Ask HN: Value of reading a book without comprehension?

I'm someone that had great difficulty getting through books at one time. I would read a sentence, my mind would wonder and then I could not understand what I had just read so I had to read it again. It happened over and over again. It was so frustrating.

I got passed it by constantly reading. Figure out what you like to read and read that as much as possible. The more you do it the easier it gets. I won't be easy. It took me years to be able to read a book without constantly having to reread sentences.

Also, reading might not be the best way for you to learn. Try other methods and see if you can find an easier way to learn.

2. Definitely not. I know one of such book, I use to reread it once per every few months. Year after year I keep finding new insights.

3. Going back or forth is stupidly realised on any music player except vinyl and maybe casette, that's why you might consider to keep listening. Normally after missing a few words, the text became glibberish, but typical news or Youtube content may be keep listening without losing the context even at higher speed.

200 pages per 5h is not slow if you are reading OReilly even on your mother language.

If there is no understanding at all, as in reading a book written in a foreign language, the 'words' are just space-delimited jumbles of letters.

Even then, you can at least try to sound them out, I suppose. But a book written in Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Thai, or Chinese for (say) an American is just a bunch of meaningless squiggles.

I also struggle with reading speed, and I can easily to get lost when reading dense material, but what also helps me stay focused is actively annotating my thoughts on the page while I'm reading.