Hello again!
This reading will show you ways of increasing your English vocabulary.
I have a few ideas for you that I will share.
We will start with some simple ideas and look at a few more practical ones.
But before we get into understanding how to build a gigantic vocabulary, allow me to continue to remind you that READING English, WATCHING English videos, and LISTENING to spoken English is not the same as SPEAKING English. Though, each of these (READING, WATCHING, LISTENING, and SPEAKING English) all help to build your English vocabulary. There is a unique study for learning to SPEAK English very well. And, as you may know, I help anyone who wants to SPEAK English just like an American in 30 days. You only need to click here to get started.
Now back to understanding how to build a gigantic English vocabulary.
One of the most important things you can do to increase your vocabulary is to read a lot.
What should you read? Anything and everything. But the most important thing is to read what most interests you. For example, If you like sports, read many sports magazines. If you like movies, read a lot of movie magazines. Even better, read the scripts of the movies. If a movie is from a novel, read the book.
For example, the movie “ Life of Pi” was recently very famous in the theaters and is based on a novel. Read the novel. It’s a pretty good book. My favorite movie “ Shawshank Redemption”, is based on a novel by Stephen King.
Reading is the best way to increase your vocabulary.
Also, don’t just learn new words and try to remember them. Write words a lot. Use the words you’re learning in English spoken conversation every time you read a new word. You should have a notebook, especially for new English words. Practice writing the latest new words in a sentence. But not just in any sentence. Ensure that the sentence clearly shows that you know the word’s meaning.
For example, I know Everybody knows the word ‘beautiful.’ Everybody knows this word. But let’s say it’s a new world for you. Don’t write. “the sky is beautiful”. It doesn’t tell me Anything about the word:
No, Make sure you’re saying something like, “I love to see a beautiful sky with pretty clouds and sunshine and a nice color because it makes me feel happy.” Not the best example. But I’m sure you get my idea. Once again. Have a notebook for new words, always. And don’t limit yourself to one new word.
When you learn a new word, make sure you understand different forms of the same word.
For example, the word ‘beautiful.’ Let’s say this is a new word for you. You learned the word beautiful Put it in your adjective column. It’s an adjective! But why not learn the other forms. For example, what is the adverb form of ‘beautiful’? I think most of you know it. It is ‘beautifully.’ You now have two new words.
What is the noun form of ‘beautiful’? It is ‘beauty.’ You now have three new words in your vocabulary. Isn’t there a verb form of ‘beautiful’? Yes, there is. It is ‘Beautify.’ It means ‘to make beautiful.’ You now have four new words. Think of other words, like ‘beautician.’ A beautician is a person who works to make people more beautiful. A beautician does facials and manicures and pedicures and wax.
Always try to find other forms of your new words. Learn many instead of just one word.
Some people like to study root words, suffixes, and prefixes. Let me explain what a root is. A root word has no prefix or suffix — it’s the essential part of a word. The root word at the heart of “conformity” is “form.” Some people think that that will help them understand all the words with this root. I think most people studying English don’t like to research root words. If it works for you, do it. If it doesn’t, don’t do it. There is another thing you can do to build your vocabulary.
Listen to any spoken English that you can.
I think some of you may have heard of ted.com. It’s a good website. People give talks and lectures about different topics. Watch and Listen carefully Anytime you hear a word that you don’t recognize. Please write it down if you don’t know the spelling, no problem.
Write it phonetically. Write the word just like it sounds. If you have access to a transcript, you have access to all the words spoken. Check the transcript. Find a new word. If you don’t have a transcript, go to a dictionary. Some of you have asked me to recommend a dictionary. Very simple, they’re online. You can get the paper one or the online one.
I’ve got a lot of students who use their electronic dictionaries. These types of dictionaries go from English to Korean English to Japanese English. To Spanish. Please don’t use them anymore! Please use only English dictionaries! This way, you’re learning more words as you’re learning. You will maximize how many words you know by using an English-only dictionary.
Now. About those electronic dictionaries.
When people are trying to write, they will write a sentence in their native language and then press ‘translate” on this dictionary and Get a sentence in English. I’ve seen sentences that I knew came from the electronic dictionary because they made no sense. They were terrible, terrible sentences. The people who made these dictionaries might not have learned English very well. Keep that in mind.
Now, I will tell you what I think are THE BEST ideas to increase your vocabulary.
Let’s look at a couple of other ways to increase your vocabulary. These are very effective, but it takes a lot of patience and perseverance. You have to try hard. You have to keep doing it because vocabulary is not so easy.
First, we’re going to start with playing cards. You get yourself a stack of playing cards. Not too big. Because you’ll want to carry them in your pocket to take them with you everywhere you go! You will write four, maybe five, new words on one side of the cards. You’re going to write sentences on the back of the other side of the card. You will use these words in sentences to have a more evident meaning.
Or you can write the meaning of the word: the dictionary meaning. Both are okay. You’re going to split your cards into three piles. You’ll have a stack of cards of words that you know. Words you’re satisfied that you know. And eventually, you will have a pile of cards of words that you’re very comfortable with and know very well. You don’t need to look at these cards very often.
Before I continue, where do you get these words? Get them from a TOEFL site, an IELTS site, an SAT site, or an SAT book. They have lists of words that you need to learn. Put all these words on your cards. Split them up. You know these words very well. You don’t need to look at words you’re almost sure of, or at least you recognize these words you’ve seen before.
You can guess what some words mean, maybe in context. So if you’re not sure, put them in another pile. This pile you will look at all the time. And in the last pile, you put words that you don’t know. This pile you will look at the most. You will study these words as they become more familiar. You move them to the bank that you are aware of. You also check very regularly. You take this pile with you. Please put them in your pocket and take them with you when you go outside. On the bus, you can look at your words. Longline at the bank? Pull out your cards and look at the words.
When a word becomes very comfortable, you move it over to the more familiar pile and leave it at home. Don’t Know? Almost Sure?
Study. Move. Study. Move.
Put aside. Once in a while, look at the cards to make sure you remember because if you never look at them again, you will forget them. It’s all the time continual. You have to practice practice practice practice. Vocabulary is a lot of memorization. That’s the way it is for now. Here’s another thing you can do.
This is the last one I’ll show you today,
What you do is you make yourself groups of words? You can do it in many ways. You’re going to create groups because maybe you don’t remember words. So, you make another group of words that have similar meanings. Synonyms are words that have similar purposes or a similar function. Okay,
For example, I’m going to look at ‘Increase’ ,’extend’, ,’expand’, ,’accelerate’, ,’intensify’ ,’reinforce’. These words have something in their meaning and have some connection to the word ‘increase.’ ‘Extend’ make longer increase length or time duration expands, increase the size or scope accelerated increase.
Maybe you see the word ‘reinforce’ you’re reading something you see. You’re not exactly sure what the word ‘reinforce’ means, but you remember the group it was in. The group was the ‘increase’ group. So, ‘reinforce’ means ‘increase,’ plus the context of the sentence. You saw that it would help you understand. It means ‘increase’ in strength. Sometimes it could be an increase in number, like the number of soldiers to reinforce the position.
The last group is ‘theme.’ For example, let’s say the theme is technology. So you write words that have to do with technology: ‘obsolete’, ,’state-of-the-art’, ,’update’, ,’downgrade’, ,’cutting-edge’. All these words we can talk about like computer, software or computers.
‘Obsolete’ old, not valid anymore, nobody uses this anymore, Uh Windows, XP, maybe not completely obsolete, but almost outdated. Hardly anybody uses it anymore. .’State-Of-The-Art’ means the newest,’ Cutting-edge,’ the latest, the most modern, the most advanced. You can get updates to make further,’ Downgrade’ to drive less. For example, I have Windows 8. I wouldn’t say I like it. I want to downgrade to Windows 7 but can’t do it. Windows 8. Won’T let me. But anyway. So you have a theme. You have a function.
Learn in chunks.
If you don’t remember one word, you’ll remember the group. It most certainly will help you with building a very big English vocabulary. You will begin to understand every word you’re looking for.
Please leave a comment and let me know if you found this post helpful.
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Talk with you again soon.
