> Reading Shakespeare is like that, just… less so. Grammar, vocabulary, and idioms are all familiar enough that you can understand their meaning with just some

> Reading Shakespeare is like that, just… less so. Grammar, vocabulary, and idioms are all familiar enough that you can understand their meaning with just some helpful glosses I found a version of the Canterbury Tales online that footnoted the lines. No one is going to pretend that Chaucer is comprehensible to modern speakers. But it was very charming to see that it wasn't necessary to indicate which words the footnotes for a line applied to. Enough of the line is obvious that it's clear what difficulty the footnote is helping you with as it explains the meaning of a word. That wouldn't work in a more foreign text.