If you’re someone who’s new to a language and doesn’t have perfect how-know of that language. Then, the first barrier to cross is to improve and grow your vocabulary in that particular language to read, speak, listen, and write it more effectively.
When we look at the English language, it can be confusing and difficult at times. As it involves tricky spellings, tough grammar structures, and a variety of synonyms to deal with. A lot of words have the same meaning but it depends on the phrase, which is to use there. Either if you’re newly introduced to a language or you just want to improve your existing skills in English, expanding your vocabulary knowledge will help you a lot as an additional bonus.
Improving your English vocabulary more effectively means learning to use the new words in a practical way, not just theoretically where you read a word; checked its meaning, and forgot it right away. However, if you have the will to understand English in a better way; the following ways can be highly helpful to improve your vocabulary.
Reading – Your Choice:
Reading can be a lot helpful while learning a new language. Reading is a very good activity; it helps the reader’s brain to be active. While many consider reading as an easy task as compared to writing. While it isn’t true, reading a book or journal can also be a difficult task if you don’t have much grip on your English vocabulary. But at the same time, reading complex and new words, and searching it’s meaning to understand the phrase properly is such a fascinating way to learn new words. While in the past, peoples used to suggest the reading of books; to improve vocabulary, but the actual trick is to read something you like that would help to boost your interest. Apart from books, comics, newspapers, journals, stories or anything can be your choice. If you continue to read regularly, you’ll notice a lot of significant improvement.
Writing – Journaling:
I’m sure I’m not the first one to tell you that if you want to remember something for long; the best way is to write it again and again after understanding. Speaking new words isn’t that tricky, but using those same words with correct phrases and spellings in writing can be a little difficult. Try to write something you think is difficult to put into words and then ask someone to check your understanding of new words or try re-reading it. So, to improve English; learning and using new words in writing can help to improve a lot.
Listening – English Songs or Lectures:
Good listening skill isn’t much difficult to achieve, you just have to keep your brain focused and interested in listening. Listening helps to obtain information, understand it, and learn from it. Just like a child, who learns everything by listening to his surrounding, all the words, and sentences; before being able to read or write words. Similarly, after being all grown up you can still improve English by listening. When you hear a new sentence, try and repeat it afterward; it will help you to improve your pronunciation skills. So, listening to English songs, lectures, and talks can help a lot in improving vocabulary; you will easily learn how to pronounce and use new words.
Watching – TV shows with subtitles:
If you aren’t a book person, and you aren’t interested in reading long stories and boring book pages. Also, you’re facing difficulties in understanding English sentences after listening. Then, you should watch English movies or TV shows with subtitles tracks. This will surely fascinatingly help you by improving your English vocabulary through listening and readings at the same time. In this way, your reading and listening skills will improve and will surely help you to improve your English.
Try speaking English with your fellows:
You have heard the quote; “Practice makes a man perfect”. Similarly, to improve your vocabulary, you’ve to keep practicing what you’re learning. Try speaking in English with your mates. Don’t be shy, even if you’re having difficulties and might be using some wrong phrases. Still, stay confident and keep on trying all the time. You’re doing all the hard work to speak English fluently with improved vocabulary, not just for writing it down or to understand it. Good communication skills are of huge influence in practical life. Therefore, you should keep on trying to speak English with people who speak the same language as you.
Keep a dictionary:
The sound of keeping a dictionary in your pocket or bag might sound a little old in this revolutionized world. While you don’t have to keep a hard one; you can simply download the dictionary application on your mobile phones. Having a dictionary to look up to is a quite helpful thing in the time of need. Dictionary can be the tool of great aid in all cases. Either if you have little knowledge of English or you have an advanced level of English. It offers thousands of words to look forward to, you can look up to different words along with their alternatives and you can pick according to your sentence.
Guess the meaning of new words:
Anything can be fun if you have the mindset to take things lightly and make learning more interesting. Guessing the right meaning of new words is just like a game of fluke, you can be either accurate or close to the actual meaning of the new word. The context helps a lot in understanding and guess the meaning of new worlds. The good thing about this practice is; it will get better with time. In the beginning, you might feel a little outplayed in guessing the right meaning, but with continuous practice and consistency, you will surely help yourself a lot to improve your English vocabulary.
Keep a Journal of new Vocabulary:
To achieve anything, you’ve to be consistent and determined. Therefore, whenever you find a new word or phrase which you think is new to you and can be relevant, write it down in your vocabulary journal along with its meaning. This sounds pretty easy and is mighty helpful. Just in case, if you forget the new word after some days and are looking to remind it; this journal will be there to save the day. You can also keep reviewing your journal once a month to recall all.
Test yourself:
Stay focused and test yourself at times to determine either if there’s an improvement in your English vocabulary. Look forward to opportunities to learn and cash them. Pay attention to the things around you. Keep testing yourself, look forward to difficult and complex words and sentences, and then try to understand them. Try to look at the menu of the restaurant more carefully. Ask your fellows or teachers, to ask the meaning and synonyms of different words. Stay on the path to see and learn new vocabulary.
Stay Curious:
It’s human nature that under too much pressure and stress, the learning intensity goes down. It’s true that at times learning new things according to your goal in a short time can be a little stressful. Therefore, curiosity is a factor that can help you to stay in line and focused. Try to look forward to new vocabulary in different manners; the one you find interesting with a spirit of curiosity. This will help you to feel less stressed and more importantly, you might start to enjoy the process of learning.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, we can say that improving vocabulary skills is probably the most important step in learning a new language. All the other skills, like reading, speaking, writing, listening, and conversing depends on the vocabulary level of a person. With all these various methods and ways are there to help in growing your vocabulary skill; one can easily feel a lot of improvement after continuous practice.