Vocabulary is the foundation of your English skills. Without a large vocabulary, even the best understanding of English grammar will not allow you to speak English. Memorizing vocabulary may not be your favorite activity, but there are plenty of creative ways to make it more fun. We've prepared some study tips to make learning English vocabulary more fun and you can learn new words.
1. Read the dictionary.
Dictionaries contain most words that you find in daily life. Looking up words in the dictionary that you see or hear will definitely improve vocabulary, all be it slowly. The important thing to remember is to use your new word as soon as you have learned it. If you practice saying, and writing the new words throughout the day, you’ll start to remember it’s meaning and the new vocabulary word becomes a part of your common knowledge. Make yourself comfortable with the new word and keep repeating it in different areas of your life when talking to people. Using the new word in emails, blog posts, or other forms of writing will also cement the new word into the memory bank. Expanding your vocabulary will always be improved by regularly diving into the dictionary and reading entries for words you aren't yet familiar with.
2. Read more.
Read quality Newspapers, well written magazines, essays, and Online materials everyday. If you come across a word whose meaning is unknown to you, underline it and look up the word in the dictionary. Try using the new words you have learned in your daily conversation. Make it a habit. Start with a page a day, and in a while, your vocabulary will be expanded.
Also try to read at least one book and several magazines every week. Not just this week and the next week, but every week for a long time. As well as improving your vocabulary, you'll also keep updated and backdated, your general knowledge will increase, and you'll be a well-rounded person who knows a lot more than many other people do.
3. Write more.
The more you write, the more your vocabulary increases as you're forced into a position of expanding your word usage to convey precisely what it is that you wish to get across to the reader. When writing, aim to replace commonly used words with less used and more descriptive and interesting words; get out the thesaurus and use more challenging words. Doing this can improve your fiction, biographical, and some forms of work writing a great deal. Most material written for public dissemination aims to avoid the use of words that the average reader would not know. Keep this in mind when flexing your new vocabulary; you'll still need to keep your plain English in good usage for everyday writing, especially in most work environments.
4. Open your mind to new ideas.
Every word you see is the translation of new idea. Think about the areas of human knowledge that may possibly be unknown to you - psychology, semantics, anthropology, science, art, music, management, etc. Then, attack one of these areas methodically, by reading books on that particular subject. In every field, from the simplest to the most abstruse, there are several books for the average, untrained lay reader, right through to those for experts in the field. Push yourself with the reading as far as you can, to expose yourself to new ways of using the vocabulary and forming ideas; doing this will give you both a good grasp of the subject and, at the same time, add new vocabularies to your existing knowledge.
5. Add the new words you meet in your reading
When you see an unfamiliar word in a book, magazine, manual, etc., do not skip over it impatiently. Instead, pause for a moment and say it to yourself. Get used to its sound and its appearance. At first, try to puzzle out its possible meaning in the context of the sentence. Whether you come to the right conclusion or not, whether indeed you're even able to come to any intelligent conclusion at all is of no importance. What is important is that, by that process, you're becoming super conscious of the new word. As a result, you will suddenly notice that this very word pops up unexpectedly again and again in all sorts of places. For now your mind has been alerted to notice it. Once you've tried this exercise, look it up in the dictionary and confirm its meaning.
6. Become actively receptive to new words.
Every time you read, there are opportunities to increase your vocabulary. Don't ignore these opportunities. Many of us tend to skip unknown words and gain general understandings of phrases or paragraphs from their overall context. If you're used to doing this, it may require additional effort to remember to note down the unknown words. Train yourself to be invariably aware when reading and listening to others, and remember the words that are not known to you. Look them up later in a dictionary. Consider keeping a small notebook with you and quickly jot down unknown words as you come across them for checking later. If you hear or see a word you don't know, be sure to look it up.
Let new words percolate in your mind. Learn the meanings and then add them into everyday speech as regularly as possible.
7. Do word puzzles and play word games.
Word puzzles are an excellent source of increasing your word knowledge because the puzzle creators will often need to resort to an array of unusual words to ensure that the words fit into their puzzles and that they are interesting for the puzzle doer. There are many varieties of vocabulary puzzles, including crosswords, find-a-word and hidden word puzzles. As well as strengthening your word knowledge, puzzles are also good for improving your critical thinking skills. For word games, try such games as Scrabble, Boggle, and Cranium to extend your vocabulary.
8. Set a goal.
Set your self a goal of finding and remembering several new words every day. While this may sound ambitious, you will discover as soon as you start actively looking for new words in your reading, and actively doing reading of a more challenging type, that new words are all around you and that this is an exciting goal to fulfill. And understand this – vocabulary building snowballs. The results of each new day search will be greater and greater.
Make looking up 10 words in the dictionary a day a habit. Once that gets real simple start looking up 20,30, 40, etc.
9. Use the new words that you met into a sentences.
If you learn some new words,do not hesitate. Talk to whoever you can and implement those words in sentences. Decide among your circle of friends that you will only talk in English with each other. This way you can get rid of hesitation and also have your friends correct you when you are wrong.