English Vocabulary?

Question

Dear All,

I kindly request if any one can suggest how to improve my English Vocabulary and new words.I would be very thankful for help and suggestion
Rock

Answer 1

Hi Rock,

An excellent way to improve your vocaublary is to read books and play word games. I have been playing online Scrabble at Scrabulous - http://www.scrabulous.com - for about 2 months now.

My vocabulary has improved IMMENSELY and I know many many words that I had no idea even existed! You can observe Scrabble games at Scrabulous and pick up words very quickly.

Answer 2

A few suggestions:

1) Buy and Oxford English Dictionary. This is the creme of the dictionaries, as it provides both "British" and "American" English terms and spellings.

2) By a drylighter (highlighter designed for thinner paper) and begin highlighting words you don't understand/want to explore further in anything you read. Look them up in the Oxford and on the Web.

3) Register with a "word of the day" site which will email you a new word to learn every day. Yahoo also provides this if you use the "My Yahoo" feature. Simply add it to your "My Yahoo" page.

Finally, always be aware of the words around you; be they spoken or written. If you don't understand them fully, make a note, and look them up. Never be ashamed to ask; most people are flattered by the chance to share their knowledge and help you to understand their language. By making expanding your vocabulary an active quest, you will quickly do so.

Answer 3

All of the answers above will help, but only to a marginal degree.

I read, and when I encounter a word that I do not recognize or know the meaning of, I first try to crack it using my knowledge of Latin, or if it seems Germanic, German. However, if I cannot figure it out that way, I will resort to a dictionary. Since I buy and keep all the books that I read, I write the definition of that word in the margin next to the sentence where it is used.

I basically have a photographic memory and if I see the word again and can't remember what it is, even years later, I can go back to the book where I saw it, look at the page margin where it is used, and see it used in another sentence.

The problem today is that no one is taking foreign languages. English is a language that adopts foreign words from all over the place, but mainly from Latin (and associated languages), German (and associated languages) and Greek. If you will take Latin, your vocabulary will quadruple, basically the same is true with either of the other two, but maybe not to the same degree.

I have studied Latin and German, French as well, and I have learned what Greek I know (Anglicized) from reading Greek mythology. Interestingly, in Greek mythology, virtually every name, place name, etc., has a meaning in Greek. Some of them are misunderstood in English. Take Pandora, for instance. Somewhere down the line, people have learned that Pandora box contained all "evils." That, however, is not how the word translates. Pan means all; dora means gifts, so Pandora means all gifts. That is amplified when you read the story of Pandora's box and find that when Zeus saw what Pandora was doing, he swooped down and closed the box, leaving one "gift" in it. That gift was hope and hope is not an evil.

So my suggestion is to read things thoroughly, not skip over words you don't know, but take the time to find out what they mean. Any dictionary will help, but a large unabridged dictionary would be the best. Look at the bottom of the definition and see how the word got into English, that is important because you can then see where the word came from. Get to know base words in Latin and Greek and remember them. I like to use the word "esophagus" as an example. That is the name of the tube through which we swallow. But then see the ending "phagus" used in another example in "Cronus is pediphagic." Cronus, or sometimes spelled "Chronus" is one of the Titans from Greek mythology. It means TIME. So "time is pediphagic." "Pedi" relates to babies, phagic related to swallowing, or eating, so the expression means that "time eats babies." Age equates to time and over time we cease to be babies, so you interpret it that way.

Crossword puzzles will not work, reading the dictionary without having a particular word in mind will not work, you either have to know the base language from which the word comes and "crack" the word, or you have to look that word up in the dictionary. I had done this marginally until I started taking Latin while in college studying Medieval History. In a discussion of Alfred the Great, we find out that he was called great because he stopped the Danish invasions of England. He paid the Danes "scutage." I was not going to look that one up and studied it for a while until I remembered that "scutum" is Latin for shield (protection), thus Alfred the Great became great because he paid protection money to the Danes to keep them from sacking England.

That is the way that you increase your vocabulary as well as a way for constant enlightenment.

Answer 4

My 10 year old grandson is also improving and expanding his vocabulary and the way he does it is whenever he learns a new word he immediately puts it into a new sentence and then uses it in several different sentences in that day. He also asks what a new word means and does it have more than one meaning and then tries all of them out in different sentences. Try this and see if it workd for you. Whatever works for you is the right way for you to learn.

Answer 5

For several months I have been helping an Iranian friend learn better English. One thing that has been useful is to use the synonyms/thesaurus features in a MS Word. Maybe you should also try to get an Email buddy who is proficient in English. My friend has become much better in a few months and we have both learned a lot about each others cultures. She originally contacted me at Yahoo Questions.

Answer 6

Save a link to an online thesaurus. Wheneve you're writing to someone, replace regular words with some of the words you come up with from the thesaurus.

The Economist is also good reading for these sort of things.
Reading a lot helps as well.

Answer 7

Hai buddy.. you're already solid in talk is it, then to strengthen your vocabulary you like prepare, via fact prepare makes greater efficient..... top.. You the place ever go attempt to discover in english and make a verbal substitute inclusive of your acquaintances in english and take the dictonary and wade via it and make complicated sentence, write it pronounce it and proceed it you will particular get a progression in it, once you able to apeak properly then you definately'll discover your mistake and help you to go solid..

Answer 8

Subscribe to the Times newspaper and buy a dictionary.
Those were my course intructions for A level General Studies and they certainly worked (and improved my vocabulary).

Answer 9

It depends as to whether you require standard English or the everyday spoken form.
My advice would be to speak to a wide range of people and read extensively.
Good luck!

Answer 10

A dictionary would be the best idea - or even a phrase book. (Don't look on here, though - the grammar/vocabulary is so sub standard it would give you the wrong idea).