| 48125 |
My confusion of reading English novels
Hello, my dear friends.It is my first time to communicate language on interet.I am an English major in a college in China.I Love reading English noverls ,but at the same time I am confusd by one question.When read a book,I would come into a lot of words that I don't know.The problem is I also have no interest to look up them in the dictionary because what I want is to enjoy the story not to find words.I feel that I just read but without progress because I do nothing during reading.Then what on earth is the function of reading? What I should do about this point?Many people say reading original edition works can be very helpful .I agree with this,but what I met is the books about upper class .I want to know more about the common people in foreigner countries.So the moment I read a novel I would think of this ,which will affect my feeling to the necessit of reading .Could you sort myself out ?Thank you very much.
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Language pair: Chinese, other; English
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| 48168 |
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
This is a reply to message # 48125
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| 48513 |
Re:My confusion of reading English novels
I have a ready suggestion that may take a bit of time, start have 3 or four new words of the day. They could be random ones that you pick out of the dictionary or it could come out of a novel you are reading. dictionary.com is a wonderful place. You might also want to consider keeping a list of these confusing words right by you, and write out the definition once you discover the meaning. This way it will log into your brain a bit better.
Best of luck!
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Language pair: English; French
This is a reply to message # 48125
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