Guessing new words
- The first thing you should always do first is to read the complete text – the problem word may become clear from the context or it may even be explained somewhat later in the text.
- Also, as ridiculous as it may sound – make sure you’ve looked for word explanations! Especially vocabulary lists at the ending of a novel often go unnoticed.
- Sometimes, tricky words are defined within the same text. So, look for definitions and examples!
- Another method to get the message across to the reader is using a synonym.
- Is there any chance you can simply skip the word? Maybe you don’t really know what it means to get the gist!
- It can be useful just to categorize a word if you don’t know the exact meaning – if they talk about “kuzu growing in the backyard” you know it must be some kind of plant.
- Every now and again, grammatical information helps you to identify the function of the word – is a noun? Is it an adjective?
- Linking words can help you to figure out what a word means: “Although her family was considered affluent, paying that much money was difficult for.” So, there’s a contrast between “affluent” (= rich) and “paying that much money”.
- The word may be an English word used in a German context in the very same way – such as “boycott” or “laptop”.
- Some words are very close to German words of the same meaning (“blind”, “house”), usually because they can be traced back to the same word root.
- However, don’t be misled by false friends – words that look like twins but have different meanings in your native language and English (“mist” = fog, in German: “Mist” = dung, manure).
- Some technical terms are commonly used internationalisms from scientific discourse (“globalization”, “gynecologist”).
- Some phenomena in language history can also come in handy – for example, if you know that the English “th” is often equivalent to German “d” (like in “thing” = “Ding”), you can easily figure out which German word the English word “thorn” may refer to.
- Your knowledge of romance languages related to English words such French, Italian, Spanish or Latin may also be helpful at times (“propose” > French: proposer).
- Frequently, compound words consist of parts you already know (“postcolonial” > “post”+”colonial”).
- It can also be helpful to look at the prefixesand suffixes used: for example, “dis-” and “mis-” usually imply something negative.
- Sometimes, you may know words that belong to the same word family (“application”, “applicant” < apply).
- Several words have two or more meanings – think of the one you know and look at the context to identify the meaning you’re looking for (“