Ways to build Vocabulary

Learning how to build a improved vocabulary can be a pleasurable and profitable investment of both your time and effort. At least fifteen minutes a day of intense study on a regular basis can bring about a rapid development in your vocabulary skills, which in turn can increase your ability to converse by writing, conversing, or making speeches. Acquiring a large vocabulary can advantage you in school, at work, and socially. It will enable you to understand others"?? ideas improved and to have the satisfaction of getting your thoughts and ideas across more effectively.

Of course, you previously know thousands of words, and you will continue to be taught more whether you work at it or not. The fact is that many of the words you know were probably learned just by coming across them often enough in your reading, in conversation, and even while surveillance television. But increasing the pace of your learning requires a consistent, devoted approach. If you learned only one new word a day for the next three years, you would have over a thousand novel words in your vocabulary. However, if you decided right now to be taught ten new words a day, in one year you would have extra over three thousand to what you already know, and probably have established a lifetime habit of knowledge and self-improvement.

While there are not any the supernatural shortcuts to learning words, the larger your vocabulary becomes, the easier it will be to attach a new word with words you already know, and thus remember its meaning. So your knowledge speed, or pace, should increase as your vocabulary grows. There are four basic ladder to building your vocabulary:

Many people are astonished when they are told they have small vocabularies. "??But I read all the time!"?? they protest. This shows that reading alone may not be sufficient to make you learn new words. When we read a novel, for instance, there is more often than not a strong urge to get on with the story and skip over unfamiliar or perhaps vaguely known words. But while it is obvious when a word is completely unknown to you, you have to be especially aware of words that seem recognizable to you but whose precise meanings you may not really know.

Instead of avoid these words, you will need to take an earlier look at them. First, try to guess at a word"??s connotation from its context-that is, the sense of the passageway in which it appears; second, if you have a lexicon on hand, look up the word"??s meaning immediately. This may slow down your interpretation somewhat, but your improved understanding of each new word will finally speed your learning of other words, making reading easier. Make a daily practice of noting words of attention to you for further study whenever you are reading, listen to the radio, talking to friends, or watching television.