Inferring+Meaning-Van+Hoose

I'm a perfectionist in many ways. I hate being told I'm wrong and I hate feeling stupid. In conversations, I hate not knowing a word, but even more so I hate admitting I don't know it. I try to read their body language to determine if a nod or a disagreement is needed. Perhaps it's more of an empathetic gesture I need. I'll listen to the other words and try to infer the meaning. If other people are listening to, I'll watch them to see how they react to the situation and mimic them in hopes that it'll be the right response. Sometimes it backfires and I'm stuck in a more embarrassing situation, such as agreeing that I hate changing the spark plugs on my car when I don't even know what they are and people are asking me how to do it. If I'm really comfortable with the people I'm talking to, I might just ask them right away what the word means because I am also usually very curious by nature. Sometimes this curiosity outweighs by fear of looking dumb.
 * 6. What do you really do when you don't know a word in reading or conversation?**

With books, I do the same thing for the most part. I use context clues to assume the meaning of the unknown words and plow along with my invented definition. If it turns into a train wreck, I back peddle and look more thoroughly at the context for missed clues. Rarely, I'll look up the word. I tend to find that a word missed here and there isn't the most dire thing in the world. More often, it's the larger picture that helps move the book along, so it really depends on how imperative the word I don't understand is. I think my background with foreign language helps with that though. It's impossible to translate every word you do not know. Instead, you have to really just infer the meaning and continue on to see if that meaning makes sense. If not, you try again until you figure it out.

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