Words in Books
I’m reading a book now entitled “Room”, a fiction novel. It’s the 12th book since I started reading on April 1. Before reading this, I’ve read 1 fantasy, 1 young adult, 6 children’s, 1 historical fiction, and 2 other fiction novels. I’m also listening to an audio book of “The Handmaid’s Tale”, also a fiction novel.
There were about 100 words I didn’t know from all these books (except the children’s, I guess). There are short words I’ve seen before but have forgotten like “spry”; there are short words I haven’t seen before like “offal”; there are longer words that sound complicated, but maybe I can use like “ambulatory”; there are longer words that sound complicated but I’ll probably never use like “osteonecrosis”; and there are words that I didn’t know but I found in one book and found in another, so now I remember it and I’m confident I can use it, like “mien”
I usually just forget words like “osteonecrosis” because I feel like I’m never going to use them and will rarely hear or see them in the future. But there are a lot of words that I want to remember like “offal”. To remember words like this, I add them as a reminder on my phone. Every 1:30 PM every day, my phone reminds me the word. I can’t remember all the words so well that I can just say them anytime but I’m confident that if I do see or hear them I will know what they mean. That’s good enough for me because I think understanding words is more than knowing a lot but not understanding them at all.