Angielski.edu.pl :: English only : Reading books in English

Wysłany: Pon Lis 02, 2009 4:11 am

Hello.
I have a question concerning reading books. How do you read the books to improve your vocabulary? Is it good to translate all unknown words and then read the book fully translated, something like this:
“And you hens, how many eggs have you laid in this last year, and how many of those eggs ever hatched into chickens?” [if a young bird hatches, or if it is hatched, it comes out of its egg, wykluwać się] The rest have all gone... “?
Do you prefer reading books on the computer screen and translation or reading a book printed out and marking the translation with a pencil? Which is more effective? I know that cut and paste method is faster in computer method but is it also more effective than translation with the pencil?
It takes a lot time because various books have different vocabulary and very often I don’t understand one word in a sentence but generally I know what the book is about. What is your advice and experience with reading? Which books do you recommend? I am above FCE (I hope) level but realise I made a lot of mistakes and forget many even simple words. Simply, I want to enrich my vocabulary and I heard that reading books may help me to attain the goal. Is it better than Supermemo?
Share your experience.
Thanks in advance.

Wysłany: Czw Lis 05, 2009 2:46 am

Hi! I'm also on the FCE level and after reading your post I think that you have a quite big range of vocabulary. I buy books so I obviously have them on paper and I underline every word which is unknown to me but I don't check them later hyy... I mean when I bought my first book in English on the beggining I tried to check every word onboard but it took a long time and I gave up. Later on I checked only the words that I found difficult against a background of the sentence. I think it's not a good way, but I don't really know how else I can do it.

Wysłany: Czw Lis 05, 2009 9:48 pm

Hey! I used to read a lot of books in English before I started studying this beautiful language on university (now I have no free time for it Not serious

). Well, in my opinion the best way to improve our vacabluary using this way, is simply reading books (aloud if it's possible),then unwittingly you will learn about constraction of the sentence, which is one of the most important things on your level of studying. If you know that, it's simle for you to describe every word.For example you dont need to know the word 'pen' when you can say that you are thinking about 'something which we use for writting'.
What about learning vocabluary. .. Personally I don;t know anyone who is so sticker to translate every words and who has a time for doing this. the best way is trying to understand unknown words by guessing it from the contects of the sentence.and translating words only when its unavoidable.( when you dont understand the sentence at all or when some words are using very often in you book) Don't forget about choosing books accordingly to your knowladge. reading too difficult books doesn't really make a sense. Good luck!!

Wysłany: Sro Lis 18, 2009 10:24 am

Hello there,
I need to say that i agree with what previous poster wrote, i personally think that you should just read as much as possible without wasting that much time on translating everything, i would "underline" the words which i find interesting though, some words are just magical, you dont want to miss those happy

.

Wysłany: Sro Sty 06, 2010 7:44 am

As for me, I prefer reading printed books. It is convenient for me to mark all unknown words with the pencil. And by the way, I try to use all unknown words when I write some online essay. It helps me to remeber this words better.

Wysłany: Sob Sty 23, 2010 1:59 am

Hi,
I prefer reading printed books because I'm sure that sitting too long in front of computer screen will damage your eyes and also paper books are just more convenient. Well, I rarely check the meaning of new words from the text - it's too troublesome and even if I write them down somewhere I will lose the context.
Generally I don't regard reading long books as a way of learning new vocabuary - for that it's better marking new words in articles (shorter texts).
I believe reading books should just develop lenguage intuition - how to use constructions, to learn to guess meaning of unknown vocabulary and not fully understood statement... So yes, reading books will enrich your vocabuary (it happens even without any special effort) and generally improve your lenguage skills, but if you want just to learn many new words there are better methods for that.

Wysłany: Sro Lut 29, 2012 4:13 pm

Translating all unknow words? Reading should be a pleasure, not a nighmare! I agree with Visitot, it is much better to tray to guess the meaning of a word form the context andl translate them only when it is necessary.I also think takat te construction of the sentence is as much importatnt as the meaning of words. If you only want to improve vocabulary try to use books like for example Advanced English Vocabulary in Use (by Cambridge).

English only :.: Reading books in English - your experience