In social media, it often happens that I rewrite my post in a more moderate way of writing. Euphemism, qualifications, intentional defocussing of topic, etc. are often utilized.

This technique has been something to learn, for me who make posts online. From what I have personally seen, it seems people from the English speaking world are comparatively good at those techniques.

It is said that in the Anglo-Saxon nations such as the U.S. or the U.K., kids in school are taught techniques and manners of discussion. What I've seen in the Internet discussions might have been a reflection of this.

In Japan's book market, books written about TOEIC have established a solid ground. For learners, numeralization of English skills gives a useful map to English learning. Meanwhile, another numeral, wpm, that is, words per minute in reading, is not as much talked about as TOEIC score is.

But I think wpm will offer a very useful map to English learners. You can know approximately where you are in terms of the steps to mastering English as a foreign language. And it enables you to have some prospect regarding the learning path.

Namely, at which level of wpm will you feel you can readily to some extent read English text? until which level of wpm will you feel it's hard to read English text? With which level of wpm are those people do their jobs? With what amount of reading will you develop your wpm at what rate? Etc.

Read, read, read! This is my primary guideline for improvement of the English skills. I'm probably now somewhere in the middle-level of learning English. Currently my WPM (words per minute) in reading is around 150.

But how should I read at this stage of learning? Probably so-called extensive reading ("tadoku" in Japanese) is desirable. But in what way of extensive reading should I do it?

Probably it is this: to not aim perfect understanding of text. At this stage of learning English, a shower of English sentences is what's needed above all. I should look up dictionaries, but only sometimes when I feel like I want to. For a lot of looking up dictionaries may make me tired. Digesting a lot of English text is important at this stage of learning. I have to bear in mind that improvement of the English skills takes time. Perfectionism is harmful at least at this step of learning.