At a time when language skills are needed for success in life, Bulgarian young people seem to have missed the point that reading books is a large part of the learning process. They prefer to speak on cell phones and play computer games; anything but read a book. While 85 percent of today’s youth in this country own a cell phone and 40 percent have a computer at home, few of them read anything in their own language much less something in another language. The Sofia News Agency reports that 40 percent of the young people in Bulgaria today say that reading a book is a meaningless waste of time.This same issue seems to be affecting the youth of the world and a video in the USA to encourage young black men and women to read a book has drawn strong criticism because of the curse words and racial comment. The Read a Book video is done in a hip-hop style and tells young people to read a book, buy some land, drink water, raise their kids and to use deodorant. And while you would think everyone does these things, perhaps they don’t and a video like this is needed to wake people up.

The man behind the video is a young black man who calls himself, D’mite. He says, “I’m not a rapper, I’m a poet with a hip-hop style.” Whatever the case, he has found a way to reach the kids with a very serious message in a style they can understand. He uses hip-hop music to get to the kids that don’t read or consider the normal things of life such as being a good parent or owning some land somewhere as something important.

The video was first seen on the Black Entertainment Network in the USA, which defends the bad words in the video as an attempt to reach America’s youth with a message that they can understand. Many people reject it completely as a means of getting young black men and women to read.

Bomani “D’mite” Armah, the creator of the Read a Book video, says he has received Emails from many young people praising his video for pointing out that reading is the smart thing to do. Perhaps we need something here in Bulgaria that does the same thing because the present generation of kids seem to be more in love with computer games than books. In Bulgaria, the education system needs to get kids to talking and thinking about what it means to grow up without the knowledge that books contain. The past generations here in this country were great readers but today’s young person, even the most educated, do not read books as they should. This is a serious problem for the future of the country.

If people studying a foreign language do not read books in the language they are trying to learn, they will find learning much more difficult. Native speakers learn grammar and vocabulary from the books they read. It’s a simple matter of going to the right place if someone wants to learn something new. If you want to learn how to make a hamburger, you should go to McDonalds. If you want to learn to repair an automobile, you should go to an auto repair shop. If you want to learn grammar and add thousands of words and phrases to your vocabulary, you should READ A BOOK.

USA education level required to read this post: 10th grade

Warning: This video uses profanity and extreme graphics

Who needs to read when you have cellphones?

Questions for Group and Pair Discussion

• What was the last book you read in any language?

• Do you believe that Bulgarian young people are anti-intellectual because they see reading as a waste of time?

• How can reading a book in the language you are trying to learn help you speak better?

• Do you agree with some critics who have called the video an insult to a person’s common sense and useless as far as encouraging people to read and do better things with their lives?