So my main language is Greek and I read english and greek books. Depending on the book/author I may have 2-5 words per page that I may not understand (or at least I want to understand them better). Thus, many times after I finish a page, I use aard2 and either search the word in the english-to-english dictionary or (rarer) in the greek wiktionary for a translation. (For context, I’m reading ~mainly fantasy, sci-fi or dystopian books of the 20th and 21th century and currently I’m on “Croocked kingdom”. I haven’t dared to try reading a classic book in english.)
The issue is that this effectively slows me down by an extra ~50% time per page and I’m not even very sure that those words are remembered. I could simply keep reading without searching the words up and just use the context to get a vague sense of their meaning (or simply ignore them as they ~usually aren’t necessary to the plot), but I think I’d miss on the whole experience by doing this and it doesn’t address the underlying issue (being that I don’t know english extremely well even if I have C2 and scored high on vocabulary), which will perpetuate the problem. I’d like to note that I have made searching words almost as efficient as it gets by using downloaded dictionaries, so I don’t think I can reduce the time I spend looking up words by anything more, at least on paper books.
I’d like to ask anyone who searches up words like me:
Did you eventually reach a point where you learnt enough words this way, that it wasn’t that much necessary to use dictionaries anymore? (I’d be kinda satisfied if I could reduce the frequnecy of unknown words to 1 per two pages or something.)
Haha been there.
You’re used to reading at 300wpm and then you switch languages and you’re reading at 70wpm, feels mad annoying
Add an additional step into your word-lookup routine: practice it a little bit. Repeat it several times, preferably out loud and with proper pronunciation, consider the definitions a little bit, and compose an original sentence or two that incorporates the word. Personally I sometimes look up the etymology as well, that stuff just interests me in general though.
This will take a few extra minutes, but will seat the new vocab word in your memory better. It can still sometimes take two or three individual encounters to finally have the word fully remembered, but eventually it does just permanently enter your vocabulary.
You’re basically trying to force it from your short-term memory into your long-term memory just like you would with basic schoolwork, using similar techniques.
I am a native speaker of English and I do the same thing. Granted not as often but I will definitely look up words I don’t know or remember.
You’re on making your understanding of the English language better by looking them up and eventually you won’t need to look them up, you’ll just know them innately.
As a native English speaker I have to look up words all the time. One of the best and worst things about English as a language is that it’s actually constantly evolving. It also takes words from other languages and authors have a penchant from just making up words depending on what type of literature you read. I wouldn’t worry so much about reading fast. I understand it can be frustrating. But sometimes words being a mystery is part of the experience. I read a lot of sci-fi and there’s a lot of times that authors will just simply make up a word or concept. There can be an etymology for it based on some sort of like Sumerian text or random stuff like that. So don’t stress it
Both ways can work. Looking up words, and trying to guess the meaning from context. I use both, depending on my mood and the situation.
I like trying to guess the meaning because you have to think things through. That helps you remember the answer. Doesn’t matter if you got it right or wrong. It’s not always easy, but it gets better with practice.
You can usually look at the situation and narrow it down to a few possibilities. If my guess seems decent enough to get the gist, I keep going. Usually, you’ll find something that helps you figure out if you were right.
If I see a word several times, I usually look it up. Otherwise, it’s probably not that important (unless I happen to be curious).
And if I look up a word and forget it, no big deal. Happens all the time. I’ll either come across it again, or it wasn’t that important.
It can be slow going, no matter what option you choose. But if you keep at it, you can get to a point where you rarely have to look things up.
It gets easier. My first language is hindi yet I am now able to read war and peace and bible kjv in a month. You get way faster after some time of doing this but your real way of speaking english doesn’t become as verbose which is my problem. Like you can understand difficult words easily after some time but you will still speak like americans not a victorian with elegance, which is something I wanted hence i started to read above mentioned books but sadly it seems the american anglo internet is what has shaped my english 😔
