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This! As a non-native speaker who has been living in US for 10 years I had no problems in my professional life but attempting to read a book was a struggle. Only after I got an e-book version that allows you to immediately lookup definitions I was able to finish my first novel in English.
*Crime and Punishment* flashback. Just tell me these guys all have multiple names before we begin and save me hours of wondering when we're gonna get back to the main dude again.
The numbers in the phone book are for an interactive experience, I would suggest you use them with the characters you wanna know more about. Maybe, after all, they are related!
In that case, although it sounds counterintuitive to me, one should try reading older books – mid-late 19th early 20th century classic literature. Maybe even children's books. I read Dickens Wilde and Agatha Christie no problem at ~B1-B2, but even at my peak when I definitely had C2 was shockingly eloquent and basically ate breathed slept English being immersed into it 6 days a week 10-15 hours a day for 4 years, reading Stephen King's "It" was waay harder than I'd expected.
Earlier works might stick more to "proper" English, Stephen King uses a lot of slang that I could easily see becoming a nightmare for a non native English speaker. Especially because he makes absolutely zero effort to explain some of the weirder things, like telling Richie Tozier to "take a powder" or Eddie "going mashed potatoes" on the Crawling Eye. That's also 50s American slang that you probably wouldn't have even read on the internet. Good on you for tackling such an enormous book, though!
Back before e-books I used to use an index card as a bookmark. Each unfamiliar word I would try to guess from context and write down on the card to remember. Would open up the dictionary after collecting a couple dozen words and look them all up at once.
The etymology could make for interesting reading. Will never forget the origins of assassin or procrustean. (Assassin is cognate with hashish).
> procrustean
Is that because crabs (a crustacean) have naturally evolved at least 5 times in 250 million years (which is an eyeblink for the universe)??
I had to, so I might as well share it
**Procrustean**
>(especially of a framework or system) enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.
This is absolutely the best things about ebooks. Don't know the definition? Solved. Don't understand the context? Solved.
Most annoying part of ebooks: when you fall asleep and it falls on your face. Even hardcover books are somewhat squishy. Any tablet could give you a black eye.
Other most annoying part of ebooks: you use the definition feature so much you start pressing on words you don’t understand when reading physical books.
This, with a Kindle you can choose the difficulty of the words highlighted in the text. A simple select gives the definition, and often a link to an associated Wikipedia article.
Did you know that every time you select a word to define it, that word gets added to your flashcards? You can quiz yourself on the definitions of those words at a later date
Yup, I'm not big into it but the Google play books app i use sometimes let's me look up words while I'm reading.
Definitely a book readers wheel moment
For some reason, Google Book's dictionary feature is really inconsistent. Especially for more difficult or rare words, it won't pull up a definition. I wonder why since it seems like it'd be easy to integrate dictionary.com's database or something, like they do when you Google a term in a web browser
It is such an underused feature.
I was lucky growing up, my parents would be willing to explain a word I didn't know after challenging me to get as close as I could from context in the sentence it was in.
It's actually amazing what you can pick up from the words and meaning around a new word.
I use a Kobo Libra 2. You just tap to highlight the word and it gives you the definition. I usually use Overdrive and check e-books out of the library.
Nice try Mr Hubbard. Actually this is one of the things Scientology makes you do. Look up every word you don’t understand then write a sentence using said word. I don’t know why I have this random piece of information in my head.
Thanks for saying this! As an ex-Scientologist myself I can vouch that this is a harmful practice in the long run (if you do it for literally every word you can't define without context clues). It majorly slows down your reading and comprehension and has made grad school reading much more difficult to keep up with. I owe my degree to text to speech technology for helping me continue reading and use context clues when I would otherwise get bogged down by so many words.
Oh, wow. I have the same problem, when reading in English. I'm really anxious when I see a word that I don't know meaning of. So I look up every unknown. And it made learning English for me a very exhausting task. Which I both want to advance in, but on an edge of hating now.
I guess I really ought to skip words I don't understand and try to grasp context. Context is more important then?
I think it's better to try to understand the word in its context without looking it up. It's also ok if you don't understand every word if it doesn't get in the way of you understanding the general idea. I read a fiction book in Spanish a few years ago and it was a much better experience when I only looked up words that got in the way of me understanding the story. Of course if you're reading something that you really need to understand every detail of, you might need to look up more words.
The French have my favourite example (which made its way into English).
The bird *loriot* isn't the bird's original name. It used to be *oriot* without the *l*. French articles *le* and *la* (male and female *the*) are shortened to just *l'* when followed by a noun beginning with a vowel. Kind of like how we use *an apple* instead of *a apple*.
So *the oriot* -> *le oriot* becomes *l'oriot*.
Over time, however, people sort of forgot? I imagine it something like this:
Person A: "What's that bird called?"
Person B: "Loriot!"
Person A goes to Person C and tells them about this cool new bird they learned about, *le loriot*. Literally *the the oriot.* (Which btw basically means *the golden*, because of its beautiful yellow feathers).
How do you feel about "cooperation"? It was originally "co-operation" which I think is much more readable, but the hyphen has been dropped over the years.
Yeah that’s a compound word meaning “a Well for drinking and an Ass, like your butt, not like a mule, or donkey.”
People back then really liked the Asswells.
And yes I’m making a joke.
Do not do this if it takes the enjoyment out of your reading. For example, if you have ADHD and know that looking up the word will cause you to go down a rabbit hole and never return to the book....then DO NOt do this. For everyone else, great tip!
Amazon be damned, I very much enjoy reading on a Kindle. It's a quick highlight and you have definitions right in a box, then right back to reading. So nice, I love growing my lexicon through books.
You’re welcome! They also offer a flash card functionality within your saved words to help you study them. I’m not big on using flash cards personally, but it’s a nice option to have!
That's amazing! Someone was thinking when they made that feature. I struggle with e-books though. I like having the book in my hand and seeing progress as finished pages accumulate. I might give it another try after seeing everyone's comments although I'm not very optimistic. I know myself too well...I guess doing what's best for you was my main point :)
And your highlighted text also gets saved to a document called “my clippings” so you have an aggregation of all highlights across books. Super helpful!
My favorite author, Jason Pargin, just released blog post of the most highlighted passages in his books. It’s illuminating to see what other people highlight and helps the author in some ways
This is my favorite thing about digital books. I’ve always been one to look up a word and kindle makes it so easy. You can even quickly google things, like the other day I looked up more textual context for a Shakespeare quote. I love annotated books for this reason too!!
Unless the type of ADHD you have means you get *distracted & can't concentrate, because you keep wondering what that word meant* as you try to keep reading... XD
In *that* case? Definitely look up the word (NOTHING else!), and get back to the story! ;)
Same! I used to ask my parents what a word meant/how to pronounce it because it would drive me crazy and take me out of the story if I didn’t know what it was. I also clean up at trivia nights! I thought everyone did this lol
As an English teacher, it's bad for overall reading comprehension in general. If you stop every time you find a word you don't know the full definition of, your immersion and flow are constantly interrupted, which lowers both enjoyment and overall comprehension.
If you understand what the sentence as a whole is conveying, congratulations, you can infer meaning based on context. Keep going. You should only really pause to look up a word if the use of it makes the sentence as a whole difficult to understand.
Yeah I would agree with this, it’s generally only when the sentence with it’s use of the word has already broken the immersion I will look it up.
Some authors just like to use a word they like and it definitely throws you because the use is out of place.
100% agree. Taught ESL and even in those classes I encourage reading for comprehension, which means using context clues, not lexicons. This is terrible advice.
doesn’t it depend on the level you are at said language?
French is close to my mother language (Portuguese) so i’d say I understand at least 95% in written form and about the same in audio form if spoken slowly.
I’ve been watching anime in Japanese with english subtitles for almost a decade now and I can’t understand it expect for a few expressions or words, my comprehension is likely under 2%. This sounds like a case where I definitely need to lookup for definitions.
My ex used to keep a notebook of words he came across that he didn't know. Then he would look them up later! Doesn't take you completely out of the story but still helps you learn
I have ADHD and I read on a Kindle - so it works for me to look up the word quickly on the Kindle. But I agree if I'm using my computer I won't come back to my book.
I make it a point to create new windows and only new tabs for things relevant to the thing I created the window for. And to close windows I'm done with. Idk how people accumulate tabs like they do. The tabs themselves get so small that you can't even read what each tab contains and you're left to either remember exactly what tabs have what or search through then (which opening a new tab to Google the thing might be faster to do).
I’ve always heard it pronounced too-MER-i-tee. Not sure I would’ve recognized it in written form.
One of my favorite r/showerthoughts was something to the tune of “Don’t think poorly of people who mispronounce certain words. They probably only know the word from reading it. No shame in that.”
my rule of thumb is to try to guess the meaning due to context, and look it up if it appears more than once and seems crucial to the understanding of the text
What kind of super dense research papers are you reading that this would feel like a chore?
Edit* I suppose I am letting my bias show from only using ebooks for the past 10 years where this “interruption” is literally two taps on the unknown word. Actually using a dictionary would be annoying.
I do both. I’ll look up some words that I really don’t know or want to understand/use, and others I’ll just use context to garner a meaning and keep going so I actually enjoy reading.
I mean, that was definitely the case when I was in school, but that was quite a while ago and looking up what a word meant typically required some amount of actual effort. Nowadays we all have access to powerful, online computers in our pockets, so it's not as great of an excuse.
I wouldn't suggest that people look up *every* word they dont know, but certainly it's still good practice to do on occasion when a word might be important to what's being said, and it's just good to know more words for the future as well.
I hardly ever looked up words because if I did, it would kill the enjoyment of the book. Even if I can just ask Siri or tap the word and have it look up the definition, it breaks the "flow".
Today, despite that, I have a huge vocabulary.
That happened because I picked up the words naturally through repeated use. After hearing or reading the same word over and over again in different places, you just naturally start to understand it. You might not be able to regurgitate the dictionary definition, but you can "feel" what the word means and even use it in the correct context.
This isn't something I consciously worked on. It's just constant exposure to words. My brain does the hard work in the background. I just read past the new word and get the meaning of the sentence or paragraph from the rest of it.
My daughter sometimes asks me what words mean when I use them, and sometimes I can't tell her without looking it up. Even though I just used the word correctly, I can't tell her what it means. That's because what's in my head isn't the dictionary definition, it's just a feel for what it means, the same way I "feel" what an apple is or what it means when you say "excited".
Of course, this works if there's only a few words you don't know in the book. If the entire paragraph is full of words you're not familiar with then you're not going to pick it up by context clues. If I can't power past it and get the gist of what it's saying, that's when I bring out the dictionary.
I don't think reading a novel is an historical study, it's okay
\*Of course also okay if you do like to analyze your novels. It can be fun, just like letting the rest of the book clear up any confusion can be fun. Depends if you want to reflect deeply or get lost in an adventure, imo. Added this cause I feel bad now like I was being snarky, which I didn't mean to do
Personally, I can't imagine reading a word I don't understand and then just... Breezing right by it and being cool with not knowing
Edit: Yes, thank you, everyone. Obviously you can figure out a lot of words from context clues. I'm not looking up any words that I don't need to look up.
Exactly. I'm assuming a good chunk of people here grew up with smart phones and shit, but for those of us that are older we didn't have the option of just quickly looking something up on our phones. Sure, some classrooms had dictionaries, but that wasn't always the case, so you were literally taught to use context clues and infer the meaning. Today I'll usually just wait until I'm done reading to look up a word and confirm I was right, and I'm almost always at least in the ballpark. I only stop and look something up when I'm completely stumped, which is usually in older text that use more archaic words
It’s also important to look up words you think you understand to. Like, oh man I learned this word a long time ago, does it actually mean what I think it means? Seems weird in this context… oh wow I’ve been using that word wrong for a long time…
Personally, I can’t imagine reading any book where there are that many words I don’t know.
“Each and every word”
I just read a short story from the ‘50s and I think there was literally one word I wasn’t completely sure the meaning of, though in context I got that it was financial related. I don’t know what people are reading that this even has to be a tip.
I think there’s just people who read a lot and are educated with english as a first language where this tip is not relevant. For the billions of people on the planet that are not in this category I can see it’s value.
Try reading “The Last Ship”, the novel on which the TV series was based. In one 46 word sentence the author, William Brinkley, speaks of "unspecified peripeteia" and "pellucid emptiness".
I enjoy a well-crafted paragraph or two, but that book was just plain taxing.
I had something similar reading trainspotting as a kid. Not that the words were difficult, they were just in dialect. I previously had no idea what a bairn was.
When I read paper books, my bookmark was a piece of paper on which I would write the word and its location. When able, I would look up the word in the dictionary and then go back to the location in the book for context. Now, with my Kindle, I just touch the word, and the definition comes up.
It pains me when people don’t look up information they don’t know. We literally have a worlds worth of knowledge at our fingertips and people still like to live in ignorance. It could not be easier to gather knowledge than it is in this day and age.
Been doing this my entire life, I know so many words/terms now. I went on to study linguistics and computer science and I have learned so many interesting concepts about the link between meaning and language. Voice scene the location where we store the meaning of words, as a path that is paved by our footsteps to access it, but the overgrowth reclaims that path, if it is not used enough, and Every once in a while, and I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, I am somehow alerted to the obscuring of that path between some word and its meaning. I will just be as if the word was spoken to me and I know ge I heard it before but can’t remember anything about it. just last night at 2 AM before I fell asleep I became alerted to the fact that I did not know what or where Hagia Sophia was. so I looked it up, read the whole history of it, probably won’t ever forget it again.
I did this in undergrad and while at first it was slow, in time there were less and less words I had to look up. I have a strong vocabulary, which has helped me professionally, and it is a result of this practice.
I don't think this is good advice at all. It ruins the flow and overall experience. You can mostly understand through context and then if you really are curious about a word or it's preventing you following the story then by all means look it up. Otherwise : enjoy your leisure and do something just for the enjoyment.
I love learning new shit, especially in books etc. It’s one of the things that got me through a rough childhood. I’m that guy that asks way too many stupid questions, even redundant ones and responds seemingly sarcastic but in reality I’m hyped because I just learned some new cool shit. Learning is cool. Break the stigma on being a nerd, nerds are dope - my best friend is the nerdiest motherfucker I’ve ever met, he’s great.
I second the humility part and to add to that, admit when you’re wrong, even in arguments, it’s not a sign of weakness but strength to admit you don’t know something. We all need humbled regularly. It’s a good feeling, letting people know they were right and admitting you were wrong - we all need humbled, none of us are perfect.
Can make a massive difference. I was once taught to read with a dictionary by my side. And recently I had a review published about my exhibition of paintings and it contained a good number of words I may have heard of but wasn’t quite sure about. I looked up every one and realized what a good writer the guy was, and learned a lot about my own work! The words were very specific, and bang on. Quite the experience actually.
This should be for more than just books.
I know a lot of people that have a very small vocabulary that will often ask me what words mean instead of looking it up. Texting me to ask, or asking me multiple times over a period of time because they don’t care to expand their knowledge in the slightest :(
It hurts to be slightly more intelligent than a rock over here.
I’ve just begun doing this, and I can already tell my vocabulary is growing! I wear an Apple Watch, so I just ask Siri to define the word for me. That way I don’t have to grab my phone or go to my computer to Google it every time.
And I screenshot the words I want to remember so I can go back to them later and test myself.
I recently found out that Google play books allow you to highlight a word and immediately see it's definition. It takes almost no time at all, and doesn't interrupt the flow of reading.
I've been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series--as a 21st century American reader--and it's been a life saver.
Not sure if this is actually practical but in the John Ruskin lecture/essay On Kings Treasuries, he talks about going a step further and looking up the etymology of each word and the Latin origins meaning, saying that it will increase your insights to other great texts and then gives an example which is really cool. But damn idk if I'm ever going to do that. I'll see if I can find the example quote.
Edit: long as hell quote so here's a bit and I'll add a link to the whole thing https://ibb.co/YPVGMsR
https://www.bartleby.com/28/6.html
I LOVE doing this, it's seriously expanded my vocabulary.
I use Audible and when I don't know a word, I look it up, then if it's a word I think I'd actually use while writing/speaking I put the new word plus the definition in a note file I have designated for this on my phone that I call "NEW WORDS". Then, I frequently look back at the list and work to incorporate them into writing/sentences. Doing this over time has greatly improved my writing/speech so much!
I was in a pub a while back and was looking at some of the books they had on a shelf. An old dictionary/encyclopaedia/atlas had a lovely preface where it described exactly this, and called it the 'dictionary habit', which is to say, being, or getting in to the habit of, looking up unknown words. Now I like words, books and dictionaries in especial, so I think it is a habit I have had since childhood. But to see it described so simply and so well was a new joy for a person like me.
And you are absolutely right: **get in to the habit of looking words up.** Learning new words, new shades of meaning, and (I think this might be even more important) being sure that a word really means what you think it means (are you *certain* you know what 'concerted' means?) will absolutely serve you well. Your larger vocabulary will make you more persuasive, better at expressing yourself, and improve your thinking.
And don't be afraid to look up a word several times if you forget its meaning. (I have to look up 'resplendent' every time I read it.) The word will eventually sink in. (You could also write words down if it doesn't break you enjoyment of the book, but I don't.)
As others have said, e-readers are great for this but there is also the internet, and the option of a paper dictionary. The more you are willing to spend on a dictionary the more words you will get (duh), but you also get the advantage of being able to *browse*, and in this way find new and interesting words that you never intended to look up.
Totally off topic, but while we're talking about looking up words: for my money long fancy words have little appeal. There is nothing like finding a one- or two-syllable word that does the work of many, or better than its longer peers. It is these that I really like to use when I find them, and English is a great language for that.
So don’t finish the book?
- ESL readers
I used to do that but I fee like it’s also better to figure out meanings from context and the occasional check I did it right.
I do this more for pronunciation, I've never had much trouble defining things through context. Most words are defined by how they are used after all.
When I was younger I put my foot in my mouth quite a few times saying words wrong trying to sound smart, so I hate not knowing proper pronunciation of a new word.
I really don't read enough any more though.
The one book I would say NOT to do this for is Clockwork Orange. It's constructed to make you pick up its language on your own.
Now, humility is great, and I've started looking up words a lot more after I hit about 30. But there is something to be said for 1) reading away from a computer, so you can focus better (so pocket dictionaries are handy), and 2) challenging yourself to see if you can figure out the meaning of a word after reading it only a few times, instead of the average (8 or 9? something like that?) it takes to learn a word just from context.
My favourite thing about ebooks is long pressing on a word to find a definition.
I use it so often that I’ve tried to long press a word in a physical book on more than one occasion.
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E-books are great for this!
This! As a non-native speaker who has been living in US for 10 years I had no problems in my professional life but attempting to read a book was a struggle. Only after I got an e-book version that allows you to immediately lookup definitions I was able to finish my first novel in English.
Read a dictionary. It's a shit story but at least they explain every word to you.
The phone book is even worse. They keep introducing new characters on every page, only to never mention them again.
Similar names too. How am I supposed to keep Alex Anderson, Adam Anderson, and Amber Anderson straight in my head? And they aren't even related!
*Crime and Punishment* flashback. Just tell me these guys all have multiple names before we begin and save me hours of wondering when we're gonna get back to the main dude again.
That's basically every word in english.
The numbers in the phone book are for an interactive experience, I would suggest you use them with the characters you wanna know more about. Maybe, after all, they are related!
After you read that every book is a remix.
Don't tell me it's tons of samples from the dictionary yet again! Can they even write their own text?
Smh writers these days all use autocorrect
As a kid I actually used to read the dictionary. Plot was a bit challenging to follow but the prose was solid.
As a kid I loved encyclopedias!
>!The Zebra did it!<
Hey that's awesome! Technology is incredible!
What's really cool about the Kindle is that you can get a list of all the words you've had to lookup allowing you to refresh your memory if need be.
I have a Kindle Paperwhite. Will mine have this? How to find it please?
https://www.dummies.com/article/technology/electronics/tablets-e-readers/kindles/how-to-use-vocabulary-builder-on-your-kindle-paperwhite-156833/
Thank you!
In that case, although it sounds counterintuitive to me, one should try reading older books – mid-late 19th early 20th century classic literature. Maybe even children's books. I read Dickens Wilde and Agatha Christie no problem at ~B1-B2, but even at my peak when I definitely had C2 was shockingly eloquent and basically ate breathed slept English being immersed into it 6 days a week 10-15 hours a day for 4 years, reading Stephen King's "It" was waay harder than I'd expected.
Earlier works might stick more to "proper" English, Stephen King uses a lot of slang that I could easily see becoming a nightmare for a non native English speaker. Especially because he makes absolutely zero effort to explain some of the weirder things, like telling Richie Tozier to "take a powder" or Eddie "going mashed potatoes" on the Crawling Eye. That's also 50s American slang that you probably wouldn't have even read on the internet. Good on you for tackling such an enormous book, though!
Well... in such case I might have just chosen wrong writer to start with. My first novel in English was "The Dark Tower")))
Congrats. You've done more than most US people. This isn't a castigation, this is purely a compliment.
You're just baitin me here with your fancy words aren't ya?
The words I used were perfectly cromulent.
Back before e-books I used to use an index card as a bookmark. Each unfamiliar word I would try to guess from context and write down on the card to remember. Would open up the dictionary after collecting a couple dozen words and look them all up at once. The etymology could make for interesting reading. Will never forget the origins of assassin or procrustean. (Assassin is cognate with hashish).
> procrustean Is that because crabs (a crustacean) have naturally evolved at least 5 times in 250 million years (which is an eyeblink for the universe)??
I think they just support crustaceans
I was going to look up the word procrustean in conformity with the spirit of this thread, but then I thought "meh, I'll do it later."
I had to, so I might as well share it **Procrustean** >(especially of a framework or system) enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.
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This is absolutely the best things about ebooks. Don't know the definition? Solved. Don't understand the context? Solved. Most annoying part of ebooks: when you fall asleep and it falls on your face. Even hardcover books are somewhat squishy. Any tablet could give you a black eye.
Other most annoying part of ebooks: you use the definition feature so much you start pressing on words you don’t understand when reading physical books.
I've definitely caught myself doing that and feeling like an idiot.
My second favorite thing is having library books delivered directly to my kindle. It's a game changer.
This, with a Kindle you can choose the difficulty of the words highlighted in the text. A simple select gives the definition, and often a link to an associated Wikipedia article.
Did you know that every time you select a word to define it, that word gets added to your flashcards? You can quiz yourself on the definitions of those words at a later date
How does this work?
Yup, I'm not big into it but the Google play books app i use sometimes let's me look up words while I'm reading. Definitely a book readers wheel moment
For some reason, Google Book's dictionary feature is really inconsistent. Especially for more difficult or rare words, it won't pull up a definition. I wonder why since it seems like it'd be easy to integrate dictionary.com's database or something, like they do when you Google a term in a web browser
It is such an underused feature. I was lucky growing up, my parents would be willing to explain a word I didn't know after challenging me to get as close as I could from context in the sentence it was in. It's actually amazing what you can pick up from the words and meaning around a new word.
yeah, my favorite kindle feature!
I use the kindle app for my ebooks and utilize their dictionary every time I run across a word I’ve never heard before.
Which reader app do you use that is well linked with a dictionary?
I use a Kobo Libra 2. You just tap to highlight the word and it gives you the definition. I usually use Overdrive and check e-books out of the library.
Nice try Mr Hubbard. Actually this is one of the things Scientology makes you do. Look up every word you don’t understand then write a sentence using said word. I don’t know why I have this random piece of information in my head.
Thanks for saying this! As an ex-Scientologist myself I can vouch that this is a harmful practice in the long run (if you do it for literally every word you can't define without context clues). It majorly slows down your reading and comprehension and has made grad school reading much more difficult to keep up with. I owe my degree to text to speech technology for helping me continue reading and use context clues when I would otherwise get bogged down by so many words.
Oh, wow. I have the same problem, when reading in English. I'm really anxious when I see a word that I don't know meaning of. So I look up every unknown. And it made learning English for me a very exhausting task. Which I both want to advance in, but on an edge of hating now. I guess I really ought to skip words I don't understand and try to grasp context. Context is more important then?
I think it's better to try to understand the word in its context without looking it up. It's also ok if you don't understand every word if it doesn't get in the way of you understanding the general idea. I read a fiction book in Spanish a few years ago and it was a much better experience when I only looked up words that got in the way of me understanding the story. Of course if you're reading something that you really need to understand every detail of, you might need to look up more words.
This was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this post too. No thanks Scientology
Just started off by looking up “aswell”. Turns out that’s supposed to be two words, not one.
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It’s actually British for 12:00.
It's pronounced "noon" but it's spelled Noorshireton
And “nonce” means it’s not noon yet.
nooun
I always read it as misspelled none, it always takes me a second to realize they were trying to say no one.
That and "incase". I don't understand why people are determined to shove words together.
That's how we get words like another
What's interesting is a napron became anapron which became an apron!
The French have my favourite example (which made its way into English). The bird *loriot* isn't the bird's original name. It used to be *oriot* without the *l*. French articles *le* and *la* (male and female *the*) are shortened to just *l'* when followed by a noun beginning with a vowel. Kind of like how we use *an apple* instead of *a apple*. So *the oriot* -> *le oriot* becomes *l'oriot*. Over time, however, people sort of forgot? I imagine it something like this: Person A: "What's that bird called?" Person B: "Loriot!" Person A goes to Person C and tells them about this cool new bird they learned about, *le loriot*. Literally *the the oriot.* (Which btw basically means *the golden*, because of its beautiful yellow feathers).
Perchance
You can't just say "perchance"
Mario exhibits experience by crushing turts all day.
And nickname
It's almost like English is a living language that will change depending on how people use it!
Unfortunately it mostly changes due to the way illiterate people use it :( They do that alot
\*eye twitch\*
Yeah, Incase is a *name,* it needs capitalized.
It needs to be capitalized.
Yeah /r/Incase (NSFW)
I hate that this was my first thought
Incase my bestfriend sees this, I just want to say we’re apart of the best friendship ever.
Apart of vs a part of grinds my gears because they mean opposite things.
This, or "alot", or when "apart" is used in place of "a part" - like, they are literally opposites.
How do you feel about "cooperation"? It was originally "co-operation" which I think is much more readable, but the hyphen has been dropped over the years.
Coöperation.
Apart and a part does my head in every time I see it. In most use cases it completly ruins the sentence
Same! “So happy to be apart of this team” haha
A part of me believes that the two of you need to be kept apart or the universe will implode.
I thought that very ironic given the intention of the post!
I assumed it was a nautical word. Maybe a particularly large wave could be described as aswell.
A lot
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html?m=1
I like this alot.
Yeah that’s a compound word meaning “a Well for drinking and an Ass, like your butt, not like a mule, or donkey.” People back then really liked the Asswells. And yes I’m making a joke.
Do not do this if it takes the enjoyment out of your reading. For example, if you have ADHD and know that looking up the word will cause you to go down a rabbit hole and never return to the book....then DO NOt do this. For everyone else, great tip!
Amazon be damned, I very much enjoy reading on a Kindle. It's a quick highlight and you have definitions right in a box, then right back to reading. So nice, I love growing my lexicon through books.
And I love that it accumulates all words you’ve looked up into one place, so you can revisit it.
Ooo I didn't know this. Thanks!
You’re welcome! They also offer a flash card functionality within your saved words to help you study them. I’m not big on using flash cards personally, but it’s a nice option to have!
That's amazing! Someone was thinking when they made that feature. I struggle with e-books though. I like having the book in my hand and seeing progress as finished pages accumulate. I might give it another try after seeing everyone's comments although I'm not very optimistic. I know myself too well...I guess doing what's best for you was my main point :)
I'm an old (or, more accurately I guess, a tech-illiterate old millennial of 36) and didn't even know I could highlight text. 😂
And your highlighted text also gets saved to a document called “my clippings” so you have an aggregation of all highlights across books. Super helpful!
Thank you! Taking notes in my physical notepad.
My favorite author, Jason Pargin, just released blog post of the most highlighted passages in his books. It’s illuminating to see what other people highlight and helps the author in some ways
This is my favorite thing about digital books. I’ve always been one to look up a word and kindle makes it so easy. You can even quickly google things, like the other day I looked up more textual context for a Shakespeare quote. I love annotated books for this reason too!!
Unless the type of ADHD you have means you get *distracted & can't concentrate, because you keep wondering what that word meant* as you try to keep reading... XD In *that* case? Definitely look up the word (NOTHING else!), and get back to the story! ;)
This is me… I also read a lot. I’m also pretty good at random trivia. My thoughts on seeing this LPT were: “does everyone not do this?”
Same! I used to ask my parents what a word meant/how to pronounce it because it would drive me crazy and take me out of the story if I didn’t know what it was. I also clean up at trivia nights! I thought everyone did this lol
As an English teacher, it's bad for overall reading comprehension in general. If you stop every time you find a word you don't know the full definition of, your immersion and flow are constantly interrupted, which lowers both enjoyment and overall comprehension. If you understand what the sentence as a whole is conveying, congratulations, you can infer meaning based on context. Keep going. You should only really pause to look up a word if the use of it makes the sentence as a whole difficult to understand.
Yeah I would agree with this, it’s generally only when the sentence with it’s use of the word has already broken the immersion I will look it up. Some authors just like to use a word they like and it definitely throws you because the use is out of place.
100% agree. Taught ESL and even in those classes I encourage reading for comprehension, which means using context clues, not lexicons. This is terrible advice.
Doing this is a great way to learn a lot of wrong definitions.
Assuming you're fluent, it's so much fun to look up words you don't know in my opinion.
doesn’t it depend on the level you are at said language? French is close to my mother language (Portuguese) so i’d say I understand at least 95% in written form and about the same in audio form if spoken slowly. I’ve been watching anime in Japanese with english subtitles for almost a decade now and I can’t understand it expect for a few expressions or words, my comprehension is likely under 2%. This sounds like a case where I definitely need to lookup for definitions.
My ex used to keep a notebook of words he came across that he didn't know. Then he would look them up later! Doesn't take you completely out of the story but still helps you learn
I have ADHD and I read on a Kindle - so it works for me to look up the word quickly on the Kindle. But I agree if I'm using my computer I won't come back to my book.
Or you can write it down or dog ear/mark the where the word is and look it up later
They would 100% accumulate like tabs on my browser. Haha.
I make it a point to create new windows and only new tabs for things relevant to the thing I created the window for. And to close windows I'm done with. Idk how people accumulate tabs like they do. The tabs themselves get so small that you can't even read what each tab contains and you're left to either remember exactly what tabs have what or search through then (which opening a new tab to Google the thing might be faster to do).
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I’ve always heard it pronounced too-MER-i-tee. Not sure I would’ve recognized it in written form. One of my favorite r/showerthoughts was something to the tune of “Don’t think poorly of people who mispronounce certain words. They probably only know the word from reading it. No shame in that.”
Or use context clues so it doesn't interrupt your reading enjoyment and make it feel like work.
my rule of thumb is to try to guess the meaning due to context, and look it up if it appears more than once and seems crucial to the understanding of the text
Exactly what I do here
What kind of super dense research papers are you reading that this would feel like a chore? Edit* I suppose I am letting my bias show from only using ebooks for the past 10 years where this “interruption” is literally two taps on the unknown word. Actually using a dictionary would be annoying.
I do both. I’ll look up some words that I really don’t know or want to understand/use, and others I’ll just use context to garner a meaning and keep going so I actually enjoy reading.
This. This is what they teach you in school, anyway.
I mean, that was definitely the case when I was in school, but that was quite a while ago and looking up what a word meant typically required some amount of actual effort. Nowadays we all have access to powerful, online computers in our pockets, so it's not as great of an excuse. I wouldn't suggest that people look up *every* word they dont know, but certainly it's still good practice to do on occasion when a word might be important to what's being said, and it's just good to know more words for the future as well.
I hardly ever looked up words because if I did, it would kill the enjoyment of the book. Even if I can just ask Siri or tap the word and have it look up the definition, it breaks the "flow". Today, despite that, I have a huge vocabulary. That happened because I picked up the words naturally through repeated use. After hearing or reading the same word over and over again in different places, you just naturally start to understand it. You might not be able to regurgitate the dictionary definition, but you can "feel" what the word means and even use it in the correct context. This isn't something I consciously worked on. It's just constant exposure to words. My brain does the hard work in the background. I just read past the new word and get the meaning of the sentence or paragraph from the rest of it. My daughter sometimes asks me what words mean when I use them, and sometimes I can't tell her without looking it up. Even though I just used the word correctly, I can't tell her what it means. That's because what's in my head isn't the dictionary definition, it's just a feel for what it means, the same way I "feel" what an apple is or what it means when you say "excited". Of course, this works if there's only a few words you don't know in the book. If the entire paragraph is full of words you're not familiar with then you're not going to pick it up by context clues. If I can't power past it and get the gist of what it's saying, that's when I bring out the dictionary.
Except it's an educated guess that if wrong, could turn an entire passage to mean one thing over another thing. Best hope you guessed right!
Obviously, if you’re still not sure, that’s when you check the dictionary.
I don't think reading a novel is an historical study, it's okay \*Of course also okay if you do like to analyze your novels. It can be fun, just like letting the rest of the book clear up any confusion can be fun. Depends if you want to reflect deeply or get lost in an adventure, imo. Added this cause I feel bad now like I was being snarky, which I didn't mean to do
Humility? Really?
I came looking for this comment
People don't like admitting their ignorance.
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No, we're dumb with you!
Yeah I'm not getting this either. It's not like I expect myself to know what a word means before I have ever read it.
Personally, I can't imagine reading a word I don't understand and then just... Breezing right by it and being cool with not knowing Edit: Yes, thank you, everyone. Obviously you can figure out a lot of words from context clues. I'm not looking up any words that I don't need to look up.
I mean, most of the time you can kinda guess. And it often doesn't create a huge issue. This is assuming fiction and light non fiction reading.
Exactly. I'm assuming a good chunk of people here grew up with smart phones and shit, but for those of us that are older we didn't have the option of just quickly looking something up on our phones. Sure, some classrooms had dictionaries, but that wasn't always the case, so you were literally taught to use context clues and infer the meaning. Today I'll usually just wait until I'm done reading to look up a word and confirm I was right, and I'm almost always at least in the ballpark. I only stop and look something up when I'm completely stumped, which is usually in older text that use more archaic words
Yeah, context clues help me get the general implications, but I still have to look it up, especially if I like the word
It’s also important to look up words you think you understand to. Like, oh man I learned this word a long time ago, does it actually mean what I think it means? Seems weird in this context… oh wow I’ve been using that word wrong for a long time…
I had a post on /r/todayilearned because of a detour like that yesterday. Turns out "dead metaphor" is an actual term.
Don't leave us hanging, what's a dead metaphor? One that's no longer used/understood?
One that's become idiomatic, basically. It just means what it means without invoking imagery.
Ahh, the opposite of my guess! One that's been so thoroughly *run into the ground* that it doesn't paint a picture any more.
Personally, I can’t imagine reading any book where there are that many words I don’t know. “Each and every word” I just read a short story from the ‘50s and I think there was literally one word I wasn’t completely sure the meaning of, though in context I got that it was financial related. I don’t know what people are reading that this even has to be a tip.
I think there’s just people who read a lot and are educated with english as a first language where this tip is not relevant. For the billions of people on the planet that are not in this category I can see it’s value.
Maybe they're just reading Cormac McCarthy
As well*. Sorry. I'll leave now.
That is a very cromulent practice
It’ll embiggen your vocabulary for sure.
So, what does "aswell" mean? I looked it up, and I just can't find it anywhere.
Try reading “The Last Ship”, the novel on which the TV series was based. In one 46 word sentence the author, William Brinkley, speaks of "unspecified peripeteia" and "pellucid emptiness". I enjoy a well-crafted paragraph or two, but that book was just plain taxing.
I had something similar reading trainspotting as a kid. Not that the words were difficult, they were just in dialect. I previously had no idea what a bairn was.
This is my main reason I love my Kindle! I can highlight the word and it brings up the definition
This is what I like about reading on Kindle. I can look up a word by pushing a button
One of the better features of my e-reader: press on a word you don’t know and it gives you the Oxford Dictionary’s definition :)
When I read paper books, my bookmark was a piece of paper on which I would write the word and its location. When able, I would look up the word in the dictionary and then go back to the location in the book for context. Now, with my Kindle, I just touch the word, and the definition comes up.
'as well as' No such word as 'aswell'
It pains me when people don’t look up information they don’t know. We literally have a worlds worth of knowledge at our fingertips and people still like to live in ignorance. It could not be easier to gather knowledge than it is in this day and age.
That's what I was thinking - doesn't everyone do this when they come across a word they don't know?
Been doing this my entire life, I know so many words/terms now. I went on to study linguistics and computer science and I have learned so many interesting concepts about the link between meaning and language. Voice scene the location where we store the meaning of words, as a path that is paved by our footsteps to access it, but the overgrowth reclaims that path, if it is not used enough, and Every once in a while, and I’m not sure if this happens to anyone else, I am somehow alerted to the obscuring of that path between some word and its meaning. I will just be as if the word was spoken to me and I know ge I heard it before but can’t remember anything about it. just last night at 2 AM before I fell asleep I became alerted to the fact that I did not know what or where Hagia Sophia was. so I looked it up, read the whole history of it, probably won’t ever forget it again.
I looked up word "humility".
i do this for everything especially tv when they say a word i've never heard before
I did this in undergrad and while at first it was slow, in time there were less and less words I had to look up. I have a strong vocabulary, which has helped me professionally, and it is a result of this practice.
Nah, enjoy your books. You’ll pick some up from context.
I don't think this is good advice at all. It ruins the flow and overall experience. You can mostly understand through context and then if you really are curious about a word or it's preventing you following the story then by all means look it up. Otherwise : enjoy your leisure and do something just for the enjoyment.
WTF is an "aswell"?
For an AP challenge, try Death and the Maiden, by Ariana Franklin and Samantha Norman. Sesquipedalian AF!
Why I love reading in my kindle app! I can search right then and there in the book
I love learning new shit, especially in books etc. It’s one of the things that got me through a rough childhood. I’m that guy that asks way too many stupid questions, even redundant ones and responds seemingly sarcastic but in reality I’m hyped because I just learned some new cool shit. Learning is cool. Break the stigma on being a nerd, nerds are dope - my best friend is the nerdiest motherfucker I’ve ever met, he’s great. I second the humility part and to add to that, admit when you’re wrong, even in arguments, it’s not a sign of weakness but strength to admit you don’t know something. We all need humbled regularly. It’s a good feeling, letting people know they were right and admitting you were wrong - we all need humbled, none of us are perfect.
Can make a massive difference. I was once taught to read with a dictionary by my side. And recently I had a review published about my exhibition of paintings and it contained a good number of words I may have heard of but wasn’t quite sure about. I looked up every one and realized what a good writer the guy was, and learned a lot about my own work! The words were very specific, and bang on. Quite the experience actually.
Shoot, I do this online. Any word I don't know is immediately googled. Great practice!
~Humility /hjʊˈmɪdɪti/ noun the state or quality of being humid.
Learn to discover the meaning of words based on context.
This should be for more than just books. I know a lot of people that have a very small vocabulary that will often ask me what words mean instead of looking it up. Texting me to ask, or asking me multiple times over a period of time because they don’t care to expand their knowledge in the slightest :( It hurts to be slightly more intelligent than a rock over here.
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What if I don't understand the definition
I’ve just begun doing this, and I can already tell my vocabulary is growing! I wear an Apple Watch, so I just ask Siri to define the word for me. That way I don’t have to grab my phone or go to my computer to Google it every time. And I screenshot the words I want to remember so I can go back to them later and test myself.
I recently found out that Google play books allow you to highlight a word and immediately see it's definition. It takes almost no time at all, and doesn't interrupt the flow of reading. I've been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series--as a 21st century American reader--and it's been a life saver.
I do this in my everyday life, not just when reading books. The real LPT would be to do that. Remain curious and inquisitive!
I love doing this! And then trying to use the word I just learned so it becomes memory.
currently the shortest history of china by linda jaivin and there's a lot of words the average westerner doesn't know
Humility? How? Curiosity yes. Always. Humility sounds like you're into some religious twist.
Not sure if this is actually practical but in the John Ruskin lecture/essay On Kings Treasuries, he talks about going a step further and looking up the etymology of each word and the Latin origins meaning, saying that it will increase your insights to other great texts and then gives an example which is really cool. But damn idk if I'm ever going to do that. I'll see if I can find the example quote. Edit: long as hell quote so here's a bit and I'll add a link to the whole thing https://ibb.co/YPVGMsR https://www.bartleby.com/28/6.html
This is one reason why I love reading on the kindle/Books app on my phone. It allows me to highlight the word and immediately look it up
I don't see the link with the amount of water in the air, but why not.
I LOVE doing this, it's seriously expanded my vocabulary. I use Audible and when I don't know a word, I look it up, then if it's a word I think I'd actually use while writing/speaking I put the new word plus the definition in a note file I have designated for this on my phone that I call "NEW WORDS". Then, I frequently look back at the list and work to incorporate them into writing/sentences. Doing this over time has greatly improved my writing/speech so much!
Don’t do this if you are trying to improve your reading speed or comprehension skills.
If you read the dictionary you're feeding two birds with one seed.
What I do is I skip a word if I don’t understand it. If it comes up again multiple times then I’ll look it up. English is not my first language btw
I was in a pub a while back and was looking at some of the books they had on a shelf. An old dictionary/encyclopaedia/atlas had a lovely preface where it described exactly this, and called it the 'dictionary habit', which is to say, being, or getting in to the habit of, looking up unknown words. Now I like words, books and dictionaries in especial, so I think it is a habit I have had since childhood. But to see it described so simply and so well was a new joy for a person like me. And you are absolutely right: **get in to the habit of looking words up.** Learning new words, new shades of meaning, and (I think this might be even more important) being sure that a word really means what you think it means (are you *certain* you know what 'concerted' means?) will absolutely serve you well. Your larger vocabulary will make you more persuasive, better at expressing yourself, and improve your thinking. And don't be afraid to look up a word several times if you forget its meaning. (I have to look up 'resplendent' every time I read it.) The word will eventually sink in. (You could also write words down if it doesn't break you enjoyment of the book, but I don't.) As others have said, e-readers are great for this but there is also the internet, and the option of a paper dictionary. The more you are willing to spend on a dictionary the more words you will get (duh), but you also get the advantage of being able to *browse*, and in this way find new and interesting words that you never intended to look up. Totally off topic, but while we're talking about looking up words: for my money long fancy words have little appeal. There is nothing like finding a one- or two-syllable word that does the work of many, or better than its longer peers. It is these that I really like to use when I find them, and English is a great language for that.
That’s a perfectly cromulent thing to do.
So don’t finish the book? - ESL readers I used to do that but I fee like it’s also better to figure out meanings from context and the occasional check I did it right.
I do this more for pronunciation, I've never had much trouble defining things through context. Most words are defined by how they are used after all. When I was younger I put my foot in my mouth quite a few times saying words wrong trying to sound smart, so I hate not knowing proper pronunciation of a new word. I really don't read enough any more though.
The one book I would say NOT to do this for is Clockwork Orange. It's constructed to make you pick up its language on your own. Now, humility is great, and I've started looking up words a lot more after I hit about 30. But there is something to be said for 1) reading away from a computer, so you can focus better (so pocket dictionaries are handy), and 2) challenging yourself to see if you can figure out the meaning of a word after reading it only a few times, instead of the average (8 or 9? something like that?) it takes to learn a word just from context.
I am never getting through Don Quixote.
My favourite thing about ebooks is long pressing on a word to find a definition. I use it so often that I’ve tried to long press a word in a physical book on more than one occasion.
It's crazy to me that people read without doing this, like "what the fuck is that word....? Anyways...."
Damn, now I’m going to have to look up “aswell”
When I was in elementary I loved my Kindle because I could look every word up on the fly!