What stands behind rich vocabulary?
Obviously, that’s a huge intellectual wealth that makes you a great orator and pleasant companion.
Unfortunately, libraries were replaced by computer games and other entertainment stuff, which has led to a decline of eloquence. Books, as well as offline conversations, are out of fashion.
But how to deal with it if you dream of becoming a master of words? Follow a few valuable tips from prominent speakers, psychologists, and philologists, and you’ll enrich your vocabulary by most complex concepts and definitions, incidentally boosting your writing skills!
Passive and Active Vocabulary
- Active vocabulary is the words that we use on a daily basis, and know exactly the context in which they can be used. People of different professions, belonging to different societies, have a different vocabulary. Therefore, if you change some conditions (for instance, the type of activity), you’ll learn some new words and concepts, and start to actively use them while words that you no longer need will move into the passive vocabulary
- The passive vocabulary contains several times more words than the active. Any term that you have met at least once will seem vaguely familiar to you if you stumble upon it once again. However, to use it adequately, you need constantly deal with it. The greatest illustration is foreign languages: without constant communication and regular exercise, you’re not able to maintain knowledge of a foreign language at the appropriate level. The same applies to your active language, although to a lesser extent.
So how to enrich your active vocabulary?
#1 Use Dictionaries — To catch pretentious archaisms and complex terms, make dictionaries your best friends, even if you’re an experienced linguist! The language is constantly changing; some words get lost, some are emerging.
Ideally, you should work as follows:
- Once you stumble upon an unfamiliar word, find its meaning in the dictionary. Before going to bed, learn a dozen of new words.
- Sophisticated expressions, idioms, and sayings are a big part of the language so that you must know them to pretend to the title of a speaker.
#2 Take Reading Out of the Comfort Zone — Every writer is an individual, with unique life experience, which means you’ll never find two narratives with the same vocabulary.
- Diversify your reading by splitting it into categories. Writers from different eras and genres use completely different vocabulary, so you all you need is to take the best from them.
- Do not stop on a separate genre or author. Split reading may seem uncomfortable, but it’s very beneficial to the development of your speaking abilities and personality as a whole.
- Combine the South American magical realism, African transhumanist fiction, British satire, and borrow the most arrogant phrases!
#3 Listen to Music — Pay attention to non-native languages. Firstly, our language is full of borrowed words; secondly, it’s full of words and terms that are used in the original form. Music either uses or creates neologisms, so be aware of modern terms, yo!
#4 Follow Writers in Social Networks — Ironically, Twitter contributes to the development of speech, but only if you follow literate writers and journalists. The point is that 140 characters (the maximum allowable length of a twit) make people laconic, which contributes to the accuracy in speech.
#5 Develop Memory — Poems, stories, quotes, sayings, and all kinds of prose – that’s what will allow you feel comfortable in using the most intricate and complex words. Use this method of enriching vocabulary anywhere, be you on the way to work or in a traffic jam on the road. Audio materials will not just entertain but also develop your hearing.
Read more, allocate as much time as possible for reading. Study speed-reading. Choose unusual books – foreign classics, national literature in translation, etc. – these texts can be a source of new vocabulary. Mark outstanding expressions and re-read them a few times.
Use the complex approach, and soon you’ll take your speech to the next level!
5 WAYS TO ENRICH YOUR VOCABULARY AS A WRITER was written by Lucy Adams, an outsourcer from an essay writing service.
