The article contains the steps or ways to follow to improve our stock of vocabulary in English
How we can improve our vocabulary in English
○ Importance of Vocabulary:
Vocabulary is an asset that we always want to increase to get smarter, efficient, fluent and intelligent. But have we ever made assessment where we stand in terms of stock of vocabulary? Sometimes we may feel that lacking of vocabulary may be holding us back in the professional world. Educational research has discovered that our I. Q is intimately related to our vocabulary. Take a standard vocabulary test and then an intelligence test– the results in both will be substantially the same.
The research said, the more extensive our vocabulary, the better our chances of success, other things being equal — success in attaining our educational goals, success in moving ahead in our business or professional career, success in achieving our intellectual potential. Now, we can increase our vocabulary – faster and more easily than we may ever realise. You can accomplish a tremendous gain in less than two or three months of concentrated effort, even if you do only one session a day.
You can start improving your vocabulary immediately and within a few days you can be cruising along at such a rapid rate that there will be an actual change in your thinking, in your ability to express your thoughts, and in your power of understanding.
○ How to improve vocabulary in English:
These are the very much tested steps to be followed to increase the stock of vocabulary in English.
• Step One:You must become actively receptive to new words. Words would not come chasing after you ; you must train yourself to be on a constant lookout, in your reading and listening.
• Step Two:You must read more. As an adult, you will find most of the sources of your supply of new words in books and magazines. Is your reading is restricted only to daily newspaper, then you have to move on. You have to go vast part of reading to have a good stock of vocabulary. You will have to gain the habit of reading atleast one book and several magazines every week. The habit of reading of newspaper, books, magazines will be carried on for the rest of your life.
• Step Three:You must learn to add to your own vocabulary the new words you meet in your reading. When you see an unfamiliar word in a book or magazine, do not skip over it impatiently. Instead, pause for a moment and say it over to yourself – get used to its sound and appearance. Then puzzle out its possible meaning in the context of the sentence. Whether you come to the right conclusion or not, is of no importance. What is important is that you are, by this process, becoming super conscious of the word.
As a result, you will suddenly notice that this very word pops up unexpectedly again and again in all your reading. And of course after you have seen it a few times, you will know fairly accurately not only what it means but the many ways in which it can be used.
• Step Four:You must open your minds to new ideas. Every word you meet is the translation of an idea. Think for a few minutes of the areas of your interested, human psychology, art, music, science, entertainment or whatever. Then go through one of these areas methodically by reading books in the field. In every field, from the simplest to the most abstruse, there are several books and journals which will add immeasurably to your vocabulary when you will go through.
Students have larger stock of vocabulary because they are required to expose themselves constantly to new areas of learning. As an adult you must do the same.
• Step Five:You must set a goal. If you do nothing about your vocabulary, you will learn, at most, twenty-five to fifty new words in the next twelve months. By conscious effort, you can learn several thousand. Set yourself a goal of finding several new words every day. This may sound ambitious. But as soon as you start actively reading you will find new words all around you.
• Step Six: Try to use a quality dictionary. As soon as you start going through several books, magazines, journals you will hover over the new words. Try to gasp the meaning of these words. You can use a dictionary to get the meaning along side get the synonyms and antonyms of these words.
○ Conclusion:
So, these are the most tested and effective steps as mentioned above to improve our vocabulary in English. After five or six months, you now feel where you stand. It will surely empowered you with your stock of vocabulary if you make sincere, methodical efforts to learn more, many more words.
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