A Lazy Reader, You Are!

I know that hundreds and thousands of words will make some people go crazy or fall asleep. So I'm just going to make it as short as possible. Wait. On a second thought, I think I won't even bother trying to shorten it. You read it, you get it. You don't read it, well?

I am very glad to have met certain people who enjoy reading. Why? Because I know that if there is a time when I fail to read anything, they will feed some for me. But I cannot expect them to do that all the time. You should not expect anybody to do the feeding every single time.

Now please read the questions I have prepared for you. You can answer them if you want to. You can keep or share the answers; up to you. This is not a survey or some sort of final year thesis. I promise.

1. How many times do you read in a day? (There is no way you don't read at all)
A. Many times
B. Sometimes
C. Very few
D. Hardly hardly

2. What do you read?
A. What I want to read
B. What I need to read
C. A little bit of both
D. Both

3. What type of reading materials do you read?
A. Novel, short stories and something like that
B. Articles, news and something like that
C. Flyers, advertisements and something like that
D. Comics, cartoons and something like that

4. In what language do you prefer to read?
A. My mother tongue
B. The international language - English
C. A language I don't understand
D. I don't care as long as I understand it

5. What will you do if you don't understand the topic you are reading?
A. Read something else
B. Read it again until I understand and seek help if needed
C. Wait until I have the mood to think
D. Oh, this is challenging! I love it!

6. What kind of topics do you read?
A. Love and relationships
B. Gossip and controversies
C. Heavy topics
D. Anything goes

7. Will your frequency of reading drop if the reading materials are ALL written in English?
A. Yes
B. No
C. No! In fact, it gets more frequent!

Okay, I want to tell you that question one until six are purposeless. I mean yes, you can give an answer for each of those questions, but they are very conditional, aren't they? A lot of factors to consider like mood, time, need, and situation. They can change over the time so they are not really conclusive. But question seven is a different case. It's a matter of choice.

Many (not all) local readers claim they want to improve their proficiency in English, but they do not want to read in English - too lazy to get a dictionary to help themselves. Then many more claim they understand English but are too lazy to stretch a brain 'muscle' to translate it, and prefer to read in their native language instead.

So what happens? Nothing. Where does this lead? Nowhere. Why, is it so hard to read in English? I'm not saying you don't read English at all, but the odds are so not fair! And that's because you are too lazy. Come on, Malaysia. You know what I am talking about. The amount of reading itself (regardless the language) doesn't look promising, let alone English reading. You can't expect the next generation to be a whole lot better if you don't start showing them the way.

I just heard a senior citizen complaining about his son or somebody buying an English newspaper instead of a 'native' one. I mean, what the heck is wrong with that? He's reading for God's sake!

And this little piece of advice is meant for me as well. Autobots, let's rrr-read! Okay, that sounded stupid.