Today I’d like to sum up our series on vocabulary learning, by providing you with some useful tips to learning vocabulary:
1. Come join the (word) family
Use your knowledge of word grammar to enlarge your working vocabulary.
Knowledge of the different parts of speech and the suffixes that are used to create them will have you boosting up your word bank.
For example, if you encounter the word evasive and look it up in the dictionary, you can benefit from the opportunity and look up its derivatives (other parts of speech and related words from the same root, comprising its “word family”), thus resulting in the following word set:
evasion – noun evade – verb evasive – adjective evasively – adverb
2. The put-it-in-the-sentence routine
If you need to remember a word like reluctant and cannot come up with a crazy story, why not invent a crazy sentence? You can even think of a sentence in your native language and simply stick reluctant in it where it fits you.
Let’s see, what about:
“My aunt Stella made her famous cheese cake and made me taste it forgetting I am lactose intolerant. I was completely reluctant to cooperate due to my lactose issue.”
We will leave it to you to come up with sentences in your native tongue.
Try to create something funny and light-headed and it will do the job!
3. Group it up with theme-related vocabulary
Another great way to pick up more vocabulary is using themed vocabulary resources, especially for basic concrete concepts, such as “colors,” “the human body,” “vegetables,” “farm animals,” “kitchen activities,” or “at the bank.” These are usually presented accompanied by a big illustrative picture visualizing all the word items.
When it comes to more abstract themes, such as “values” or “crime and punishment”, you can find specially written texts that include many related words and expressions, followed by vocabulary activities.
Again, it is the context of the larger picture that is the main channel helping your word memory.
4. Listen to the sound!
Music is a great way for learning new vocabulary.
You may be having a hard time reading an article from the New York Times’ Literary supplement, but you will memorize and understand every word from Bob Dylan or Britney Spears (depending on your musical inclinations) in no time, because you love the music. This is why using song lyrics, movies, TV series etc. is very much conducive to English learning.
Another thing you can do to help you memorize specific word lists is to record them on an audio file, or better yet, re-listen to the texts from which you extracted the words in the first place.. Some scientists say that you can even listen and learn while you sleep; I listen to my language learning audio CDs while doing the dishes…
5. Give me a visual!
The sense of sight uses up to a third of the brain, therefore making visualizing a prime channel to aid us in remembering words.
Some people are very visual and relish on anything that stimulates their eyes.
Therefore, the following may help:
1. Big signs with target words hung around your house to be encountered at all times, with optional related pictures.
2. Small stickers on objects around the house will help you associate word and image.
3. Visual dictionaries are great, as mentioned before, together with English learning software with online vocabulary games.
1. Come join the (word) family
Use your knowledge of word grammar to enlarge your working vocabulary.
Knowledge of the different parts of speech and the suffixes that are used to create them will have you boosting up your word bank.
For example, if you encounter the word evasive and look it up in the dictionary, you can benefit from the opportunity and look up its derivatives (other parts of speech and related words from the same root, comprising its “word family”), thus resulting in the following word set:
evasion – noun evade – verb evasive – adjective evasively – adverb
2. The put-it-in-the-sentence routine
If you need to remember a word like reluctant and cannot come up with a crazy story, why not invent a crazy sentence? You can even think of a sentence in your native language and simply stick reluctant in it where it fits you.
Let’s see, what about:
“My aunt Stella made her famous cheese cake and made me taste it forgetting I am lactose intolerant. I was completely reluctant to cooperate due to my lactose issue.”
We will leave it to you to come up with sentences in your native tongue.
Try to create something funny and light-headed and it will do the job!
3. Group it up with theme-related vocabulary
Another great way to pick up more vocabulary is using themed vocabulary resources, especially for basic concrete concepts, such as “colors,” “the human body,” “vegetables,” “farm animals,” “kitchen activities,” or “at the bank.” These are usually presented accompanied by a big illustrative picture visualizing all the word items.
When it comes to more abstract themes, such as “values” or “crime and punishment”, you can find specially written texts that include many related words and expressions, followed by vocabulary activities.
Again, it is the context of the larger picture that is the main channel helping your word memory.
4. Listen to the sound!
Music is a great way for learning new vocabulary.
You may be having a hard time reading an article from the New York Times’ Literary supplement, but you will memorize and understand every word from Bob Dylan or Britney Spears (depending on your musical inclinations) in no time, because you love the music. This is why using song lyrics, movies, TV series etc. is very much conducive to English learning.
Another thing you can do to help you memorize specific word lists is to record them on an audio file, or better yet, re-listen to the texts from which you extracted the words in the first place.. Some scientists say that you can even listen and learn while you sleep; I listen to my language learning audio CDs while doing the dishes…
5. Give me a visual!
The sense of sight uses up to a third of the brain, therefore making visualizing a prime channel to aid us in remembering words.
Some people are very visual and relish on anything that stimulates their eyes.
Therefore, the following may help:
1. Big signs with target words hung around your house to be encountered at all times, with optional related pictures.
2. Small stickers on objects around the house will help you associate word and image.
3. Visual dictionaries are great, as mentioned before, together with English learning software with online vocabulary games.
