Enter the Relaxing World by Reading Novel

Everyone has a hobby that they do to relax their mind and body after a long hard week doing exercises and job. So, do I. My hobby is reading English novels. As an English Department student, reading English novels gives me a lot of advantages. It is not only relaxing my body and mind but also enriching my knowledge of Western culture and improving my English skill in reading comprehension, writing, and grammar.

Reading English novels gives me the time to relax my body and mind after I worked hard in college finished the exercises. It can happen because when I am reading an English novel, it feels like I am flying out of this real world and entering a new world, an imaginary world that the novel has offered. Once, I am reading an English novel, I would not think about my problems. I let the problems go and flow. I do not need to do any tiring activities such as jogging or swimming. But, everything I need is lying in my soft couch and let the plot of the novel takes me away. I can feel everything in the novels by deeply intrepeting it.

Then, reading English novels gives me a lot of background knowledge about Western countries. Mostly, English novels state about the people’s behaviour and their customs. For example, the novels show me how the Western people treat others with love and passion. They also hard workers and loyal and appreciate the time like a money. It is a little bit different from Indonesia culture which is always underestimating the importance of the time. In facts, Indonesia people are well known as “jam karet”. Another example is children in the 18 age must live separate to their parents. It is a common behaviour in Western country because it deals with independence. But, in Indonesia children will not out of the house if they are not married yet. Then, reading novels provides me to know about the history because some novels that I have read are telling about the Western countries histories. For example, from the novels I can figure out the condition of middle-age era.  It is really beneficial to add my background knowledge.

The last thing is reading English novels helps me to improve my English skill in term of reading, writing, and grammar structure. It improves my reading comprehend skill by understanding the language. Mostly, the English novels like “Gone with the Wind” used compound sentence which is confusing me to understand. So, I need the critical thinking ability to understand it. But, when I can understand it, it will not difficult anymore to read another compound sentence. It trains me to be a critical thinker somehow. English novels are using different grammar structure from Indonesia, so that, I can learn how to understand a complex sentence in English and discovering the formula. Then, it improves my writing skill. Just like I said before, English novels are using complex sentences, through the novels I able to create a complex sentence easily. It is like I get the sense of the good sentence structures because I am trained reading a difficult sentence and understand it.

I can say that some people do not like reading novels because it seems an unimportant hobby. But, in my opinion reading novels is the best hobby that helps me relax my mind and body, improve my English skill better than before, and give me additional knowledge to my major. Just read the novels and you will entering an imaginary place.

Aprilia Eva Winanta

Persuasion MIDTERM