English literature reading tips?

Question

english is my second languge. i have no problem reading science and popular texts but i find it hard to comprhand texts like dickens's , moby dick etc. anyone has an idea how to brush up my vocabulary ?

Answer 1

Nineteenth century writers like Dickens and Melville and so many others have a vocabulary that can be different from a modern lexicon. To understand these writers you'll simply have to be willing to learn words you may never see in a contemporary writing. Melville particularly is full of archaic whaling terminology that you'll never see outside of Moby Dick.
Moreover, older writers go about telling stories in a way that is very different from modern storytelling. Previous writers don't get to their story quickly. They are full of asides, diversions, characters, anecdotes that are only thinly related to the main plot. The nineteenth century reader had plenty of time to kill, and reading a book was a leisurely experience. Movies today usually stick to their plots closely. Today's reader has a short attention span. The modern mind is at odds with the nineteenth century mind.
Your real problem, as a modern reader reading older fiction, is in finding the time to read 800 page novels and enter ring into the consciousness of an older time. You must turn off the TV, pull the buds out of your ear, shut down the cell phone, unhook the computer.
Obviously this is going to take more than "brushing up on your vocabulary." You must want to head in this new direction enough to do it.

Answer 2

Moby Dick is a tough read even for native English readers. Best way to improve you vocabulary is to read the word you don't understand down, look up the meaning, then write a sentence using that word. Also you could figure out a word by its Latin meaning or other ancient meaning.

Answer 3

i grow to be examining a 2-3 books, Fiction and Non-Fiction a week as quickly as I hit college, so including the three further books that have been required at that element grow to be no longer a snap, yet no longer that puzzling. First I had taken a speed examining direction, 2d I took a renewal of that direction and finally I set aside a million-2 hours on a regular basis for examining and the guideline grow to be do no longer disturb me on an identical time as i'm examining.