# How to read

Book reading is still the best way to learn theory (or new knowledge).

To best max your learning speed, I have the following tips that may work for you:

* Live alone

> I mean, you should at least have a separate room where you won't get interrupted by others. So that you can concentrate on your learning or reading.

* Read E-books.

> Ebooks are the cheapest book that you can buy. And sometimes you can even get the latest published books for free by downloading them from illegal websites.
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> Besides, E-books allow you to try as many different books as possible. You can always find the best suitable or understandable book for you.
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> And also, E-books allow you to continue to learn without the worrying of losing reading progress.

* Read a certain type of book with a certain type of language.

> For example, I read technical books in English, read Humanities and Social Sciences books in Chinese.

* Write notes or blog posts

> You can't remember all of those things. But you can write them down. So in the future, if you want to get such knowledge, you could just do a search from your notes or posts. This allows you to quickly pick up the old knowledge that you have learned before.
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> Read a section of your book first, then write notes about what you have learned.

* Practice if you can

> For some type of books, for example, programming books. You shouldn't just do the reading all the time. Instead, you should try to prove the concept you have learned by coding and running. Because the compiler or interpreter is the only real thing that you can trust. And the code-and-run practice is the only way to test if you got an appropriate understanding over something.

* Math is not a monster

> Technically speaking, all those theories aren't monsters, too. Truth is, you feel the difficulty is because you haven't really understood it properly. What you can do is to change a book or find someone who explains the concept clearly and understandable for you. If you can't find 'someone' in real life, use a search engine like Google.
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> Also, if you find yourself learn math by simply memorizing formulas, you are doing it wrong.
