Do you still look up English words after 10+ years in an English speaking country?

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YuckyYetYummy@reddit

I was born in America and I look up words. You can't know everything.

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Mabbernathy@reddit

Same. With Wordle yesterday the word was "carom". I had never thought of how it was spelled. It took me a second to figure out what it was.

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OkIncrease6030@reddit

It was the first time Wordle has used a word i didn’t know. I know careen and maybe that’s what I’ve always heard when someone said carom.

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prettyprincess91@reddit

If you were British you would know this as it’s a common Indian game. Also if you’re Indian or lived in India I guess. We grow up playing Carom - didn’t know it wasn’t common until reading this.

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Mabbernathy@reddit

I've never heard of the Indian game. Carom to me means something akin to bouncing off.

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Yes, and that is essentially the game. A player slides a "floating" circular piece on a large, flat, square surface. The game appears to require that this piece "carom" off a certain number of sides before striking a target object. It is much like billiards, the version without holes in the table. But instead of using balls, it uses flat discs.

Look it up on YouTube. It is quite an amazing skill game.

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Mabbernathy@reddit

That description reminds me of air hockey!

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Punner1@reddit

The pieces move like that, but I see no air source.

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prettyprincess91@reddit

Air source? You flick the piece.

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Punner1@reddit

The piece floats so nicely, it seems supported on a cushion of air-- like air hockey.

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prettyprincess91@reddit

Don’t know - British colonized India and brought the game to Europe. I grew up playing it in the UK.

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OkIncrease6030@reddit

I’ve lived in the UK for 16 years?

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prettyprincess91@reddit

Then don’t know why you never heard of it? Maybe if you didn’t grow up in the UK? No idea honestly - we grew up playing it and I half grew up in Essex.

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Traditional-Ad-8737@reddit

I just deleted my post after writing this, nearly verbatim. Only I blundered around, got the answer, then had to look it up. Never heard of it before!

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MegaMiles08@reddit

I never heard the word either. My 2nd word was scram, so I had 4 letters with 2 in the right spot. I lucked out and got it in 3, but I had to search the word meaning afterwards.

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Mabbernathy@reddit

I learned from this thread its a game from India. I just know it from baseball.

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NoComb398@reddit

I had no idea even what this word. I was going to use it as an example and even say I forgot the word and meaning already. 😅

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lameuniqueusername@reddit

I know it practically from playing pool. I’ve heard it in my life beforehand but having actually put it into practice made it coalesce fairly easily

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Traditional-Ad-8737@reddit

Hah ha, me too! I did my daily Wordle the other day and blundered into getting it right, then had to look it up

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jazd@reddit

I learnt a new word yesterday "glaucous"

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No-Tomatillo8601@reddit

My new word yesterday was "cantankerous"

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mp85747@reddit

I looove this word ;-), but keep forgetting it! Thanks for reminding me. ;-)

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mp85747@reddit

Never heard of it, either. There was a joke about the colors - that they used to be just colors and not named after fruit, fish, etc. ;-) Of course, the simple colors are just the prime colors...

Nobody knows all words in their native language! When I moved to the US, I was so ambitious that I bought this huge, hard-cover picture dictionary, Oh, don't you think that's a piece of cake for kids! It had pictures of all kinds of machines, ships, etc. with all their gadgets, nook and crannies and things hardly anybody outside of these professions knows or will ever need! Naturally, I never really used it.

There was something else funny. I had studied English seriously before moving and had passed TOEFL with nearly perfect result, so, at the time, I knew quite a few fancy words, which I tried using. Guess what? Native speakers didn't know them, I stopped using them and forgot them... I was also very good at spelling. I say "was" because that certainly changed after the invention of the spell check... The final stretch of project Dumbing Down began...

I only went to a community college in the US, though, so I can't compare my vocabulary to the vocabulary of an educated native speaker. My writing style is not quite like theirs, either. There are plenty of SAT words I don't know, but they're not needed in daily life or at work. I even used to work for a private company in the educational field that had more Ph. D.s per capita than the local U. For quite a few years, I also edited the work of coworkers of mine who were native speakers... I dare say that many ESL people know grammar better than native speakers. Every time I see "they're, there, their" constantly misused or "A womEn", it drives me nuts!

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manborg@reddit

Second. I write for a living and am constantly looking up words.

Mainly to make sure my assumption of a word is actually what it means.

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lameuniqueusername@reddit

Absolutely

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ibitmylip@reddit

same, and I look up words every day

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i-love-freesias@reddit

This. Same here. Like most days. English as my first language.

It’s a really illogical language, native speakers or not.

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Effective-Stress-781@reddit

I'm English, brought up there only speaking English. I look up English words all the time.

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Level-Brain-4786@reddit

no, lost interest in English as a language altogether after 35 years living here. Now I am seeing that my abilities to communicate in English are declining. I guess there is no driver to improve anymore. Getting mildly interested in Spanish or Portuguese though. And brushing up my mother tongue.

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Rich-Strain-1543@reddit

This is normal. As a native English speaker I still look up English words pretty regularly, almost daily. I read a lot, but I still tend to immediately forget the word. I have to look it up a few times before it really sticks, if it's a rare word.

This also happens with other languages I'm fluent in as a non-native, but to a greater degree. (Takes more exposures to memorize it, more likely to confuse it for a similar word, etc). I think everyone is like that. As we get older it seems to get a little harder as well. It's normal, don't beat yourself up over it.

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Veenkoira00@reddit

I still look up words after 40 years. You are never too old to learn !

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zmaauu@reddit

maybe you're just getting old

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enamoured_artichoke@reddit

I’ve lived in the USA my entire life, many decades, and still look up words sometimes.

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duke_igthorns_bulge@reddit

My husband has been here so long he speaks with no detectable accent, but he still looks words up and will ask me for words and definitions.

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tickled_your_pickle@reddit

I learned English and French very close together, I still look up words in both languages and I'm almost 44. I write them down when I remember to (or screenshot the entry to go through later)

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Tr1ppymind@reddit

This randomly popped up on my feed

But I also do this in my mother tongue, because I want to make sure I say something correctly

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shrlzi@reddit

I still look up words after almost 79 years, born in USA

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LadyBulldog7@reddit

When I was learning French, I got to the point where I looked up words, and the English translations were words I never heard of.

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theoutsideinternist@reddit

Thankful that I’m not the only one. I read books in other languages and on my Ereader I have the preloaded translation dictionaries, frequently I find words that are primarily used only in literature in the native language and look them up only to realize I also don’t know the English word.

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Deleted_dwarf@reddit

As a native English speaker who also speaks other languages throughout the day even I have to sometimes google a word in English because I forgot how it is called ( but do know in German for example).

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mp85747@reddit

I know that feeling... I vividly remember trying pants on with some boots and I thought my feet looked like hoofs. It took quite a few minutes to remember the word in my native language. I didn't talk with relatives and friends about hoofs after all! ;-)

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F-sylvatica-purpurea@reddit

English is a language with a simple grammar and complex idiom/vocabulary. The number of words is astounding. Change one single letter and the meaning is totally different.

It can be fun to read up on the history of the English language, maybe understanding these specific traits and comparing them to the traits of your first language helps in accepting the need tot look up words?

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mp85747@reddit

I think everybody's passive vocabulary is much larger than the active one. You also figure the meaning of words in context and promptly forget them, if not used.

As far as the number of words, nothing wrong with a rich language, nuance and precision, but does anybody need THAT many words, for Pete's sake?! ;-)

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Saffron_Butter@reddit

Yup. For me it's the word gossamer. Don't ask me what it means. I've probably looked it up 10+ times. Still don't know and am very comfortable with this fact. Cheers!

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mp85747@reddit

I was curious and looked it up for both of us, so maybe you'll remember now! ;-)

a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders, seen especially in autumn

Gossamer (fabric), very light, sheer, gauze-like fabric

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Altruistic_Dig_2873@reddit

Very few words that you don't use regularly are going to stick in your brain and sometimes there are words, even as a native speaker, you don't remember.

I worked with a French man who one day was looking out the window and asked me what was the name for what we could see, it was a rainbow. He had such good English it was just a word he couldn't think of so he asked me.

There is a word for the smell of earth after rain that a Polish coworker asked was there a word for and none of the other 9 native speaker people in the office knew that there was, so 10 people learned that it was petrichor and I'd bet the Polish one is the only one to remember 5 years on

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mp85747@reddit

But even if you remember that "petrichor" word and use it, you'll just get "Huh? Say that again!"! -)

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Anxious-Slip-4701@reddit

Petrichor. Now I know. I just heard a very bright person just call it ozone.

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NoComb398@reddit

Well sometimes it is Ozone. Sometimes it's the smell of the wet earth. https://www.oxidationtech.com/blog/causes-smell-rains/

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Anxious-Slip-4701@reddit

Thanking you kindly!

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Spellflower@reddit

I’m another native English speaker in an English speaking country and I also do this routinely.

English has no academy to police it, so it readily invents and absorbs words from other languages. Some estimates put the number of English words at 1,000,000, ten times as many as French. But a lot of English words are not commonly used, so even native speakers may not have encountered them frequently enough to remember their meanings.

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mp85747@reddit

I've always thought English has waaayy too many words! :-) Nuance and precision are good, but c'mon!

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defixiones@reddit

You can usually place a word based on its Greek or Roman root if it's not a loanword.

It helps to know some of the Romance languages too.

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Chuhaimaster@reddit

It’s completely normal and generally happens with low frequency or highly specialized vocabulary you don’t see or use that often.

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notbambi@reddit

Buddy, I'm a native speaker with multiple degrees and I still look up words.

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ssinff@reddit

I do this and I am a native English speaker. Dictionaries don't exist only for language learners!

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Suvigirl@reddit

I'm a native English speaker and I look up words when I don't know the meaning. Surely you do this in your native language?

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Human-Warning-1840@reddit

Once in a blue moon

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enjoyyourlife247@reddit

50 years!

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Embarrassed-Ant-1416@reddit

My mom lived in America for 30 years and I’m still explaining words to her

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deshi_mi@reddit

27 years in an English-speaking country. Yes, I do.

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prettyprincess91@reddit

I’m a native English speaker, American by birth and live in the UK and look up English words. This is normal.

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danja@reddit

Native English (UK). I'm always having to look things up. More often than not it's a word I've encountered before, looked up, forgotten.

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ultimomono@reddit

Passive knowledge vs. active knowledge. Reading a lot so you encounter words in different contexts helps. Words you put into practice and use in conversation stick in a deeper way. Writing a text with words you have learned that has some sort of narrative also encodes the word differently in your memory

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soupy2112@reddit

Like a few others have said, I too am a native speaker, and I still look up words. English is weird for a variety of reasons, but focusing on some pertinent points: it has a huge lexicon, varied origins (Anglo Saxon, French, and old native Celtic from the British islands), and, possibly most important: it absorbs words from other languages really well. As an example, straight up foreign words like “schadenfreude” just get accepted into the language without skipping a beat. All of this makes English unique, and, frankly, inconsistent in terms of spelling patterns and syntax.

I like the English language. But I am very grateful I didn’t have to learn it as a second language, my respect goes out to all those trying to learn it.

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WizeDiceSlinger@reddit

Busiuness… busness buisniess business

Tough though through

Beutiful beautiful

So many. If I come across a word I don’t know the exact spelling of, I start writhing it in the navigation bar on my browser and it helps me.

Not a native speaker, but have dealings with it on a daily basis.

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tikigal@reddit

68 y.o. native English speaker, only a BA degree buy well read. I look up words all the time. English has a LOT of words and has incorporated a lot of words from other languages.

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badlydrawngalgo@reddit

I've spoken English 90% of the time since I was 7, I'm now 68. It may as well be my first language. I still look things up, it's a sign of an inquisitive mind and a need to grow.

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WadeDRubicon@reddit

This is normal for life as a native speaker. I looked up well over 100 words last year, and those were just for meaning (I know I checked spelling of a bunch of others).

English, especially, just has more words than a lot of other languages. Nobody can keep up with all of them all the time!

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Athingwithfeathers2@reddit

I have to look up words frequently. There are a lot of irregular verbs and words imported from other languages. Sometimes I just forget how a word is spelled.

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MajesticTomatillo@reddit

lol I still do as a native English speaker—usually just when they come up while reading or when I want to use one I don’t often use just to be sure

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PaulusDeBoskaboutert@reddit

English counts over a million words… no one knows them all 😅

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ibitmylip@reddit

i’m a native english speaker and I look up english words all the time, every day.

i use an app called Readwise that I save the words to, and it has a widget on my iPhone that refreshes itself several times a day. it helps me learn.

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lameuniqueusername@reddit

Nearly every day. Wikipedia and an encyclopedia are always easily found on my phone

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wordswordswords@reddit

As many have said, I am a native English speaker and do this constantly. Daily. And to address your second point, I frequently forget the meaning of these words. There are some words, that when I encounter them, I can even remember that I have looked them up several times before and I still can’t remember the meaning! Also, I work in tech with native English speakers from many countries and we weekly discuss the slightly different meanings and usages in these different regional versions of English.

Also, I work with many non-native speakers who ask me about word definition or usage. Frequently I struggle to answer and I realize they have asked me about something I do not understand as a native speaker. I really enjoy this because it makes me think about the language in a new way.

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