Quote:
Originally Posted by Ortep
I'm not a native English speaker and that is exactly why I do use the dictionary lookup. While I am reading I sometimes run into words that I'm not familiar with. Most of the time I can guess the meaning from the context and read on. I almost never pick up a p-dictionary to check it..
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The word 'meet' in English is pronounced the same as the German word 'miet' . But don't say to a German woman you want to 'miet' her. Unless you want to be slapped in the face. In German it means: to rent. And In Dutch 'rent' means (he) runs
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Ok, I understand what you mean. I did not want to appear as not humble, it is probably how you approach your reading in English. I used to consult dictionaries when I was learning Enlish as a youngster, but I found it stopped too much the flow of my reading. I decided to go on anyway, maybe do a lookup when I really could not understand it at all, and sooner or later you catch the meaning. I remember having stumbled a lot, when I was much much younger, for the words 'branch' (I was reading tarzan, jumping from branch to branch. Sooner or later you get the hint of what it means) or 'creep', but I kept going on as it did not hamper my comprehension of the text. Sometimes you understand it at a lower level than the verbal and you may not just be able to translate, but my aim is to think in English, not to translate it while I read. A word like 'Creepy' might have approximations in some languages and exact corrispondences in other. It' s like the eskimo people having 11 words to describe the snow. Don't remember whether it's a higher or lower number, but you get the idea.
But certainly for my own native language I would not dream of often consulting the dictionary to get the meaning.
If you are interested, there is a joke I found on internet, where you are asked how to pronounce 'ghost' in English. It can be demonstrated that the correct pronounciation is 'fish'. English is peculiar, sometimes, but always interesting.
Conclusion is, I personally do not see a need for a dictionary but I respect the requirement of others needing it.