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I am beginning my mathematics major and I am experiencing many problems with reading math textbooks.

I find that there are many theorems and definitions on the texts. On the other hand most of the texts are in English which is not my native language.

My problem is the speed. I read very slow because I feel I need to do many things on the way: Read the text, understand the text, remember all definitions which are involved, to verify the theorem using an example in order to understand completely, etc...

Is there any method to increase my speed?

WarpPrime
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MathHack
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    Maybe How to read a book in mathematics? could be helpful – Sil Oct 14 '20 at 20:16
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    Faster is not necessarily better. I suggest building your stock of examples as you read. Check each theorem to see what it tells you about the examples you know. See what happens when one of the hypotheses fails. – Ethan Bolker Oct 14 '20 at 20:17
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    "Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own question, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?" Halmos. – Shaun Oct 14 '20 at 20:17
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    The slower you go now, the faster you can go later. Most of mathematics builds upon itself, so having a strong understanding of the basics will go a long way. For example: I spent 6-8 months reading one paper proving something in $\mathbb{R}^3$. Now I'm reading a paper that proves something similar, but in $\mathbb{R}^n$. The $\mathbb{R}^n$ paper is going much faster, since a lot of the proofs are variations of the proofs in the first paper. – Ryan Oct 14 '20 at 20:25
  • Do the exercises, you don't learn maths by reading – Mummy the turkey Oct 14 '20 at 21:40
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    It's completely normal to take a long time when learning a new subject, because you need to get used to a new "way of thinking". It is pretty normal to take, say, a week on just five pages of a book, if those pages are particularly conceptually challenging. – YiFan Tey Oct 14 '20 at 23:56

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