Improve Your Vocabulary

A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person’s language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the largest challenges in learning a second language.

Vocabulary represents one of most important skills necessary for teaching and learning a foreign or a second language. It is the basis for the development of all the other skills: reading comprehension, listening comprehension, speaking, writing, spelling and pronunciation.

When learning a new language, your focal point should always lean more toward finding new ways to improve your vocabulary rather than grammar. Given today’s global presence of the English language, this is fairly easy to do.

Regardless of whether you are studying English at school, enjoying your vacations or you’re not even a student, at all, these methods are a guideline to help you in improving your vocabulary.

Keep a dictionary handy:

Each new word you learn is to be documented in a separate notebook; write the word, look up and write the meaning of the new word and also see & write its use in a sentence. This is actually one of the most efficient ways to learn new vocabulary and track your overall progress.

You can look up the meaning of the word and also look up the right way of pronunciation of the new word on the Internet. Buy a new notebook or you can create a new memo on your phone where you will regularly update a word list of all the new English vocabulary you will be mastering.

Repeat, repeat, repeat

It is said that repetition is the mother of learning. It is – plain and simple. The way the human brain works is it actually utilizes repetition patterns to strengthen the meaning and use of everything new that we learn.

While it is crucial that you constantly learn new vocabulary, it is necessary that you revise each and every new word to make the most out of your learning experience and make it as a habit.

Make each new word meaningful

Research has shown that our brain understands new verbal concepts better when they are linked to an image or another concept.

For example, if you learn the word “temperament”, you may link its meaning to “temperature” to memorize it easier, and more importantly, you will be able to recall its meaning based on that connection at any given time.

The concepts you connect don’t have to be related in any way as long as they help you memorize new vocabulary.

Read

This one needs little to no explanation. Reading, in combination with a dictionary (online of physical dictionary), is one of the best ways to come across new vocabulary.

Try to read as many different reading materials as possible, e.g. books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, journals, etc to be able to find a variety of new vocabulary.

Make observations

Once you have a specific amount of words in your vocabulary list, try to look at the world around you to find examples of their usage, e.g. in songs, movies, newspapers, etc.

This is highly beneficial because you can observe the context this new vocabulary is being used in. Knowing when and how vocabulary is used is actually more important than just knowing its meaning.

Make use of games and apps

This is probably the most often used method of learning new vocabulary and mastering new languages among the learners of today. Most language learning apps, such as Duolingo, Memrise or QuizUp are vocabulary-centric and utilize repetition and behavioural patterns to help your learning process and maximize your time and effort.

Playing board games such as Scrabble and solving Crosswords helps do the trick, as well.

Actively use what you learn

Don’t limit your practice of new words to mere app usage and simple repetition to check what you know. Your true mastery shines when you are able to use new vocabulary in a real-life setting.

Engage in conversations. While doing so, try to include those new words where appropriate as a sign of confidence and for additional practice.

Stay motivated

This is actually the backbone of learning anything new, especially when it comes to languages. We are talking about motivation. In order for you to improve your vocabulary as much as you can, you need to cultivate the curiosity to learn new words every day.

It’s the inner motivation that can fast track your progress and get you way past your goals at any given day.

Set goals

The last one on the list is something most learners fail at; leading them to either lose the motivation to learn new words or even quit the learning process in its entirety. To avoid doing so, set a particular new word count as your daily or monthly goal.

Rather start small and increase your word count as you improve. Say you start with 5 new words a day and slowly but steadily increase the numbers of new word. Increase from 5 to 10 new words a day after a month and so on.