Re:My confusion of reading English novels
Ni3 hao3, Marianne,
I have the same problem reading novels in other languages as well as in reading novels in my own language. For me, I find the best thing is to find a reasonable compromise in between looking up none of the words, which, as you say, results in not developing your vocabulary, or looking up every word, which is a waste of time, and usually also results in your not developing your vocabulary.
What I do is read with a pencil in my hand. Every time I see a word I don't know, I underline it and write the word at the top of the page, so it will be easier to find later.
Every so often, I take a break from reading and I do vocabulary work instead. I practice my vocabulary skills, trying to guess what the word means from context, from how the word is formed, from what I know about language and about how words are developed in English. I also focus on the words that look the most important--those that show up frequently in the book I'm reading or words which I have a reason to beleive will be useful words for me to learn. I try to have an idea how many words I can work on at a time--for me, that's 3 - 5 words that I hang onto and practice, and when I feel comfortable having learned a couple of those, I'll pick a couple new ones as I continue reading to add to my study list.
This way, I'm not trying to memorize every new word, I get through my novels at a reasonable pace, and I continue nonetheless to develop my vocabulary, making deliberate choices about which words I want to hang on to, and which I can let go, and perhaps learn at another time when I see them again.
I hope this is helpful.
Zhu4 ni3 hao3,
Mark
Sacramento, California, USA
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Language pair: Chinese, other; English
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Mark S.
March 26, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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