@Adam How do you absorb vocab? There's a case for not bothering: look up an unknown word and pick out the definition, out of any number, that fits that translation. Some meanings conferred upon words by the great Roman writers are not listed; or, they're cryptically related to a listed def. Then, the student has to play detective...It's all part of the fun!

@JoonasIlmavirta What do you think about this one: Sallust Bellum Iugurthinum 113.3: "in colloquium uti de pace veniretur,"? The contemporary translation is, "for holding the peace conference". Literally, "for a conference would be convened to practise concerning peace,"; this, sounds awful, in English. The problem was passive imperfect subjunctive, "veniretur": "venio" can mean "arrive"; but, not usually, "convene". The passive nature made it more difficult. A case of dictionaries being of little use.

@tony In context of whatever I'm reading. I don't try to memorize every single meaning of a word all at once.

For myself, I'm trying to learn words and usage as though I'm just expanding my own native language, so if I see a word I don't know I learn it like I would any English word. It gets a primary meaning I learn first, and as I read more and see it used with other meanings then I gradually have a fully conception of the various meanings.

That's just how I roll, though.

@tony Sorry, I don't see how dictionaries are useless with that one.

Parsing that little bit depends on the context, and the context uses a construction that English doesn't. Trying to translate a small constituent of such a sentence literally is not a good idea.

The meanings of "arrive" and "convene" are the same in that context as far as I can tell.

> Postea tempore et loco constituto, in conloquium uti de pace veniretur, Bocchus Sullam modo, modo Iugurthae legatum appellare, benigne habere, idem ambobus polliceri.