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7 Sure-Fire Strategies to Improve Your Vocabulary

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Written by Janet91   
Monday, 27 February 2017 05:39

Are you looking for tips to improve your vocabulary? Whether you are learning a new language or a native of the language, what’s the point of improving your knowledge and use of words? The truth is, improving your vocabulary will improve your communication skills. You will be able to speak and write more clearly and concisely and people will be able to understand you more easily.  Besides, learning new words is a fun activity that is cheap and you can do with people around you. How should we go about learning new words? The following are seven vocabulary building strategies, that will help you improve your vocabulary.

1. Make Your Dictionary a Friends

When it comes to an important tool that we rarely ever use – dictionary is among them. However, it is a very indispensable resource that we can use to improve our vocabulary. When you look up the meaning of a word, you not only looking up the precise meaning, but also the spelling, pronunciation, alternative definitions and how you can use it in a sentence. A Thesaurus helps you find the connection between words; i.e. synonym and antonym.

Here are the dictionaries to use:

  • Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
  • The Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus

There are several online dictionaries that you can use, and they include:

  • Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
  • One Look
  • Think map Visual Thesaurus


2. Read, Read and Read

Whether it is familiarizing yourself with tenses or just scheming for new words, Reading is the most effective way to learn new vocabulary. Reading exposes you to the same vocabulary, how words are used in a context. There are lots of reading material that you can use; ranging from novels, magazines to newspapers. As you read, try to look up new words from a dictionary to derive their meaning from the context of the sentence. Pay close attention to words you don’t know, highlight them and look them up later. If you keep on looking for word definitions in the middle of your reading, you will fail to appreciate the literary work.

3. Find The Right Word and Use It

Do not consider a word in your vocabulary use if you just look it up in the dictionary and later forget it. After learning, start using it right away. When you learn a new word and frequently use it, you commit the new word to memory and this way, it will be harder for you to forget it. The best way to keep these words in your memory is by:

  • Saying them out loud repetitively
  • Write them down and create sentences in different contexts with these words.
  • Discuss the words with your friends and bring them up in sentences.
  • Write it on a flashcard and practice it in traffic or while waiting in line.


4. Learn A New Word Every Day

If you want to improve your vocabulary, then at least you have to show some commitment. When you learn a new word every day, you will soon come up with a vocabulary of words that are related and add up easily. What makes this strategy stand out, is that they can be used by anyone, no matter their position in life. There are many websites that offer free services as a mastergrades.com. What’s better is that they are delivered by email, RSS feeds, and even text messages to your phone. They include:

  • Merriam-Webster’s Online Word of the Day
  • Dictionary Word of the Day
  • Word Smart Word cast


5. Play and Have Fun

Word games are a fun and effortless way to improve your vocabulary, memory, increase the recall speed of already known the vocabulary and pick up occasional new words and new meanings from your peers. Examples include; crossword puzzles, anagrams, word jumble, Scrabble, Boggle, and Quiddler. In addition, you don’t have to spend money to purchase games. You can create your own games. You write down words, the person who picks it up has to define it and others come up with a sentence using the said word.

There are numerous games on the internet that you can try out as an individual. They include:

  • Merriam Webster’s Daily Word Game
  • Merriam Webster’s Daily Crossword
  • Word Games on Yahoo Games.


6. Maintain Your Personal Vocab

A personal lexicon is a list of words that you have already learned. By having a personal lexicon, you will have a handy reference to review words that you have already learned later on. Once you learn a new word, you will need to refresh your memory about it, once in a while. This is where the lexicon comes in. Writing words also enable you to commit it to your personal memory. One way of doing this is to write the original sentence down in your lexicon. Then you write down other sentences using the same word.

There are several ways to keep your personal list and they include; writing in a notebook, using flashcards, concept map or using a computer spreadsheet.

7. Make It a Permanent Habit

To make learning new vocabulary a permanent habit, you need to make the process personal and emotional. We have all experienced how difficult it is to forget something that touched your heart. You have probably heard stories of car crash survivors who can remember every little detail about the accident but cannot remember some parts of their life prior to the accident.

Rather than settling for boring sentences that have no meaning, you can reform the sentence to include something personal to you. Instead of saying, the photo, you can say, my wife’s photo. This enables you to have a visual vocabulary in your mind, be emotionally impactful and relatable to the word.

When you learn to appreciate the language, you will learn more about it. In your free time, learn the roots of the language. For example, English has Greek and Latin roots. Remember, the key is practice and commitment. One new word a day equals a hundred new words in a hundred days.

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