As reading is a good way to improve our English, I started to read with a group in MyEC with my friends. But the book that we are reading now, Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard David Bach, is having so many new vocabularies for me. I don’t know whether I go on reading this book or not since I face some difficulties.
My sister attended an English course at a Canadian center. Her teacher from England recommended that if we face more than 8 words in one page, we should leave this book and choose another one which is easier to comprehend. Is that right? And what if we face so many new words in one page, should we look for each word’s meaning in the dictionary? What is the best way to read and get the benefit to enrich our vocabulary?
Replies
Ya.I would leave that book if it's too "hight" level to me, I just read books which I could guess from 60% to 70% meaning of it, yes, I'm really lazy in finding out meaning of new words, its waste of time :) & give me more "stress"
I think her teacher is right
facing too many difficult words in reading may discourage reading ,so looking for a which is less difficult is better
Hello, Skoon. I agree with such rule, if we talk of students. The learning must be consistent. When we studied English at school and university we always went from simple to complex. I suppose it's good way.
But now I begin to read any English book, even I don't know many words. Why? Because I need information from those books or articles. In my work I sometimes need new technical and scientific information, which is as rule in English.
Don't afraid to read English book. Maybe you don't know many words, but if this book is interesting for you, you can do this.
Well... I think that if you really find the story interesting and you got the "story`s plot" why do you have to leave the book only for, how many words?...8.. I don`t think so.. if I had used that technique I still would be reading short stories and now I read novels and extensive readings..
I can suggest you that of course if a word is really essential to know something from the story, well use a dictionary, but with many words you can infer.. or guess the meaning..
@ Omar,
Thank you for sharing your strategy for learning a vocabulary. Your tips could be useful and if it works for you that means it could works on us. Sometimes, it is better to read the book that the film version because you can easily understand and the logic or concept of the story.
You are most welcome Robert .... :) I agree with what you mentioned.
I remember the first time I started to read my first novel-and it was "Da vinci code", I couldn't understand anything at all. So I left it for 3 years in my bookshelf promising my self that I'll go back to it once again. But every time I snatched it and started to read though I felt like decoding hieroglyphic writings :D. It was tough on me. But it stayed tough every time I started it. Till then, I decided to go on with it without the pressure of getting all of it. I started to read and guess as much as I can, and I was about to lose hopes in understanding but I kept going. I found my self then in a need to go back sometimes to read over a chapter or an incident, that was a happy moment for me because I knew that I was looking for something :D that it self was an achievement. After that I became officially addicted to it. and couldn't drop it off my hand. And till now I haven't watched the movie because I didn't want to ruin the image in my imagination :D.
So here is my strategy I followed and still following:
When I'm reading I do 3 things: understanding, picturing, and anticipating.
Then if I come by odd words I do this : classifying. What is that? yes, I classify words whether I can guess their meaning or not. If yes I go on, if no I classify them with their grammatical type (e.g. noun, subject, object, verb, adverb, adjective ..... etc). And I try to guess for the 2nd time. If I still couldn't guess and the word is really important I do the last step, which is to look it up.
Don't lose hope, and as much you are struggling as you are benefiting from the book ;). You won't learn from an easy thing. English is based on vocabs, and you need to challenge your self constantly ;).
good luck sokonovitch ;)
I think that you don´t need to understand all the words in a page, remember that we have two kinds of reading, skimming and scanning, it depends of your level of understanding, try to read aloud and ignore the words that you don´t know.. usually you recognize them very quickly.. they are long, you know that they probably mean something related with the story..if at the end of the page or chapter, you still have important questions about the story, well... get the dictionary english/english.. only if it is necessary use a dictionary with your mother tongue.. but I think that reading has to be a joyful experience.. you don´t have to low your english level only because you don´t get some words..
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