How should I read books?

Recently I started to watch movies in English with subtitles. What I found out is that its not that hard as I imagined it to be. In fact, there are roughly 20-80 new words per movie. Some of them might even have 10 or less (Resident Evil 2,3), some of them 90 and 160 (Matrix 2 and Ghost Town).

Then I thought, "hey, I am pretty good" :) So I picked up a book called "2001: Space Odyssey" from Arthur C. Clarke. And guess what - there is one new word roughly every second or third sentence. Yes I can understand the meaning without translating most of the words. But the main question is - should I translate and add every new word to supermemo or should I read without translating if I understand the meaning? And only translate those words, that I cant understand even from the context.

ps. in fact I no longer use supermemo. Mnemosyne(freeware) or BetterMemo(not freeware) are way better. I can only recommend them.

pss. I will never watch dubbed movies again, although they are pretty good translated in to german. Dubbed movies sux :P

I had the same problem and my advice is to not bother with Supermemo. When you find a new word look it up (very quick with an online dictionary), write it down once, and then continue. If it is a common word you will meet it often and it will get stuck in your mind, if it is a rare word you will probably forget it but it doesn't matter because you might never see it again. Therefore you will retain the important words and not waste time on rare ones. Even if you wanted to use Supermemo and learn every word, it would ruin the enjoyment entirely.

Yes, it's exactly what's happening. If I look up a word more then once/twice I usually remember it. :)

I will use supermemo method anyway for those words that I encounter frequently. Surely I will not add _any_ word. But supermemo method workds just great - I am able to remember so many words without even learning them :) Its sublime.

Ok I made a rule. If I looked up a word couple of times and still didnt remember it - I add it to supermemo :)

When I sit or lie down to read a novel on paper, I just read it as though it was in my native tongue, so I don't look up words or anything. I read it for the story, that's why I prefer to read stuff below my level, for example I've been reading graded novels until recently, and now I'm still with light material like books for children and teenagers.

I prefer to leave the learning with word list, SRS, dictionaries and so on for when I'm in front of my computer. If I like a book a lot, I might get an electronic version and work with it on the computer, but at the moment I prefer to do so with audio material like TV shows and movies. Sometimes I do work with reading material on the computer, especially blogs, but in this case I don't use Supermemo either, just the dictionary and possibly, word lists.

hi, i'm new in there, and i need to learn english because it's necessary to explain my ideas.

Thank you for telling us Mnemosyne, I am gonna try it.

I have to wonder, if you're reading a Science Fiction novel, how many of the new words are neologisms, technobabble and jargon?

He didn't mean graphic novels but graded novels, the children's books that have a grade level listed on the book to help their parents or teachers know which books are in their reading level.