How long does it take to read a book in a foreign language?
Divide the number of words in the book by your reading speed in words per minute. Adults reading fiction in their own language average about 260 words per minute; learners reading an easy book in a foreign language were measured at roughly 60 to 140. At 100 words per minute, a 50,000-word novel takes a little over 8 hours.
The formula is simple:
hours = words in the book ÷ words per minute ÷ 60
Everything difficult is in the second number. Your reading speed depends on your level, on the book, and on how often you stop for unknown words, so it is worth measuring rather than guessing.
Typical reading speeds
Native speeds come from a review of 190 studies. Almost all the measured speeds for learners come from studies of Japanese university students reading English, so treat them as a guide to the order of magnitude, not as a norm for every learner or language.
| Who and what | Words per minute | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Adults reading fiction silently in their first language (English) | 260 average, most 200–320 |
Brysbaert 2019 |
| The same, non-fiction | 238 average, most 175–300 |
Brysbaert 2019 |
| Japanese university students reading easy English prose, with good comprehension | 139 | Hirai 1999, reviewed in Brysbaert 2019 |
| The same, with weaker comprehension | 61 | Hirai 1999, reviewed in Brysbaert 2019 |
| Intermediate learners reading a graded reader of 400 headwords | 105 | Waring and Takaki 2003 |
| University students before and after a year of reading for pleasure | 90–103 before, 98–120 after |
Beglar, Hunt and Kite 2012 |
| Nursing students before and after a semester of extensive reading | 111 before, 131 after |
Huffman 2014 |
| Proficient Dutch–English bilinguals reading a novel in English | 17% slower than in Dutch | Cop et al. 2015, reviewed in Brysbaert 2019 |
| Recommended target for extensive reading of easy books | 150–200 | Extensive Reading Foundation 2011 |
| Recommended target for fluent reading of text with no unknown words | 250 | Nation 2009 |
Two things stand out. Learners are much slower than native readers, often less than half as fast, even on easy books. And the often-quoted 300 words per minute is too high even for native readers: it is near the practical limit of careful reading, not an average.
How to measure your own speed
- Pick a book at your level and a passage you have not read yet.
- Read for five minutes the way you normally read: stop for words if you normally do.
- Count the words you read. Count the words in five full lines, take the average, and multiply by the number of lines you read.
- Divide by five. That is your words per minute for this kind of book. Measure again in a month: the number usually goes up as the language becomes familiar.
Hours for real books
The table below takes the median-length book at each level of our table of 117 free books and shows the reading time at four speeds. Individual books vary a lot: Kafka’s Die Verwandlung (B1) has about 19,000 words, Pride and Prejudice (B1) about 122,000.
| Level | Median words | 100 wpm | 150 wpm | 200 wpm | 250 wpm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A1 | 64,193 | 11 h | 7 h | 5.5 h | 4.5 h |
| A2 | 25,785 | 4.5 h | 3 h | 2 h | 1.5 h |
| B1 | 56,657 | 9.5 h | 6.5 h | 4.5 h | 4 h |
| B2 | 63,710 | 11 h | 7 h | 5.5 h | 4 h |
| C1 | 95,978 | 16 h | 11 h | 8 h | 6.5 h |
| C2 | 71,594 | 12 h | 8 h | 6 h | 5 h |
Every book in the table has its own range, between 200 and 100 words per minute. For example, Die Verwandlung takes 1.5 to 3 hours, and Pride and Prejudice 10 to 20 hours.
Why we give a range, not one number
Our table of books shows every book as a range between 200 and 100 words per minute. 100 is close to what studies measured for intermediate learners reading easy books. 200 is the top of the range recommended for extensive reading, and a realistic speed for an advanced reader on a book that is easy for them. Your own speed will move within that range, and sometimes outside it, for three reasons:
- The book. Understanding and speed go together. In one study of easy prose, students who understood it well read at about 140 words per minute, those who understood it poorly at about 60.
- Lookups. Every stop for a dictionary costs time that a words-per-minute figure for smooth reading does not include. Measure your speed the way you actually read.
- Practice. Speed grows with reading. In one study, students who read extensively for a semester went from about 111 to 131 words per minute, while a group that studied texts closely did not get faster.
From hours to a finishing date
Hours are easier to plan as minutes a day. At 20 minutes a day and 120 words per minute you read 2,400 words a day, so a 50,000-word novel takes about three weeks. At 40 minutes a day it takes ten days or so. A short book that you finish does more for your reading than a long one you abandon halfway, so for a first book in a new language, choose something you can finish within a month.
Sources
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047. Includes the reviews of Hirai (1999) and Cop, Drieghe and Duyck (2015).
- Waring, R. and Takaki, M. (2003). At what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader? Reading in a Foreign Language, 15(2), 130–163. doi.org/10.64152/10125/66776
- Beglar, D., Hunt, A. and Kite, Y. (2012). The effect of pleasure reading on Japanese university EFL learners’ reading rates. Language Learning, 62(3), 665–703. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2011.00651.x. Figures as reported in Beglar, D. and Hunt, A. (2014), Reading in a Foreign Language, 26(1), 29–48, full text (ERIC).
- Huffman, J. (2014). Reading rate gains during a one-semester extensive reading course. Reading in a Foreign Language, 26(2), 17–33. Full text (ERIC)
- Extensive Reading Foundation (2011). The Extensive Reading Foundation’s Guide to Extensive Reading. erfoundation.org/guide/ERF_Guide.pdf
- Nation, P. (2009). Reading faster. International Journal of English Studies, 9(2), 131–144. Full text (Dialnet)