Why do you not recommend reading?

Reading is great! It’s necessary to learn to spell words, and it gives you exposure to words and expressions that are rarely used in the spoken language. Unfortunately, reading before you’ve listened enough can lead to problems with your acquisition of the pronunciation of the language. If you are sure that you are never going to want to speak the language, then there’s no issue at all with reading even at the earlier stages. Once you get to level 3 in our timeline, you should be able to read the easier graded readers without too many problems. If you want to eventually speak the language, though, it’s best to leave reading for later. When reading, you’ll be sounding out the words in your head. If you read before you have a good mental image of the sounds of the language, you’re invariably going to read the letters in a nonnative way. You’ll be influenced negatively by the following three things:\n\nThe way the letters are pronounced in your language.\nThe sound in your language that’s closest to the sound in the target language.\nBy your imprecise conscious understanding of how that letter is supposed to sound.\n\nSince that understanding is not based on a mental model built by input like the one native speakers have, it won’t be accurate. We explain this in a lot more detail in the blog post The tyranny of the written word. Check out our method to know when we recommend to start reading.