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Looking up words on digital dictionary slows me down, does it get better?

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.)

OmegaMouse ,
@OmegaMouse@pawb.social avatar

Similar to some of the other commenters, I’m a native English speaker and (especially now that I have an ereader) I’m often looking up words. Previously when reading physical books, I’d just go off the context and assume I vaguely knew what the word meant, because looking it up on my phone would be quite time-consuming. However now that I have the built-in dictionary on my ereader, I’m constantly using it. Does it slow me down a bit? Yes, but I think it’s worth it. I see words popping up regularly that I was unsure about before but now I can define.

Ostentatious is a great word for example!

You said you were worried about not remembering them - Is there any way you can save the words you’ve looked up? Kobo has a cool thing where you can add these to ‘My Words’ and you then have a list of all the words you’ve saved, with the definitions to look back on. If you’d like you can then go through them to revise and hopefully they’ll stick in your memory.

By the way, I would have assumed that English was your first language! You write extremely well.

Carrolade ,

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.

huf ,

i basically read english books by ignoring/guessing the unknown words and only looking them up if they came up a lot. i did this until the deluge of unknown words dropped to something like one every few pages.

THAT’S when i became a dictionary fiend.

i also like re-read books multiple times, so that helps.

BlastboomStrice OP ,
@BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz avatar

Ohh, that’s kinda reassuring to hear

papafoss ,

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

Strider ,

The only thing I can think of that would be easier would be swapping to an e-reader/app with a built in dictionary function. I use Moon+ Reader myself, but I don’t blame you if you want to stick to physical books.

BlastboomStrice OP ,
@BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz avatar

I actually started by reading pirated digital literature books on my phone and my tablet ~2 years ago, but I eventually switched to paper books about a year ago. I think I disliked the fact that I had to stare at a screen to read, because I’m already a lot of time on my phone and after a point it causes discomfort.

Fun fact, reading was what helped me reduce my reddit time. I swapped the shortcut of infinity (reddit) app with Librera FD (document reader) on my screen and it really worked somehow. Some times I even opened the reader by mistake due to muscle memory, lol. Soon enough though, the api changes came and got kinda hooked again, on Lemmy this time. At least it’s for a kinda good cause.🤷

Strider ,

Yeah I miss the feel of real paper in my hands but I have hundreds of books in this little black box and I like to reread most of them so it’s handy. Sometimes I’ll dust off my Kindle if I’m planning on reading for more than a few hours: the matte screen is a lot easier on the eyes.

That is a fun fact! I try to minimize the number of apps I have installed for that very reason, and the only things I have on my home screen are Moon+ Reader and my email, dialer, and texting apps.

Timecircleline ,

I’m a native English speaker with a fairly robust vocabulary and I still look up words now and then. E-readers make it super easy, and since I get most of my books as e-books from the library it’s easy to learn new words. My recent word is “solicitude”.

Empricorn , (edited )

Hmm, yes. I’m glad you’re enjoying reading. I’m showing care and concern for someone…

EDIT: It was a dumb joke about the definition of “solicitude”.

frightful_hobgoblin ,

Haha been there.

You’re used to reading at 300wpm and then you switch languages and you’re reading at 70wpm, feels mad annoying

BlastboomStrice OP ,
@BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz avatar

Haha indeed, on Greek books it goes very smoothly, but on any other language I start and stop all the time

ascense ,

It gets better, but learning vocabulary at that level is going to feel very slow no matter what. I would recommend keeping a fairly low bar for just ignoring words and moving on, as keeping up the reading habit is by far the most useful. If reading feels tedious it’s easy to lose interest.

One to two new words per page sounds high enough where you are bound to get repetition, so you may want to only look up words that seem either important for context or familiar (i.e. feels like something you’ve seen before) to get the most value. I combine that with spaced repetition (Anki) for words that I seem to look up often, but Anki has a bit of a learning curve so it may or may not suite you.

BlastboomStrice OP ,
@BlastboomStrice@mander.xyz avatar

Oh thank you, I guess I should find some balance then between ignoring and searching up words.

Also tnx about the Anki/flashcards suggestion, might look into it in the future.

gueybana ,

Yeah, maybe highlight the words and come back to them

Rognaut ,

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.

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