Reading is most important aspect in acquiring new language, I fully agree Stephen Krashen's opinion and believe it's true based on my own experience.

I know speaking is not necessary when acquiring new language, but I thought reading and listening is equally important until recently, and I noticed differences, when I listen to something, most of the time it's not repeated in my mind since I have to continue listening next sentences, but I have to read every words in mind when reading, it's huge differences and I think it's why reading is so important, it's like speaking every sentence you read.

Back to my experience, as Korean minorities in China living close to North Korea-China boarder, Korean is my mother language, actually there are at least 1.8 mil Korean minorities in China now.

We speak Korean only at home, go to school and all classes are taught in Korean, all families and friends are Korean speaking persons.

We took Chinese lessons same as English lessons, only that Chinese lessons started from 1st grade of primary school while English started 1st grade of middle school(6 years later), nobody speak any Chinese or English outside school lessons, and it's only when named by teacher to read or make a sentence, we reluctantly say something.

Among students, nobody ever tried to practice speaking in Chinese or English to each other.

Of course our Chinese lessons are easier than Chinese school, at around 1st grade of middle school, I was able to understand TV shows and can read books since 2nd grade of middle school, I started reading books that interested me.

When I entered university and have to speak Chinese, nobody noticed Chinese was not my first language unless I tell them, I believe my other high school classmates who read a lot were same.

At first few months I can't speak very fast but my speed is close to or faster than many other students come from southern parts of China who speak dialect instead of Mandarin before enter university.

It was same for English, although nobody speak to each other to practice English at school(even at University), when it's time to graduate and have job interview in English, I found it went very smoothly and I took the job and worked for foreign company since graduation.

So I believe and know massive reading is much more important than speaking and you can speak correctly if read a lot.

But does it mean speaking is not necessary for a self learning adult? No, I found speaking also have benefits.

• Speaking is fun and enjoyable. I would have given up Japanese after 3 months of self learning if haven't searched and met two lovely language partners who's learning Chinese. The wish to communicate with them motivated me to keep learning.
• Speaking can give me a chance to talk about things around me which is different when you only do reading. And I found it need practicing to know how to say things and what happened around you in a foreign language. Via communication, we can understand each other's culture better.

Well it's all I'd like to share today, thanks for reading.