Improving your vocabulary?

[NarrowJ]

Hey guys,

Just wondered if anyone else was working on this right now. It's something I've worked really hard at over the past year or so (as I'd identified myself as being fairly limited in that regard).

Any advice on improving your vocabulary and expanding your diction? I've been reading a lot of books lately, which obviously helps. I'm more looking for mind "exercises" and the like that will help me build it faster and more efficiently.

NJ

 

[luego]

Read, as you've been doing. But be careful *who* you read as well; I've got a couple authors I love who have phenomenal ideas for novels, but the writing is fairly pedestrian. Once you get comfortable with the words, you'll naturally be able to use them in conversation (and someone who's well-read and intelligent should only rarely have pronunciation problems). I'd be worried that forcing word-lists etc is going to come across as awkward. If you want to study them, that's an option, but it seems like being back in school. A well read person should already have come across much of the words you'll see in general vocab lists anyway; barring very field-specific terminology.

If you're looking for specific areas, scientific journal articles are probably the way to go.

 

[Oskar]

A lot of the time we just want to learn a new word here and there, and that's fine, but if we want to get really good with English, we need to treat it like we would any other language we want to learn. That means that context is the most important factor for whether or not we'll actually get good.The best context would be to surround yourself by people who talk the way you want to talk. Not only does this expose you to a lot of different words consistently, but you also get to experience how they are used. The second part of context is your internal motivation. Do you want to sound smarter? I'd say it's a lot easier to sharpen your intellect and let your vocabulary be of secondary concern then. Do you want to communicate more clearly and with greater precision? Well, that's more a matter of who do you want to communicate better with. For example, in some sectors of sectors of society the word "garrulous" is perfectly fine to use at the dinner table, but in others it will almost always make you seem ostentatious. What should you do then? Here's my list of things you can do to improve your vocabulary (all of which I myself have or am using):

1) Start going out to places where you’re interacting with people who speak more like the way you want to. Perhaps start taking acting lessons (Shakespeare alone will do you a lot of good in this regard), join a club, or even an online forum will suffice.

2) Write a lot, and focus on implementing more and more refined descriptions of your topics. It’s fine to have a few words in mind that you want to include in your writing, but don’t bend your ideas to your words, it should usually be the other way around.

3) Learn to concentrate, listen, and take your time. This one I need not elaborate on, as Chase puts so much emphasis on those things already. One might say I'd be preaching to the choir

4) Learn a second language -- I know the best thing that I did for my English was to learn Russian. You get a lot of words that don't translate directly, or that sound sort of like an an English word, and in the end you just come out more language aware and verbally playful.

5) Listen to audiobooks about improving your vocab. I've used "5000 Ivy League Vocabulary" and "Fluent English Perfect Natural Speech." Advanced ESL lessons are also great for this, helping to fill in holes and, of course, they usually will include the context for you too (not to mention they also help you get explicit knowledge on grammar and syntactical strategies, which, you know, are probably even more important to be conscious of than vocab for effective and elegant communication).

6) Audit a language related lecture at your local university. If you can't do that, you can always just, once again, download the audio version of one. There're actually a lot prestigious university lectures online for free.

7)

I defer to "Word of the day" exercises.

You write down all the words you'd like to add to your vocabulary, give them assigned dates and with each passing day you make sure to use the one assigned for that day in a conversation.

This is a good strategy that I am still in the habit of doing too, though it's got the downside that you're trying to fit a word into a conversation where it may or may not belong, making you potentially come across as less socially calibrated.

8) Carry a pocket notebook around, and one of things you can record in it are interesting words or phrases you hear. I do this, and then whenever I go through it at the end of the month I pull out all the things that I want to keep, and use them in various situations after memorizing them.

9) Speaking of memorization, one thing I do that has a great effect on my vocab is memorizing poetry and quotes that make me think "wow, now that's good..." I didn't even realize this at first, I mostly just wanted to improve my faculty of memory, but it makes sense. If you're focusing on memorizing a poem, which is usually just highly emotive, rich language, you're going to come out of it with at least a few quality words and phrases.

10) And last but certainly not least, the one that we all know to be one of the greatest ways to improve our vocabulary: read. If I'm targeting vocabulary, the first modern author I'd turn to would be James Wood. He always necessitate a dictionary for me, but the books are so enjoyable and the words are so apt that it's not tedious at all, but, on the contrary, expanding and exciting. John McWhorter's "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue" is another great one for this, and in both of these you get the bonus of seeing uncommon words used skillfully in context.

And that's all!

Cheers,
Oskar

 

[Mr. oblivious]

A method i use (i don't do it intentionally) is when i find linking the words to something even if its something trivial will help it stick to memory. This is horrid explanation and since i do it inanely since iv did it all through school for terminology etc.

Do you know which learning styles suite you ? are you a visual verbal etc. cause if you are visual you could even print out the words with a picture on them and put them around your house so when you walk past you look at it and after like 2 days the word would be stuck in your long term memory and you can swap them over.

even putting them on the toilet or near the kitchen so if your cooking


for finding area's of speech which require improvements trying recording yourself talking out loud about a topic you generally talk about to ladies or right down what you would typically say then look for synonyms for the words you think sound weak

 

[Marty]

Hey NarrowJ:

Putting new words you learn into everyday use at the office or in your social circle is an obvious remedy that I probably needn't remind you of.

As for where you will pick them up in the first place, I can recommend a few authors who write well.

Paul Johnson (historian) has as fine a grasp of vocabulary (and general stylistic excellence) as any author currently living, in my opinion. Not much good if you're uninterested in history, but perhaps an idea.

For colorful descriptive language, try Raymond Chandler (novelist)—the way I write my own FRs is a poor attempt at imitating his style. Here are some famous examples of his genius:

He was a big man but not more than six feet five inches tall and not wider than a beer truck.

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

A nice state of affairs when a man has to indulge his vices by proxy.

Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest-dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.

She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don't care much about kittens.

I hung up. It was a step in the right direction, but it didn't go far enough. I ought to have locked the door and hidden under the desk.

I never saw any of them again — except the cops. No way has yet been invented to say goodbye to them.

The French have a phrase for it. The bastards have a phrase for everything and they are always right.

A good short story to get you going without excess time commitment would be Red Wind or Trouble Is My Business (both available free online).

Going further back, the celebrated female English authors, meaning Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, all write brilliant, enchanting prose that I would highly recommend. If you want something relevant to seduction, try Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (quite possibly the finest novel ever written), or The Professor by Charlotte Brontë.

Here's a weekly magazine which has an excellent overall standard of writing:

The Spectator

I don't read it much any more (to be honest the opinions expressed are rather conservative for my taste, at least on the social side) but its editorial standards are beyond reproach. This recent article is an excellent example and will probably teach you a few words you didn't already know: The Genome of History.

If you have trouble with the Spectator site and its starts saying you have exceeded your monthly article allowance (before you've even started reading anything), PM me, there seems to be a bug of some sort with that but I think it can be fixed.

-Marty

 

[NarrowJ]

Hey, thanks everyone for the responses. A lot of great stuff here! I've been reading like mad lately, so I know that's going to help. But the excercises and other tips and tricks will help me quite a lot.

Again, thanks guys!
NJ

 

[Nova]

study the dictionary

 

[Stewie]

If you have an iphone, I am sure there's an app that gives you the word of the day ( as someone else noted). Otherwise, what works for me is that I write, A LOT. I have journals that I use, but the one thing that I like to do is use words that I am not familiar with or that someone used and I didn't know. I will write, and look up the word, then incorporate it into sentences. Ultimately the best way to learn is through use and repetition.

Keep up the good work man,
you are a beast.

r4l

 

[lux7]

This is a pet peeve of mine.
I'm not a native and only started learning "for real" past the 20YO mark.

Never been living in an English speaking country, never shelled out money for courses.

Every unknown word or expression I stumbled upon I used to look it up, then look up other words from the dictionary I didn't know either and paste in a word file.

The word file went -actually, is going- from very basic to highly advanced.

Today I've been asked to correct two master thesis, get often positive feedback for my English and can spot grammatical mistakes from native speakers and, quite often, on websites and magazines. English has become one of my strong points also in working environments.
Not that I don't do mistakes of course and I still have a long way to go, but having learned as a non native makes me more receptive to rules, spellings and use of words.

As a friend of mine would say, it's a mountain without a peak, you never reach the peak, but what I think has worked wonders for me is:

1. keep a constant curiosity and fascination for new and "beautiful" words.
you should almost get angry that you don't know a word or expression. Tell yourself "I'm a smart guy who's well read and well spoken, how on earth I don't know this word? Let's fix this!"

2. note them down;
with equivalent and similar expressions. The more you have the more the more you will start using words as paint brushes rather than for their exact meaning (less legalese style but more poetic, which is good)

3. use them.
This is one I'm lacking in as I mostly deal with non natives and often go for simplicity but that's still a huge mistake!
When people understand you for the whole sentence, even if they miss a couple of words, they are fascinated and see you as a high value person -at least when it comes to dialectic but more often than not, also on a more general level-.
I personally find it hard to fully accept the authority of a boss who can't speak well and I'm impressed by people with wide vocabulary.
Bottom line: eloquence is a fundamental skill!

 

[trashKENNUT]

NJ,

Put the dictionary under your pillow and go to sleep. The fairy will grant you all your wishes.

Zac