Several months ago I finished Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer. As I stated in my last
post, I decided to read it without consulting a dictionary and simply
trying to infer the meaning of the words from the context. I did so.
I just sat cross-legged on my bed holding no more than the book in my
hands and began the journey to the amusing world of Tom Sawyer and
his fellow rascal Huck Finn, by doing a straightforward reading and
hoping to understand the depicted adventures on my own.
Although I gained time, I could only gain a somewhat incomplete
understanding of the novel. A number of unknown words referring to
nature, others used to describe landscapes, and the slang used and
the dialects spoken in the Mississippi river's surrounding area at
mid-nineteenth century, appeared as I advanced through the pages of
the book. It is clear the prospect of understanding all those words
appeared unlikely but I managed to most of the times. The crux of the
matter is I was able to arrive at the final page after a few weeks
(by reading four to six pages a day), so I did fulfil the main goal:
to enjoy the reading while doing it continuously.
When I finished the book I felt so
glad that I sprang to my feet, headed towards my wardrobe, took my
copy of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
out of it (yes, I keep some of my books in my wardrobe, my bookcase is too small) and began to read it the same way; of course it worked
this time too. I was so excited to discover that this novel is, in
some way, a continuation of the former, and was keen to totally read
it in the course of a few days, but some days after I had started I
got distracted by earthly matters. Notwithstanding, I had already
proved to myself that one can read a novel written in a foreign language–at
least one written in English, for non-native English speakers–without
stopping every time they encounter an unknown word in order to look
it up in a dictionary, and can, if not completely understand the
novel, get an overall impression of it.
The next step is to reread the novel, this time using a dictionary. I
am sure this undertaking will take longer than the preceding one, yet
it will bring the satisfaction of understanding every single written
word and thus the whole book on completion of the process of enjoying
a great piece of writing. From now on I'll follow this procedure.
This way of approaching the reading of a novel, that is, to try to
understand new words in their context, is found in Reading
Comprehension exercises in tests given to students both when learning
a new language and as a method of learning new words in their mother
tongue. I reckon everybody has experienced it, one way or the other.
So, it is obvious I am not the first person whom this idea has ever
occurred to; and since it is universally acknowledged as a very good
manner to learn new words, wouldn't it be reasonable to think this
style of reading is highly appropriate for training the brain and
accustoming it to the act of inferring?