The Reason Why We Should Not Read English Books Using Dictionary

Hi, this is Buono.

I love reading English books recently and have read around 30 books over the last year.

Below is the list I read during this period:

• The Giver
• Darren shan (#1 to #6)
• Wonder
• Factfulness
• The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
• The House With Chicken Legs
• It Ends With Us
• There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom
• Danny the Champion of the World
• Atomic Habits
• Tuesdays with Morrie
• etc…

As you can see, I'm open-minded and read books of several genres.

Disadvantages of Using a Dictionary

Since I'm a middle-level English learner, I often see a word I don't know whenever I turn a page.

The frequency depends on the genre and the target of the book.

Anyway, I don't use a dictionary at all nowadays.

You might think about how you proceed to read ahead without understanding the detailed meaning.

But I can say from my experience that you don't have to worry about that point.

Even if you catch only 60% of 70% of all sentences or wordings, you can figure out the overall story and what the author wants to tell us. I'm sure it doesn't matter.

You don't have to be a perfectionist. You must not.

On the other hand, below are the disadvantages of using a dictionary to look up all the meanings of a word you see.

• The rhythm of reading turns bad
• The power of anticipating the meaning of a word you don't know diminishes

In order to avoid these cons, we should read books using the dictionary as little as possible.

How to Assume the Meaning of a Word You Don't Know

Let me show you my idea for how I determine the meaning of a word I don't know when I encounter it.

We can predict the meaning if we find these words listed below. (In this case, A is your familiar word, whereas X is not familiar to you.)

• A and X: The meaning of X is almost the same as A.
• A but X: The meaning of X is the opposite of A.
• Although A, it's X: The meaning of X is the opposite of A.
• A, so X: X is a result of A.
• X so that / therefore A: X causes A.

These are just examples.

Additionally, we can use the "context" power to predict the meaning.

If that paragraph contains several positive emotional words like smiled, empowered, and happiness, the X in the paragraph should be a positive word or something related to positive words.

In that way, I succeeded in reading many books.

Catch you later👍