Do you ever Google terms in books that you don’t understand?

Submitted by imperator-curiosa t3_120nnw8 in books

I frequently hear advice directed at authors that they are welcome to use culturally specific terms or words in other languages without explaining them because if readers really wanted to know what it meant, they would Google them. Is that true? Do you as a reader put down your book to look up unfamiliar terms?

Edit: I am really curious about the reader experience. Does it take you out of the reading experience to look things up? Would you rather not have to look things up? Do you look forward to learning more beyond the book?

Edit2: thanks folks for your comments! I realized the way I asked this question might’ve been offensive, so sorry about that. I just really don’t know how other people read.

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JamesStrangsGhost t1_jdi2i26 wrote

Kindle will link words to their definition or locations to their wikipedia pages.

Its a handy feature.

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imperator-curiosa OP t1_jdi2nbo wrote

Do you use that feature? I’m just really curious if folks are stopping to look up things, or if they’re just moving along.

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HumanOrion t1_jdjhuly wrote

I read exclusively on a Kindle, and I use the dictionary feature a ton. Any word that I don’t know, I look up. The feature is well implemented, and I love it.

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JamesStrangsGhost t1_jdi4xk4 wrote

I do. Especially for books set in places I'm less familiar with. Its nice to be able to pull up a map and understand the geography.

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Optimal-Grass-8989 t1_jdi5g6v wrote

Sounds like what I think most people do with regular words they don’t understand?

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imperator-curiosa OP t1_jdi5uvs wrote

I suppose I really didn’t know what other people do! I guess I imagined that folks are so pressed for time, that having to step away from a book would be distracting? But I have to give readers more credit!

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irevuo t1_jdi42yf wrote

Of course, but not just the terms I don't understand. Everything I'd like to know more about, including locations, events, and so on. Sometimes I'll even research the author for good measure, especially what they were up to as they were working on the book.

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NohPhD t1_jdi78sv wrote

All the time…

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minimalist_coach t1_jdi8d19 wrote

I do sometimes. I love that I can look it up from my Kindle very easily. I read a lot of books by authors from other countries and I often look words up as I’m reading. Often I can guess at the meaning, so I usually wait for a breaking point in my reading and go back to look it up.

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lydiardbell t1_jdi9uq6 wrote

Depends. I try to figure things out from context, and if I can't I'll only look it up if they seem important to understanding the text correctly. If I'm reading a book about East Germany I need to know what the Staatssicherheitrat is, but not if I'm reading a book about American hippies where a character says "you're such a nark, you belong in the CIA or the KGB or the Stasi "

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ForeverFrolicking t1_jdjf17y wrote

This is my approach, as well. I can usually glean enough information from other context clues to understand what's going on without fully understanding a specific word or phrase.

I tend to look up obscure English words that I'm not familiar with, more than a word or phrase in a foreign language that I don't know simply by not being a native speaker of the language. I like learning new words that I could potentially add to my vocabulary, but I'm less enthusiastic about learning bits of a foreign language that I'll likely never encounter irl.

I'm currently re-reading the Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, and there's quite a bit of Swedish sprinkled throughout the story. For the most part though, they'll be businesses, streets or city districts. I don't really need to know exactly what/where "Gotgatsbacken" is to know its just a section of the city the character currently happens to be in. If it comes up more frequently, and seems to hold weight in the plot, I'll look it up.

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BooklessLibrarian t1_jdi2ou6 wrote

Yes, although since I do most of my reading on ereaders, I can just use the built-in dictionary. Sometimes I need to look up idioms on my phone, however.

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remberzz t1_jdifs91 wrote

I frequently look up products or procedures or historical events. Does this really exist? Is this really done this way? Did this really happen?

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Amphy64 t1_jdiikp1 wrote

It's been a pretty standard aspect of at least European lit since forever, long before the internet or electricity. Bits of Ancient Greek, lines in Latin, French/Italian/German, occasionally I see English in older French works too. In English or Russian works entire exchanges may be in French because through to the end of the nineteenth century the reader is assumed to understand it. Thing with French is, sometimes it is sufficient to make sense of Italian, Latin, so sometimes the writers may also be anticipating that, and of course with English writers, there's an extent to which native English speakers know French phrases anyway.

I think it's nice other languages are entering the mix more, the idea we'll all perhaps know more Arabic words and expressions.

I use the Kindle dictionary or Google it if I don't understand but haven't always found it to work, with Latin especially unless it's a well-known line you're a bit stuck unless you can piece it together yourself.

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imperator-curiosa OP t1_jdijim5 wrote

Yes! This is such a good point. I struggled so much with books that had many exchanges in French - the writing really reflected the audience it was directed at. I’m referring to books I read when I was growing up, before the Internet was as robust as it is now. Back then I didn’t have the same resources to look things up.

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Amphy64 t1_jdk5dr9 wrote

I complained about the French all the way through Villette, it was a paper copy for uni with notes, so I kept having to flip to the back to even follow what the characters were on about. It's so funny now I read French, it makes you aware how similar the two languages actually are (60% English vocabulary being Latinate, most directly from French), so it's hard to remember what I thought the big deal was.

My big bugbear now is how keen eighteenth century French writers are on throwing in original phrases in Latin, which are impossible to look up. I wonder what women were expected to do since most wouldn't have had a Classical education. Not be reading it? Ask a man? On the one hand as a woman it makes me feel justified in going 'quid?', on the other, I do have the opportunity today to improve my scattered Latin...

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doc_willis t1_jdi771m wrote

I read a lot of old books, like the original Sherlock Holmes and so forth, I consider myself decently well read, but on many occasions I had to go look up some old terms that I had zero clue what they ment.

I could often infer what they meant from the book, but not always.

the Kindle features made it rather easy.

I now know that a "Handsom" is a type of horse drawn carriage, and "Sticking plaster" is some sort of bandage.

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naked_nomad t1_jdiprwj wrote

The expression "Tighter than a Dick's hatband" really threw me for a loop as a teenager.

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naked_nomad t1_jdipe2c wrote

I grew up in a house hold where "What does this word mean or how do you spell (word)?" was met with "Look it up in the dictionary." I still look words and phrases up to this day and I am retired. My first experience with a word in a non-english language was in a "Hardy Boys" book. It was OUI which I found out was "WE" and French for yes. My grandmother had to tell me this as I was getting frustrated trying to find it in the dictionary.

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Jack-Campin t1_jdjedxw wrote

Very rarely with books as I have a ridiculously huge vocabulary. Where I do find myself googling is when reading articles on the web about New Zealand today - I left decades ago and have only been back once, and the language is changing fast. It's almost turning into a creole with added Māori words for concepts about society and interpersonal relationships. I didn't need to know what "hapū", "tamariki" or "taonga" meant back in the 1970s, but I do now.

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PeterchuMC t1_jdjxrpg wrote

I've learnt so many terms or rather figured out what they meant by taking the context. But if there was a term that I genuinely couldn't understand, I would look it up. Noosphere was one of them.

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Myythically t1_jdktk06 wrote

I actually do pause and Google words I don’t know if it isn’t immediately obvious from the context.

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Averageplayerzac t1_jdkwol3 wrote

If it’s clear what the word means contextually I probably won’t, if it’s not or I’m just curious about the word etymologically I will.

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gdub3717 t1_jdinh5i wrote

Last year I read Young Mungo, and there was so much Scottish slang and colloquial language that I had to stop quite often and look things up. (Found a great website/lexicon of slang terms that I referenced frequently!) If I hadn’t, my understanding (and enjoyment) of the novel would have been diminished significantly. Looking up those terms didn’t pull me out of the story; it deepened and enhanced it :)

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imperator-curiosa OP t1_jdjb881 wrote

That’s fantastic. I am now remembering when I had to find a dictionary to help me with A Clockwork Orange. It was like learning another language

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pohovanatikvica t1_jdj8uvy wrote

Of course, that includes everything else that I wanna know more about.

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Asterion7 t1_jdji8tq wrote

Only when reading the locked tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.

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shortbusterdouglas t1_jdjipj0 wrote

Sure do, friend. I Google lots of confusing terms and the like when I encounter them. Who doesn't like learning more ?🤓

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GrudaAplam t1_jdjjktk wrote

Of course. I'm not gonna learn by osmosis

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BusydaydreamerA137 t1_jdl8lsf wrote

I do but I do read some books that are set in a historical setting so I realize there are things I wouldn’t understand. As a kid I would either look up the word or use context (though usually it was a word that I just didn’t know due to still being a kid)

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ShingetsuMoon t1_jdm65q9 wrote

I mostly read ebooks now so the Kindle or Kindle app dictionary feature means I can just tap a word and a definition of it will pop up. If it's a more culturally nuanced term, I might Google it, but only if it keeps coming up in the book or is part of ongoing context.

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filiaflorum t1_jdodp55 wrote

Yes. Reading is such a wonderful way to expand one’s vocabulary:)

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