My English vocabulary is so poor! How to enrich it?

Answer 1

Hi

Let me summarize some of the tools computers/Internet has to offer you to increase your vocab. Definitely you should look other ways as well, but IT is damn powerful and easiest way!

I would suggest you to use web extensively to learn English. These are my few suggestions:

1. Install Fire fox (Internet Browser), install a plug in called Dictionary tool-tip. When you restart your fire fox, Tool-tip will work :-) This will immensely help you to know meanings of words you encounted newly. Just double clicking on any word will pop-up a definition, you can chose any major dictionaries to do this task.

2) Read lot. Especially from the good sources, I suggest you two major sources: BBC English learning page and The New Yorker magazine (Sources provided). BBC have H2G2 community, where you can put a writeup for evaluation. H2G2 is great I tell you!

3) Install Real player. Stream Radio stations, especially NPR and BBC. This might not help you to immensely increase vocab, but definitely your English. If you are using mac, install iTunes, and stream Old time Mystery radio. If you are using Linux (like me, Ubuntu fan ;-) ) install RhythmBox or XMMS.

4) As many already pointed out, Flash cards will be of great use. Go to any book stall, get yourself a set of flash cards (Usually comes in 2000s) and start cramming. If you cant afford it, you can make beautiful Flash cards using FX (look Source) and print it out, cut it neatly.

5) Read a lot! If you are using windows OS, Install Microsoft Reader (Free download from Microsoft). You can make a good digital library of classics. Books need to be in .lit formats. I suggest you to download utorrent, and search in ISO Torrents for .lit books. When ever you see a new word, search in www.dictionary.com and make a flash card. There are many free offline dictionaries (to download) available in internet as well.

6)In yahoo games, play a game called LITERATI. That will help you great, I tell you!

7) Yahoo chat have many rooms in Education section, chat with a native English speaker will definitely help you as well.

8) If you have apple's iPod, there are many podcasts available to help your vocab. My Suggestion is: Away With Words (now known as: On Words) of NPR (I love it). You don't have to have iPod to listen podcasts anyway.

9) Subscribe to Anu Garg's Word of the day, email. A new email will wait for you each day, with a fresh (probably a new word for you, but not a "common" word). There are many word of the day mails like webster, dictionary.com etc but I find wordsmith's the best.

You can add this 'word of the day' in your home page (Google IG via gadgets or Yahoo home page via RSS). I use google/ig by the way ;-)

All the best,

Answer 2

Enrich English Vocabulary

Answer 3

Read!! That's how I enrich my vocabulary in Spanish, by reading all kinds of items in Spanish. It can be magazines, internet pages, books, newspapers, whatever! Keep a list of new words that you've learned in a small notebook and from time to time go back and look them over.

Are you a native English speaker or a person who speaks English as a second language? I'm just curious, because it seems to me that most native speakers don't worry too much about their language usage. Either way, reading will be a big help.
Good luck!

Answer 4

Hi there,
I'm a high school English and ESL teacher.
Read, read, read. Read as much as you can in English. It is important to gradually increase the difficulty of the books. Do no try to read books with too much new vocabulary at first; you will just get frustrated and it will be hard to learn.
You may also be able to find some good on-line vocabulary builders.

Answer 5

Get a dictionary and choose a couple of new words to learn every day. Make sure they're words commonly used in English, not too obscure. Also, anytime you hear a word you don't understand, write it down, even if you can't spell it. You can ask someone later on what it means. You'll be learning the more common English words that way and becoming a better conversationalist. You're on the right track.

Answer 6

I teach English as a Second Language, and this is one of the student's main complaints. If you don't know the words or their meaning, then listening to other people talk is useless. To improve your vocabulary, you need to spend at least an hour a day reading. Look up every word you don't know in a dictionary and then write it down in a notebook. Try to read something where you know 90 percent of the words (otherwise you'll just frustrate yourself if there are too many unknown words). As you build up your vocabulary, try to listen to the pronunciation of the words--any good online dictionary, like the one in the source, will pronounce the words for you. You have to learn BOTH the word and its meaning in your eye-brain AND the sound of the word in your ear-brain. If you have someone you can talk with, try to use the words you learn in conversations. Don't try to learn too many new words a day--one or two only.

Answer 7

A decade ago to learn English, you had to attend costly English classes or purchase course material like tapes and books. Now you can learn English for free from the comfort of your home using the internet. The BBC and the British Council offer a number of online courses which teach written and spoken English. You can also improve your English by watching television programs and reading English newspapers. For more information, visit http://tinyurl.com/qnzpt

Answer 8

Since you have Internet access, (you were able to ask the question), Visit sites that contain information containing words that you would like to add to your vocabulary. There are many sites about history, science, politics, fashion, movies, drama etc.

www.yourdictionary.com has an option that you can sign up for the word of the day. They will email you a new word every day with the definition. The words are sometimes topical to world events.

Answer 9

You can buy an English book with exercises and write them with the vocabulary you know so far.While writing the exercises mark the unknown words and buy a dictionary.You can search for the unknown words and write them down.It is an optional advice.If you want,you can start lessons with experienced teachers which know how to make you learn.

Answer 10

Watch lots of english movies, and read lots of books written in english.