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Ask HN: How do you approach reading a book with many new words?

6 points by yokot ↗ HN
It's frustrating reading a book containing many new words.

I was thinking of a script that extract words from file -> rank for most common -> get definition using an API dictionary service -> saves them with definition.

This way I can be familiar with the new words before reading a book and without having to lookup each new word.

What do you use or recommend?

4 comments

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CyberFonic
You don't specify whether you are talking about literary or technical books.

For literary works, I prefer to use Kindle and it's built-in dictionary to lookup words in-situ. The reason being that the context in which a new word is used if often important to understanding why the author chose that word instead of the alternatives. English is a rather rich language and you only need to peruse a thesaurus to realise the numerous alternatives we might use depending on context, mood, etc.

For technical works, I tend to go for a glossary, if the book has one, or make my own. For any given domain, certain technical terms come up frequently and it is important for thorough understanding to know exactly what any given technical term refers to.

Dowwie
I don't recommend you read Ulysses nor A Clockwork Orange
brudgers
I just accept that I won't understand everything and will misunderstand some of the things I think I understand and that many of the things I understand I will understand differently in the future of a few days/weeks/years because of other things I have learned or read in the interim...

...or to put it another way, I read a lot of things I don't understand and largely because I seek them out. Though that doesn't really align well with formal academic schooling as seen by students, outside of school there aren't Tuesday quizzes on last weekend's reading and subjects don't end after sixteen weeks (or last that long either)...and terms I don't know I'll eventually figure out from context. Except for monad.