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The Joy Luck Club: American Translation

In this international bestseller, four Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters try to understand each other.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Feathers from a Thousand Li Away, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, American Translation, Queen Mother of the Western Skies
15 words 1896 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

  1. vehemence
    the property of being wild or turbulent
    Their faces were covered with every kind of misery I could imagine: pits and pustules, cracks and bumps, and fissures that I was sure erupted with the same vehemence as snails writhing in a bed of salt.
  2. prodigal
    recklessly wasteful
    I began to leave more rice in my bowl. And then I extended my prodigal ways beyond Chinese food. I did not finish my creamed corn, broccoli, Rice Krispies, or peanut butter sandwiches.
  3. lethargy
    inactivity; showing an unusual lack of energy
    Problems this year were first noticed when the boy developed motor coordination problems and mental lethargy which increased until he fell into a coma.
  4. avant-garde
    radically new or original
    I told him how he should do more avant-garde thematic restaurant design, to differentiate himself from the other firms.
  5. procure
    get by special effort
    At Livotny & Associates, I procure the theme elements.
  6. pristine
    completely free from dirt or contamination
    And so I watched her, seeing her reaction to the changes in my apartment—from the pristine habitat I maintained after the divorce, when all of a sudden I had too much time to keep my life in order—to this present chaos, a home full of life and love.
  7. mundane
    found in the ordinary course of events
    And even if I recognized her strategy, her sneak attack, I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfections.
  8. apathetic
    marked by a lack of interest
    My feelings for Marvin never reached the level of hate. No, it was worse in a way. It went from disappointment to contempt to apathetic boredom.
  9. inviolable
    immune to attack; incapable of being tampered with
    From the very moment she flung her fist away from her mouth to cry, I knew my feelings for her were inviolable.
  10. innuendo
    an indirect and usually malicious implication
    Because I knew my feelings for him were vulnerable to being felled by my mother’s suspicions, passing remarks, and innuendos.
  11. sully
    place under suspicion or cast doubt upon
    I’d never known love so pure, and I was afraid that it would become sullied by my mother.
  12. acquiesce
    agree or express agreement
    I had wished her out of my life, and she had acquiesced, floating out of her body to escape my terrible hatred.
  13. covenant
    a signed written agreement between two or more parties
    It’s as though we were all sworn to the same secret covenant, so secret we don’t even know what we belong to.
  14. pretext
    a fictitious reason that conceals the real reason
    Two years ago, she had tried to evict them on the pretext that relatives from China were coming to live there.
  15. chastise
    scold or criticize severely
    I waited for her to chastise me.
Created on Mon Jun 17 15:34:58 EDT 2013 (updated Mon Aug 04 13:43:49 EDT 2025)

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