How much do I actually read
It's kinda neat to be reading actual books for a change. I can more easily monitor how much I actually read. I started to read Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire -series after we got back from the skiing trip. That was a bit over three weeks ago. In that time I've read four big novels, each of them at least 600 pages long. The thing is that I don't really feel like I'd have been reading more than usual. I've done other things besides reading (like watching telly or cooking) almost every day and I haven't even been reading every day. There have been periods of time in my life when I've been reading more than I've been reading now.
Sure I have more free time at moment than I usually do, but it still doesn't feel like I would've been reading more than I usually do. This pace feels completely normal to me. Is it a lot to read four big novels in less than a month? If only it was as easy to read school books. ^^; I do think that I read more than most other people, most of the time.
And I think that I've gotten a lot quicker at reading English than I used to be years ago. There are still some words in almost every chapter that I'm not competely familiar with in Martin's books. I may know the general meaning from context, like I'd know that a jerkin is some sort of piece of cloth, but I wouldn't know exactly what sort of piece of cloth it was (or in this case even weather it was supposed to go to your lower or upper body). This is just an example. I checked that word from my dictionary just now, but there are many other words that I'm not familiar with. It's easier when I'm reading at the computer, because then I can just open another window in the browser and check the word from an online dictionary, but that's not so handy when you're reading a book. Often I don't even have the computer on, or I'm reading in a different room. And using a paper dictionary is way too much work, since I'm reading these books for purely entertainment.
There's this funny story that has to do with the word feces. I encountered it from time to time on television shows and fiction, but I didn't know what it meant because they didn't show it. For quite a while I thought that it was probably something similar to fetus. They sound alike and the context was about right with a bit of imagination. ^^; Then I finally came across a context where they used the word feces which couldn't possibly have anything to do with fetus, so I finally investigated it. Feces means 'shit'. This is how you learn. :p
Sure I have more free time at moment than I usually do, but it still doesn't feel like I would've been reading more than I usually do. This pace feels completely normal to me. Is it a lot to read four big novels in less than a month? If only it was as easy to read school books. ^^; I do think that I read more than most other people, most of the time.
And I think that I've gotten a lot quicker at reading English than I used to be years ago. There are still some words in almost every chapter that I'm not competely familiar with in Martin's books. I may know the general meaning from context, like I'd know that a jerkin is some sort of piece of cloth, but I wouldn't know exactly what sort of piece of cloth it was (or in this case even weather it was supposed to go to your lower or upper body). This is just an example. I checked that word from my dictionary just now, but there are many other words that I'm not familiar with. It's easier when I'm reading at the computer, because then I can just open another window in the browser and check the word from an online dictionary, but that's not so handy when you're reading a book. Often I don't even have the computer on, or I'm reading in a different room. And using a paper dictionary is way too much work, since I'm reading these books for purely entertainment.
There's this funny story that has to do with the word feces. I encountered it from time to time on television shows and fiction, but I didn't know what it meant because they didn't show it. For quite a while I thought that it was probably something similar to fetus. They sound alike and the context was about right with a bit of imagination. ^^; Then I finally came across a context where they used the word feces which couldn't possibly have anything to do with fetus, so I finally investigated it. Feces means 'shit'. This is how you learn. :p