/lit/ - Literature

>>9670729
I tattoo them on my forearms (like, real small).

I used to as a kid. I would underline words I didn't know in the book, and write the dictionary definition on the margins. I don't do that anymore, I just Google the word.

>>9670779
Me too. But reading something like Infinite Jest has made this very time consuming and annoying. What have you done in situations like that?

>>9670796
not him but I just skipped words I didn't understand and tried to see if I could notice what they mean through the sentence. DFW actually made up words in Infinite Jest making this constant searching even harder.

Yes. I use author specific glossaries in philosophy.

>>9671006
That's what I've been doing too but it can be a real pain in the ass when you have a page full of medical prose.

You retain words by using them.

You understand them from the context and their composite parts, you retain them through the repetition of seeing them in multiple texts.

>>9670729
When I was in elementary, and in the early years of middle school, I would use the dictionaries that the Rotary Club would hand out to schools for free. Whenever I came across a word that I didn't know, I'd look for it in said dictionary.

Nowadays, whenever I start a new book, I'd take a couple of sticky notes and affix them onto the inside of the cover and write down whatever vocabulary that I don't know; after a reading session, I'll then take to the internet and look them up.

I know it's far better to use a physical dictionary, but the internet is just too convenient.

>>9671028
I don't blame you for using the internet. You'd be silly to use a physical dictionary.

I know all of them before encountering them - only need to use Wikipedia for allusions and certain references.

>>9670729
my kindle has a dictionary. I look em up, then highlight them, so I can go back and see which words I've internalized or not. I love it. I do it online too. I google everything I don't know. I love it so much. I really do. I can't get enough of it.

>>9670729
>he doesn't know the whole vocabulary

My laptop is always next to me, I look up words, summaries, concepts and references all the time.

Once I wrote down all the words from a book and studied them and now I remember 10% of them. Not worth that much, I'd rather learn pragmatically.

When I see some word for 3th or 4th time I look it up. I also look up words that I've heard multiple times and I know how they're spelled and everything but I don't know the meaning.

When there're multiple unknown words in one sentence and the meaning is not understandable I loop up those which I think are key.

I think internet dictionary is better. At least for English there won't be some false meanings on the most popular websites. You can find everything on the internet - definition, translation in native, examples, synonyms, etc.

i gradually acquire words through context, same as i learned to speak

>>9670796
haven't been on /lit/ very long but I'm sure you guys hate this... but e-readers are really good for books like this since you can look up the word directly in 5 seconds.

sorry, don't hate me.

>>9672479
I use an e-reader as my main method for reading. It does indeed make it far easier for looking up definitions.

>>9670729
I've reached the point where any word I don't know is uncommon enough that I could never use it myself. These I don't look up.

How fucked am I?

>>9672826
Look up the missing words, don't be lazy now. Why brag otherwise