Quote:
Originally Posted by RoseWolf95
I'm only 17, and I'm a little ashamed to admit that I'm somewhat of a 'binge reader', and before a couple of years ago, I went a long time without reading at all. I regret not taking the time to read much, and my vocabulary is none too dazzling. At the moment, my reader is basically my vocab teacher. A couple of my most recent ones are 'craven' and 'vehement'. Aside from leaning new words, it's also nice to definitively have a rarely-used word defined, and then used in the context of the story. All in all, it's a good help to someone who's vocabulary isn't particularly developed  |
Oh, how I wish some of my younger colleagues would think like this! I'm frequently being asked what a word means that I use in every day speech - misogynist being a recent word I used that someone later asked me to spell so that they could look it up. I now do a "Word of the Day" in which my team have to find the meaning and use the word during the day, either verbally or written
Just a bit of fun, but everyone seems to enjoy it. The main problem is that none of them actually read anything other than the celebrity pages in the red tops.
I do use the dictionary on a regular basis, although I can quite often work out the meaning from the context. I just like to check the word and find out its stem and general usage. But then I'm also always looking things up on the internet as well. I'm currently reading a series set in Minneapolis, an area I know nothing about. I've looked up the town the story is set in, the history, location, ethic make up, geography and the history of Lake Minnetonka's steam boats. Before reading this series, I didn't even know there was a Lake Minnetonka, but I'm UK based, so that's probably not too surprising. It's helped me have a better understanding of the book itself as I can now picture the location and understand better the demographics of the region I'm reading about.
I enjoy reading for the pleasure of reading itself, but the added bonus for me is that I keep learning about new things - even from fictional writings, and you are never too old to learn something new.