How to Improve Verbal Ability

ysk1
Thu, 21 Jun 2007 15:04:14 +0000

Hello.

I decided to commit myself to two-hour daily reading to improve my verbal ability in general.
My first choice novel was Great Gatsby.
I set out to read for an hour, but ridiculously, I spent the whole hour reading only two pages.
The main reason of this would be that there were some weird phrases and sentences like “…the victim of not a few veteran bores”, and “…it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men”. Trying to figure out what they mean slows down my reading speed a lot.
I understand all the vocabularies and grammar making up the phrases and sentences, but I just can’t figure out what they mean as a whole.

I considered just skipping those weirdos and moving on, but I got worried that if I don’t get those phrases, then I’ll have trouble understanding what comes later in the novel. My assumption is that every single thing, no matter how small, builds up to the overall story, and that missing any part of them will adversly affect understanding the novel. What should I do to be able to understand those kinds of weird phrases? I’m guessing the novel has more of those phrases as the novel proceeds. What should I do? I’m really frustrated.

Thanks.