Outstanding success, more often that not, comes with a deep understanding and extensive knowledge of the exact meanings of English words, especially in this country. Vocabulary is defined as the set of words one is familiar with in a certain language. A person’s vocabulary grows steadily with given time. A good vocabulary serves as an extremely useful tool for communicating and acquiring knowledge in this modern world.
The specialized set of terms and distinctions which is particularly important to a certain group is known as ‘focal’ vocabulary. Vocabulary or lexicon is a language dictionary; it’s a set of names for events, things and ideas. It is believed by linguists that lexicon used to influence people’s perceptions of things, such as; the Nuer of Sudan has an elaborated vocabulary to describe cattle. The cattle have particular histories, economies and environment. Due to this reason Neur had dozens of names for cattle.
During infancy, increasing your vocabulary doesn’t require any effort. Infants mimic every word they hear, which they associate with actions and objects. This process is called ‘listening’ vocabulary. ‘Speaking’ vocabulary is the next step, which is when the child grows, and the expression of his/her thought requires more than mere gestures or sounds. Mistakes and irregularities of one’s language can come to light by reading and writing, by questioning and through proper education. On an average, a person learns more than 3000 words per year, which is about 8-10 words per day. Vocabulary can be improved by playing word games like scrabble, by reading good books, participating in vocabulary programs etc. A lot of dedication and practice is required to learn a word and be able to use it in its proper context.
So let’s have a look at it one by one:
- There are lots of ways to improve your vocabulary. First of all, it’s important to know your goals to choose the best way in which you want to learn. The best way to improve your vocabulary is by reading. Read lots of good books, newspapers etc.
- Choose the subjects that interest you the most. Write a brief introduction of that subject and try to use as much vocabulary concerning the subject as you can.
- Create a vocabulary tree, put your subject at the center of the paper,and put the principle areas relating to the subject around the central subject such as verbs, where, adjective, descriptive etc. It helps in providing context.
- Once you are done with vocabulary, create a vocabulary theme; include a definition and example sentence for each new item in your vocabulary theme.
- The best way to learn something is to get involved in it completely, so use technology. For this watch television, English movies, shows; get DVDs and watch it, this in the best way to help you understand English.
- Take specific vocabulary words and work on it. E.g. the type of vocabulary related to, school or hobbies, rather than studying a long unrelated vocabulary list.
- Make word formation charts as it is the only keys for advance level of learners. It helps you to prepare for advance English tests such as IELTS, TOEFL etc. the word formation chart provides you the concept of noun, pronoun, adjective and verb forms of key vocabulary words listed in the alphabetical order.
- Create a visual dictionary for yourself as it is said the one picture is worth a thousand words. It helps you to learn precise vocabulary for your use.
- Learn collocations, the words that always go together are referred to as collocations. To do your work, the lists of verb and noun collocations will help you learn some more important words.
You should also use ‘corpus’, it is a huge collection of documents and it can track how many times a word has been used. The best way to learn key vocabulary words is combine the corpora with the vocabulary tree for specific vocabulary goal or target areas.
Related Tags: www how to improve english, how to improve vocabulary skills in english, introduction on how to increase your vocabulary, A persons vocabulary is the set of words that are familiar with in a language, improve vocabulary through collocation, learn collocations, practical ways to increase english vocab steadily, www how many vocabulary per day improve eng
Related Content:
What a great resource!