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Do you look up words while reading a novel?
What's your general philosophy around this? In theory, we learn all our fundamental vocabulary from context. But at the same time, it may be important to know the precise meaning. When do you look it up? When do you make an educated guess and keep going?
Yes. All the time! And that's honestly my favorite thing about eReaders. Whenever I don't recognize a word, I just long-click it on my kindle, and the definition shows up. It takes 2 seconds and I can go right back to reading the book again. And whenever I forget a character/place/things from the book I can click them to get an X-Ray description of them for context. And even when I want to look up real life events or people I don't know that get referenced in a novel, I can do likewise and look them up with ease too. I still enjoy reading physical books, but I rarely buy them anymore because everything about ebooks and ereaders is just so much more convenient.
I do the same thing, and recently learned there’s a “Vocabulary Builder” feature you can turn on that automatically keeps track of words you’ve looked up for review later.
One tip if you do turn it on-I had to change the way I highlighted passages for it to work as expected. I was long pressing to highlight the first word, then dragging the slider to the passage I wanted to highlight. But doing that registers the first word as a dictionary lookup and keeps track of it in Vocabulary Builder, so to avoid that, just long press and drag to select the passage without lifting your finger in-between.
Same. I mean I can infer virtually all words from the context anyways, but since I've got an eBook Reader I also look up the actual definition on it, just to be sure.
And on the note of x-ray, I wish this was a more ubiquituous thing the editors/publishers paid attention to. Good character descriptions go a long in enabling you to pick up a book again after a break. Amazin even has that on Prime Video, allowing you to pause shows to quickly check who which person on screen actually is or who voices them.
Yeah, I love that feature of Prime Video too, and I wish more services had something similar.
a what now. Do you need to be connected to Internet for this feature to work? or is it embedded into the ebook itself?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Ray_(Amazon_Kindle)
I don't buy books on Kindle, but I absolutely love this about eBooks. Searching for the name of a character to see where they had appeared in the book before is a godsend for rare side characters.
Modesty aside, it has been several years since I last saw a word in a book that I didn't understand. Since I read in bed, and I don't usually have any digital devices in the bedroom other than my old, extremely slow kindle, the answer would be no.
I do however look things up (including words) out of the blue at pretty much any time when I'm up. It's one of the best things about living in this era. Curious about something? Look it up! I'm also a huge fan of wiktionary, which is an extremely underrated resource.
Relevant xkcd!
That has been one of the fun parts of casually studying another language: I get to learn new words again. It's a rarity with English at this point, so learning Japanese words and phrases is gratifying.
Yeah, I've also been learning Japanese and that's been the first time I've been regularly encountering unfamiliar words since my childhood.
In English, I ran into a word I didn't know in a RPG sourcebook this year and that was a memorable event because I literally don't remember the previous time that happened in fiction for me. (The word was palimpsest, which is used when a piece of parchment is erased and reused, and can refer to either the parchment itself or the writing currently on it) And in non-fiction, that's usually only something that happens if I'm reading the book to learn about an unfamiliar subject, in which case the book is likely about to explain the term.
But now I'm learning Japanese and there's something nearly every page, which is an interesting experience. Especially when some of the material (video games) are the same ones I remember playing as a small child only learning how to read and which actually genuinely have a good contribution to my English reading (like Pokémon).
Ever read Cormac McCarthy? Reading through Blood Meridian, I had to keep a dictionary tab actively open as I was reading. It was a good ~3-4 words per page usually that I had to look up. Funnily enough, some of the words I would look up and they wouldn't actually have dictionary definitions. A lot had archaic usages at best, and a good chunk of them would return results specifically about the word's usage in Blood Meridian. Wild stuff. No other author I've read has been at the level, for better and/or for worse.
I think that, when one is learning a language and does not know it well (including one's first language), the most important thing is to maintain rhythm and pick up many things a little bit at a time from context. But at this point, when reading things in english, a language I know well, I prefer to look up words I don't know and spend concerted time thinking about the definition and the context in which I encountered it. I think that to really learn a new word requires to concertedly practise both reading and using it, so sometimes I will also try to find some opportunities to use the word; this can be hard if it's more obscure or older, though.
None of this really applies to words which I hadn't previously encountered but which are readily parsable as they are composed of roots I recognise. Those are basically just compound words, which—a compound word is certainly not the sum of its parts, but those cases feel different, as I have a lot of common ground with the word regardless.
I rarely would bother when reading paper books, but with digital I look up words much, much more often because I only need to tap the word.
My concern with looking up words is that it interrupts the flow and that before e-readers/the Internet people looked up words relatively sparingly and were fine, so maybe it's not ultimately very necessary.
Isn't the flow already gone when you're entirely lost due to failing to understand the sentence?
I don't think flow is too much of a problem. You can simply start the paragraph again or look up the word at the end of the paragraph if you're looking to get back into it.
I used to do that a lot when I was younger and encountered a word I didn't know. It's fairly infrequent nowadays as I've gotten more proficient in English - but occasionally I'll double check a word I'm not 100% sure I'm interpreting correctly, and if I do see a word I don't know I'll look it up.
If I'm reading in another language, I tend to try and gather the meaning from context clues first, then look up the definition to see how close I got. It helps solidify the language a bit more in my mind in my experience.
Yep, something in my brain just won't let me focus on anything else if I don't know what a word means and cannot work it out from context. It's actually one of the key things that compelled me to get an ereader if I'm honest.
I learned all my words from reading them in context, and very rarely looked them up. I just never thought of it. I could usually work out the meaning well enough from what I was reading. And I didn't like the idea of stopping my reading, to get out a dictionary (and there wasn't always a dictionary handy!)
That did lead to some problems. Like, for example, knowing that chrysoprase was a type of colour, but not quite being sure what colour it was.
The worst problem was the word "misled". From context, I worked out that this was the past tense of the verb "to misle" (pronounced "my-z'l"), which meant "to lie" or "to lead astray". I just never connected it to the word "miss-led' that I heard people saying. Not until I was in my late 20s did I realise that "misled" was the past tense of "mislead".
However, since I've been reading more on my e-reader in the past year or so, I notice that I'm much more likely to take a couple of seconds to highlight a word I'm not sure of, and have its meaning just quickly pop up on my screen. It's a lot less disruptive than putting the book down and taking a few minutes to find an internet connection or a paper dictionary.
I read this and thought "I must be stupid, I thought it was a type of rock"
It is. (I checked while I was typing that previous comment.) However, the context in which I read "chrysoprase" was that it was being used to describe the colour of something.
"She had ruby lips."
"His tie was emerald, against a sapphire shirt."
"The jade-coloured walls set off the slate carpets."
We often take names of colours from items which are known to be that colour. So... "chrysoprase" is the colour taken from... chrysoprase.
The writer in question, Stephen Donaldson, was extremely verbose and liked to show off his fancy vocabulary.
Don't worry too much about it; until I was about 13, I thought the word "melancholy" referred to bone pain.
Until embarrassingly recently, I thought "capricious" was akin to greed or cruelty. It's possible I confused it with "avarice," but I'm pretty sure I just misinterpreted the context in which I first read it. My brain refuses to update to the actual definition.
And then, there's always the mispronunciation problems.
Yes. I will always look up a word if I don't know it or if I'm unclear about it. I also look up words if I think I know what they mean from context. And I'll look them up in more than one dictionary.
"Knowing" a word from context means you're missing out on etymology, alternate usage, idiom, etc. You're losing nuance when you're not looking words up. And you're relying on the person you're reading to be using the word correctly.
This is a habit I formed when young. I had a tiny school dictionary with me at all time, and then I had a bigger Chambers dictionary at home. Today I have software called GoldenDict with a bunch of dictionaries on my laptop, and a similar lookup program and the same dictionaries on an old small android phone.
I feel much the same way. I find myself wondering about etymology and/or connotation a lot, so I regularly look up even fairly familiar words. I'll interrupt other things to look up words, too.
I brought this up in a different thread, but the Online Etymological Dictionary is one of my very favorite things on the internet.
yes constantly. Usually my intention was to turn the page, though, not find out what "the" means 🙃
On a more serious note, ereaders make it SO easy to look up words, that there's really no reason not to. Every now and then I'm not sure if some word is in-universe made-up or a real English word (I only read speculative fiction so lots of worldbuilding) and I'll look it up, usually it has no meaning and is something in-universe but every now and then I learn a new word this way.
Only thing that's sad is kindle oasis absolutely cannot manage its battery life if you're connected to the internet (unlikely my old Paperwhite) so I can't use the "look up on wikipedia" function which I miss a lot. But the page turn buttons are so much of an improvement that I won't go back.
Sometimes. If its an e-book then always, paper book usually, audio book less often but that's just because of where I'm listening to it.
In everyday life (and even with verbal discussions) I'll look a word up to see the specific meaning.
I usually have no problem understanding words from the context but I like to get a specific understanding.
It's very rare that I come across a word I'm not familiar with (in English, anyway), but if I do, and the meaning isn't immediately clear from context, why would I hesitate to look it up? It's a learning opportunity.
I think the last time I had to do this, the word was haruspex, which I wasn't familiar with. Technically a Latin word, but used in an English work all the same.
oh god is haruspex an actual word? I've been playing through Pathologic 2 where your character is titled that, but I thought it was just a weird made-up word they were using.
Yes, a haruspex was an ancient Roman priest of sorts who would sort through animal guts looking for signs from the gods, prophecies etc.
They called what they did "haruspicy", and I'm 100% sure I pronounce that word wrong, but it's hilarious and I don't care.
Huh that does make sense in the context of Pathologic specifically at least, TIL.
I always look up every new word I come across in a book, my english is not very good and I think it improves my vocabulary. also, sometimes when I try to guess the meaning of words from the context I end up being wrong, especially since english has so many meanings for single words.
I practically never do. Very occasionally there's words like nonplussed that mean the opposite of what they sound like, but 99% of the time I'm able to figure them out from context. Or it'll be a book like Hyperion which has tons of very rare words for no apparent reason where you can just gloss over them and it won't make much difference.
The only real exception I've found to this is either very old books, or books that are translated by somewhat lower quality translators, who occasionally seem to use incredibly rare English words, probably because they can't think of a better way to convey the meaning they want in English with more normal words. But other than those two exceptions I'll hardly look anything up.
If the novel is entirely in English, no. Not unless it's going into some really technical jargon or is using some extremely archaic language. I used to read a lot of old public domain books so I have a fairly decent vocabulary (to the point that, reading back to things I wrote at around that time saw me using embarassingly flowery language).
Names are a completely different subject, though, because many writers will bring up a name of something and just assume that you know what they're talking about. If you bring up Naypyidaw, I probably won't recognize that it's the capital of Myanmar. I wouldn't even begin to think that a Venus Rosewater Dish is a tennis trophy.
I'd say most of the time, no. Granted, I'm not a prolific reader and much of my e-reading is done on my phone instead of a dedicated device so I feel if I leave the e-reader app I may not come back to it. Keeps me honest, I guess. If a word I read stuck with me enough that I still thought about it later though I do look it up.
I also read a lot of King so I'm not usually encountering words far beyond my compensation.
Did it today! The word was hagiographer.
Hey! The point of this thread is that people are supposed to either figure out words from context, or go look them up for themselves. You're cheating! :P
They wrote it as a reply, so now it's in the context. Problem fixed!
Yes! I mostly read my books on e-readers now. So all I need is to tap and look it up. But even before e-readers, I would put the book down to look up the word. If I didn't want to break the flow, I'd check it after.
But other than looking up words, I often also Google and look up Wikipedia for things I don't understand. The most recent one was The Three Body Problem. I went through the beginning really slowly because I kept pausing to read up articles on the Cultural Revolution for context. I also kept pausing to read up on some Physics concepts that I don't know or didn't remember from school.
I think it's fine to pause. I don't think breaking the flow is that big of a problem as I often sneak it reading inbetween things and don't really have a dedicated time to really sit and be immersed or anything like that. I often speed read and then have the pictures come after when I'm going about my day and think about the book.
I enjoy feeling like I'm learning something and understanding more context as I read a book. So I like looking things up.
But I do concede that it's not great if having a dedicated time to read and being immersed is important to you.
Absolutely. I feel that it can't hurt me to look up a word. Sure, I can use context clues to get an idea of what that word means, but when I do read, I generally use a Kindle. There's a dictionary built in. It takes me a few seconds to look up a word.
Granted, I do this more in everyday life than while reading. One of the few things I still use my Google Home for are dictionary lookups. A word will pop into my head that I don't quite know the usage of, or would simply like to learn, and I'll ask it to define it. Great! I've learned something new! That word may not become a part of my everyday speech, and I may forget it again down the line, but I can always look it up again.
There's no shame in looking up what you don't know.
Yes! I look up words in every language I read in. Sometimes I “know” the word but still look it up in case I misremembered for some reason.
For English, yes. It's not my native language and if I come across unfamiliar words I often want to know the pronunciation, not just the meaning.
Meaning is very often clear, given the context it appears in, but pronunciations often have quirks to them.
In my native language, I can't remember the last time I came across a word that I didn't somehow understand. I do look them up, even if I can't point out exactly when it last happened.
Modern smartphones has made this exceedingly simple to do.
Only exception to mostly understanding everything would be highly technical, specialised terms that are often Latin, Greek, or otherwise foreign in nature.
My brother has taken on the task of reading the top 100 books (not sure where he got his list). He has a good vocabulary, but when reading Poe, he complained bitterly that he had to stop and look up words every few pages. He sent me text messages for two days describing Poe's narcissistic obsession with using the most obscure words possible in any given setting. No surprise that Poe is on his shit list now.
I generally just go from context, and rarely stop to look up words.
I do now, but as a kid I would infer based on the context and components of the word. I've gone to use words I picked up that way and found myself second-guessing my assumptions... so I'd look it up and find I was using it correctly.
As an adult, it's more unusual to run into words I don't know, so I tend to look them up if they aren't explained in the text.
No, I don't bother. I was a voracious reader when I was a kid and I guess kids have higher tolerance for uncertainty - I just guessed from context and continued. I am so used to this approach that I don't do it even in other languages, with the exception of some words that seem super-important for the plot, which almost never happens.
As a kid I rarely did, as I've always done well enough with context and paper dictionaries are hellish to use, especially since alphabetical order comes somewhat slowly to me. While I wouldn't necessarily suggest this to children, I do think it helped my reading comprehension in the long term, since context clues are more powerful the more you actually stop to understand what each line means in relation to the ones before. This also got me picking up on common roots earlier than I would have otherwise, making it much easier to piece together definitions even without context. It's a bit more of a workout than being given information and retaining it, and probably helped with developing a more holistic understanding of language.
As an adult I usually do look things up. Less so on paper, but still often. The resistance is much lower with easy internet access at all times, so I might as well. Plus as a teenager I grew to be more self conscious about getting definitions and pronunciations wrong after a few embarrassing moments and that's stuck with me (still don't care about grammar, though!).
I do, when I eventually encounter a word whose meaning I'm either not sure of or just don't know. Kindle is a great tool for this in general and I try to use it if I'm going to read a book that's especially dense. Otherwise, there's a dictionary app called LookUp that takes advantage of the live activities feature on iOS that lets you scan words quickly from the lock screen. When you interact with it, it shoots you directly into the app so you're not getting distracted by something else. It's pretty neat.
Yes, yes I do.