A Dictionary That Was Too Helpful

While reading for her English class, Renata looked up every unfamiliar word. Her notebook filled with careful translations, but she rarely reached the end of the text. One evening, she spent half an hour on a single paragraph about a community kitchen. She remembered the dictionary better than the story.

The next day, her tutor asked the class to read a short text twice. On the first reading, they could underline unknown words but could not use a dictionary. Renata felt that she was doing the task badly. How could she understand a sentence while leaving pieces of it unclear?

However, several words became easier to guess when she reached the next paragraph. She understood who had opened the kitchen and why volunteers were needed. During the second reading, she selected only four words that still blocked the meaning. Looking them up took much less time than her usual method.

At home, Renata tried the same approach with a new article. She still kept her notebook, but now she added a short summary before the vocabulary list. Some details remained uncertain, and she marked them for class. For once, the final page of her homework contained an ending rather than a long list of words from the beginning.