Let the Speed Reading Begin

I recently got a book called Break-Through Rapid Reading (by Peter Krump). It's pretty much seen as the best book out there to teach yourself speed reading. Anyhow, I did the first evaluation today and was very unhappy. Previous test that I'd done online showed results of around 400WPM. This time around I got 240WPM. It was a book I don't really enjoy so I tried with a fiction book and got 360WPM. This is sad. A good friend of mine pushes 2000WPM. That's more than five times faster than my easy-book pace. The book claims doubling is on the low side for the results it yields; we'll see. It's a six-week long program if you go a chapter a day (which they recommend) so I should be blazing through stuff (about triple speed with more retention they claim) by August. Meanwhile, it is incremental so I'm supposed to expect significant (30%ish increase) results within a week. Sounds a bit out there, but we'll find out. /me crosses fingers.

In other news, podcasts are pretty awesome. I've taken to listening to the news in French and German. This only works out because the German one comes with full text that I can paste into a translator. I read through the German (out loud b/c that's the only way it happes at all), read through the English butchering and then listen to the podcast while reading the German (usually with occasional glances at the translation for missing words. I really enjoy when they translate people's names to English... Here's a good place to find foreign language podcasts. Oh and while I'm at it: Netvibes rocks! that's where I play my podcasts and the place I call home on the internet.