How to Expand Your Vocabulary

 

Learning New Words

A good command of English vocabulary gives you countless advantages in school, work, and everyday life. Although you can’t just develop a huge vocabulary overnight, you can expand your knowledge quickly and effectively if you follow these methods.

Flashcards and Word Lists

• Some people like to study words with flashcards; others like to use word lists. Choose whichever method makes you an active participant and makes you think while you’re studying.

• In either case, always try to guess a word’s meaning before you refer to its definition

• Try to learn a set number of words each day or week. If you’re a procrastinator and don’t do well without a rigid schedule, devise one that works for you. Try starting with 10 words a night.

• Don’t study words in the same order every time.

  • This strategy (1) will bore you to death and (2) may leave you unable to remember words if you encounter them on their own or in a different order.

  • Using flashcards instead of a list can help you mix up the order of the words as you study.

Read, Read, Read

• Reading is a long-term solution but is probably the best way to learn and retain vocabulary.

• When you encounter an unfamiliar word while reading, try to guess its meaning from the context in which it’s used, then look it up to find out whether you were right. Finally, add the new word to your study list. It may seem like you’re just making more work for yourself, but you’re more likely to remember words that you’ve read in context.

 

Remembering New Words

Learning new words is easy; making your knowledge stick can be more difficult. The following strategies will help you remember new words as you learn them.

Make Word Associations

• Link new words to people or things that are already familiar to you. For example, say you have a friend named Jennifer who always puts others’ needs before her own, donates to charity, and volunteers regularly. Rather than try to memorize the definition of altruistic, just think of Jennifer whenever you see the word altruistic, and the definition will probably stick.

• Make up new associations between a word and its meaning. For example, if you have trouble remembering that archaic means “old-fashioned or outmoded,” it might help to build a new association in your head between archaic and Noah’s Ark, which is very old. This system isn’t sophisticated, but once you get a word association in your head, you’ll probably never have to look it up again.

Use New Words Every Day

• It’s hard to retain new words through memorization alone. The best way to hammer a word into your mind is to use it. Whenever you learn a new vocabulary word, make a conscious effort to incorporate it into actual conversation at least twice.

• When you use a word, it becomes a living thing in your mind that you’ve learned and made your own, rather than a dead, memorized ”object “in your brain.

 

Decoding Unfamiliar Words

Even if you memorize every word on this chart, you’re still bound to come across words that you’ve never seen or studied before. Here are some methods you can use to try to guess the meanings of unfamiliar words.

Go With Your Gut

• Often, your gut feeling can tell you about a word’s meaning. Using your gut may not allow you to define a word with absolute certainty, but it may put you in a better position to guess.

• Are you able to tell at least whether the word connotes a good or a bad thing? Or is it neutral? Does it refer to something extreme or something slight? Starting points like these often help.

Use Word Roots

• Knowledge of word roots is helpful when you encounter difficult vocabulary. Often, prefixes and suffixes—word components that appear at the beginnings or ends of some words—are the best place to start.

• For example, the word misanthrope derives from the Greek root anthropo, which means “human” or “humankind,” and prefix mis–, which means “hate.” If you know these roots, you might guess that misanthrope means “one who hates or distrusts people in general.”

• The last page of this chart contains an extensive list of useful word roots and prefixes. Roots and prefixes generally are easy to remember: not only are they short, but you’ll probably also recognize many from common words that you already know.

Use Foreign Languages

• Although many word roots in English stem from ancient Greek or Latin words, you don’t have to be a classical scholar to dissect the meaning of alien vocabulary: Spanish,French,Italian, and Portuguese are just as useful because they all are direct descendants of Latin.

• Often, you can guess the meaning of an English word based on its similarity to a word in another language. For example, if you know that the Spanish word simpático means “nice” or “agreeable,” you might guess that sympathetic means something similar in English—which it does (sympathetic means ”able to understand the feelings of others“).

 

Vocabulary on Standardized Tests

Many standardized tests, such as the SAT, ACT, AP, and GRE, include questions that indirectly or directly test your knowledge of English vocabulary.

General Strategies

• Start early. If you cram and try to memorize hundreds of vocabulary words just before your test, you’re likely to stress yourself out and not retain very much of what you learn. Instead, start using some of the above strategies several weeks or even months before your test.

• Most standardized tests require you to know only the general or basic meanings of words. Few tests require you to know all the nitty-gritty particulars and shades of meaning. As long as you have a good understanding of what a word means in simple terms, you should be all set.

• Always learn words in context, whether you’re studying words for a test or just for general knowledge—it always works better than flat-out memorizing words and their definitions.