How do I know if a book is at my level?

There is quite a lot of data on how much you should understand for an optimal rate of acquisition when reading. The most common finding is that you should already know around 98% of the words in a text to make the most of it. This means that there’s only going to be 1 word out of every 50 that you don’t know yet. For most people, this means that they would benefit from reading easier texts than they think. Texts like that may seem too easy, but this maximizes the chances that you’ll be able to understand new words from context, and that your understanding of the context will be good enough to be able to determine the meaning of that word more precisely. But, of course, you are not only going to be learning the words that you don’t know yet. Learning a word is done little by little, and you are going to also be encountering plenty of words that you may be somewhat familiar with, but haven’t acquired completely yet. You’ll be:\n\nGetting a more exact understanding of the meaning of some words that until now you only had a general feeling for.\nAcquiring new meanings for words you already know, and understanding how wide of a meaning they can have.\nGet a feeling for the situations in which a word may be used.\nGet a better feeling for how to use the words correctly in a sentence.\nLearn collocations.\nLearn expressions that are formed by words you already know, but that have a different meaning than what you would expect.\nAcquire the grammar of the language.