It's really about practice and context. Context makes it so much easier. In the real world there is usually a purpose to code, and good code has a cohesive me

It's really about practice and context. Context makes it so much easier. In the real world there is usually a purpose to code, and good code has a cohesive metaphor you can understand before you start reading. Practice eventually makes the syntax second-nature, but I found being able to understand the context and subtext of the code is a much bigger boost. I took a poetry class in college and found that learning to read poetry helped me become more fluent at reading code. Instead of reading it like prose, from start to finish, reading poetry is about building a mental castle of what the poet is talking about, and then the actual words fill in the important details. Plus you learn to pick up on repetition, rhythm, deviations from established patterns and is-a relationships ;-)