. My vocabulary is fairly large. I taught myself to read at quite a young age. Was into looking at encyclopaedias before I was school age. Like this person I can use words correctly in a sentence, but if asked to define a word I’m not so good. Some of it may be due,in my case, to overthinking-to wanting to give a 'perfect definition.
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I always do this too
No idea how it works like that
Sometimes people or even I have to look some up on phones
Very strange thing!
Guess it’s knowing words contextually in a language
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All the time. I always preface it when I am saying a word I am not sure about with " I’m not sure how to pronouce this"
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^ That a good way of doing it. I’ve thought it was just another weird ‘firemonkey type’ thing.
Nah, it isn’t just you.
I usually have at least a vague idea of what many of the words I use mean. I used to think that “arcane” meant “so specialized that it didn’t circulate much”, but I think it really means “so old that it doesn’t get used much”. I think that’s it. You can score high on standardized vocabulary tests having just a vague idea of what some words mean. There is so much process of elimination in those tests. That works for math, too, because if you can eliminate two answers you know are wrong you have a fifty/fifty chance of answering the question right.
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Arcane words are words that you’re more likely to come across if you’ve had a college/university education.
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English is my third language so I still need to look up fairly common words such as disheveled or automaton. In my native tongue I was fairly good with words as a child / teen, even if not exactly talkative. As an adult I’ve lost the upper hand to people who weren’t as precocious as me but kept at it for a longer time.
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It’s the same for me. I think I use words correctly but I usually don’t know the definitions of the words I use.
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