorized under the word “fruit.” Easy, right?

The fancy name for these categorizing words is "hypernyms," and they are often used when paraphrasing. As another example, if you were reading an article about music, you may see words like "piano," "guitar" and "drums." However, “instruments” might be mentioned too, which is a category that contains pianos, guitars and drums. Or, instead of naming each individual member of a band, the article may simply say "the musicians."

Using hypernyms this way means the article doesn't have to mention every unique part of a group each time. If it did, the article would be much longer and more tiring to read!

3. Synonyms

Last but not least, synonyms are also a form that paraphrases take. This might not sound too difficult, but remember that words that are synonyms in English may not be synonyms in your language.

For example, look at this article about the health effects of "not exercising." The second paragraph mentions "being unfit," and uses that phrase as a synonym (and paraphrase) of “not exercising.” 

If you miss this connection, you might misunderstand the article completely! Therefore, it's always important to keep these kinds of differences in mind.

Paraphrasing in Action

Let's look at a few more examples of paraphrasing being used in another article. 

Here we can see the subject of the article, a man named Thomas Tuchel. His name appears in the article's title and in the first sentence. 

In the next sentence, however, he is referred to as "The 51-year-old." So we have the article "the," which lets us know it is referring to something mentioned earlier. And we also get some extra information about him: his age.

In the middle of the article, he is referred to in a new way in someone's quote: "one of the very best coaches in the world." And even later, he is called "a foreign manager." 

So you see, if you don't make the connections between these terms and the man mentioned at the start of the article, it would be very easy to get confused.

Other things are referred to in different ways as well. 

Without understanding paraphrasing, you may be confused about what country "this country" refers to at the end of the quote. "This country," of course, is England. We know this because the previous line says "the England boss" — which is also another paraphrase of Tuchel himself!

Wrap-up

Knowing how to paraphrase well is essential if you want to become a fluent English speaker. It allows to you understand and produce more complex writing and have deeper conversations.

Reading more is a great way to improve your paraphrasing skills. We recommend studying with Engoo's free Daily News lessons. We deliver new articles every day designed for learners of all skill levels. In addition to the articles themselves, each lesson also contains questions that you can discuss with one of our professional tutors. Give it a try!