To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

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CardiffGiant
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To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby CardiffGiant » Sun Jun 17, 2018 10:27 pm

I have been working on learning Italian for several months and I could use some input on an issue that there seems to be some debate. When working with reading native materials, the multitrack approach to learning basically says cheat with abandon and look up words whenever you need to. Based upon my current level, I need to do this a lot to get the meaning of a passage. On the other hand, some ascribe to the school of thought that one should not do this, and that it is fine to just get the gist of what you are reading, and that is enough. I would be interested in hearing opinions of what others think in terms of what helped them to progress in their learning more with the understanding that of course everyone is different. Thanks!
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby lingua » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:30 pm

I try to get the meaning out of context but otherwise look it up via Kindle. About 25% of what I lookup isn't found and it's mostly because the dictionary doesn't deal with verb forms very well. Since I often read in bed I move on if it doesn't exist in the dictionary. It does happen sometimes that the meaning becomes clearer a few pages later or it ends up not being important.
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby NoManches » Mon Jun 18, 2018 2:19 pm

There is a big difference between looking up a word in a paper dictionary, online, or by using the built in dictionary on your Kindle. Before I had a Kindle I would look up words online and it was a real pain. Now that I have a Kindle, I can get the definition of a word (or a Wikipedia entry on the word, or a google translation of the word) in a heartbeat.

So, with my Kindle I don't mind looking up more words than is normally recommended simply because it happens really fast and isn't a distraction. Without the Kindle, I'd only look up words if they were vital to the story or a sentence was only clear if you knew that word.

As was mentioned, your reading level might determine how many words you should be looking up.
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby Christi » Mon Jun 18, 2018 6:53 pm

I think this also depends on what you are reading, and on your level. If your level is low and you are reading new items or magazines, I'd go for strategic reading so you won't burn yourself out.

If you're reading a book then I'd at least look up the main verbs, objects, object complements so you can get the gist of the story. If this annoys you because you really want to know everything, either look up everything or look for easier reading material.
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby garyb » Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:26 am

On Kindle or when reading online, I look up almost anything I don't know or am unsure about. I'd rather be sure than just guess. I do sometimes to figure it out from context first and then look it up to "check my answer". Unfortunately the dictionaries available for Kindle aren't very comprehensive: in about 50% of cases in my more advanced languages, if I don't know a word then neither does it! It's also useless for verbs with pronouns on the end (e.g. "díselo" in Spanish) and it ignores accents (so considers "ésta" and "está" the same word). The Google Translate option is only good if I have internet access, and another of the many usability disasters of the Kindle is that by default it tries to translate from English to Spanish even though it knows that the book is in Spanish and the interface is in English :roll: If I'm at the computer, I have the power of WordReference and Google, but I don't like reading novels on the screen.

If it's a paper book, using a dictionary is too much effort so I'm happy to just get the gist. For this reason I go for ebooks when I can, especially in a less advanced language where I'd miss too much without a dictionary.
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby smallwhite » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:04 am

I noticed that 7 out of 8 which is 87.5% of OP's posts are about learning techniques so here's a link to the Techniques section of "our" wikia:

http://learnanylanguage.wikia.com/wiki/ ... Techniques
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:19 am

My Kindle dictionaries are monolingual Spanish and Portuguese. When I can't guess a word by context, sure, I look it up but I don't have many look-ups to do. It also helps to confirm my guesses.

As with most things in language-learning, there's a happy medium between the two extremes of not looking anything up and looking everything up. There's also an appropriate time for when both extremes work well depending on the learner's level and the level of the material. Both can have beneficial effects. When a learner is, say at A2, and is reading something "level appropriate" where the learner knows most of the words already- maybe 10-15% unknown, many of those words will be guess-able through context. Perhaps a few can only be understood through a dictionary search. This is optimal for learning. It can be done with level-appropriate material but not with more advanced material.

My observation on the forum is that many learners' frustration comes from "biting off more than they can chew"- taking on material that is far too advanced for them and where dictionary look-ups are the only way in which a text can be made comprehensible- like trying to read Gabriel García Márquez before they can even understand the subjunctive in Spanish.

Many learners under-estimate the value of working their way up in their zeal to advance. Sure, a certain tolerance for ambiguity is important, but there's a difference in a bit of ambiguity and opacity. It's hard for me to explain but that's why choosing materials to read is important and sometimes that choice needs to be made not on the basis of what a learner would want to read but on what a reader should read... ideally a little above where they are but not so far above that more time is spent in the dictionary than on the material being read.

There's also a third way around slamming the dictionary- parallel texts. Being able to confirm guesses or see equivalents at a glance is quite useful at lower levels and can help fill in the blanks with less effort- "cheating" as emk calls it. Using parallel texts is a valid and worthy method of learning, often undervalued and underused here.
Last edited by iguanamon on Tue Jun 19, 2018 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby CardiffGiant » Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:45 am

One aspect of this issue is whether anything is meaningfully retained after looking up words and whether the time involved in doing so is better served by doing something else to learn?( I’m sure the variables of learning level and difficulty of materials essentially make this an unanswerable question). One of the reasons this site is so valuable as it gives guidance of what methods might yield the most benefit.

All of the thoughtful comments have caused me to re-examine the difficulty of the reading material and the length of time I am devoting to reading. Maybe shorter passsages (in say a blog or magazine)for shorter periods of time with cheating may yield more benefit as opposed to slogging through a book at this point. The “biting off more that I can chew” seems to make sense in my case. :)
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Re: To look up the meaning or not when reading native materials

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Tue Jun 19, 2018 6:02 pm

Personally, it always depends on my level, my intention, and the text itself. I may find it (relatively) difficult to decipher even the simplest text if I'm a complete beginner, and at later stages I may be able to read suspense novels without ever looking anything up.
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