|
I find that looking words up interrupts the reading flow. And what I do if necessary is make a mental note and look things up afterwards. Obviously, it depends on what you're reading. If you are reading in a foreign language and need more than two look-ups per page, you're probably wrestling with too difficult a book. I gave up on a book by Balzac because my French is just not that good. I can read authors like Dumas without difficulty, with the very occasional word needing elucidation. If I were studying Balzac, as opposed to reading for pleasure, then the reading flow would hardly matter and I'd probably reread a passage several times for different reasons.
Similarly, if I were reading, say, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it would be to study it rather than just enjoy it as a story. My grasp of that dialect of Middle English is far worse than my grasp of modern French. OTOH many English specialists would read it as easily as a modern book.
So as much as anything, it's a question of why you read and what your specialist background is.
|