How to increase your vocabulary - 13 proven methods and recommendations

How to increase your vocabulary in a short time? To do this, there are various exercises and techniques that do not require much time and effort. Read more, communicate with interesting people, be open to the world - these are the simple secrets of accumulating vocabulary. But this baggage will not burden the owner; on the contrary, it will bring benefit and respect.

About words

We often hear the expression “can’t put two words together.” The phrase is very offensive, and no one would like to hear it addressed to them.

Meanwhile, the current state of affairs is very depressing. Our vocabulary has been depleted to a measly 5,000 – 7,000 words. And the Russian language contains about 500,000 roots. This refers to sonorous words filled with meaning.

It would seem, for what purpose should one increase vocabulary? We can express our thoughts, choose a synonym to replace a forgotten word, and, in general, convey to our interlocutor the meaning of what was said.

However, the more extensive the vocabulary, the easier it is for a person to contact any audience.

If the audience is represented by smart, well-read people, a rich vocabulary will allow you to stand on the same level with them. And if the public is rather limited in perception, the lexicon will throw up simple words that allow you to explain the essence without unnecessary farce.

In any case, bright, varied speech charms, attracts and disposes. A well-spoken interlocutor has an undeniable advantage. By the way, according to studies, an extensive vocabulary significantly increases competitiveness.

We will talk about the most effective ways to replenish your vocabulary, which, moreover, bring joy and broaden your horizons.

Clear the area

Before you begin to enrich your everyday vocabulary, you need to prepare a place in your mind and speech for new words—to clear the territory, so to speak. Up until now, we have somehow expressed our thoughts using a limited vocabulary, haven't we? With its help, we communicated with people of different ages and professions, described the essence of the most unimaginable problems to technical support staff, passed exams, had interviews, chatted with friends for hours... We succeeded in this thanks to a simple technique: when the required word was not found, its place in the sentence was taken by one of our favorite parasites. Parasites are usually considered to be such speech weeds as “well”, “here” and “as if”, but in our case this class should also include hundreds of chameleon words that can change meaning and connotation depending on the context. For example, the expression “I’m shocked” in a given situation can be deciphered as “I’m surprised / amazed / amazed / delighted / outraged / scared / stunned / jubilant / indignant / don’t understand / don’t accept / furious / hurt” and so on. Words like “thing”, “stuff”, “cool” are so capacious and universal that we can replace almost a third of a more highly specialized vocabulary with them. The record holder for the ability to replace absolutely any lexical unit is, naturally, the entire variety (or is it monotony?) of Russian swearing.

To feel how your active vocabulary is increasing every day, you need to force yourself to give up your favorite universal word substitutes and not be lazy each time choosing the very noun or adjective that most accurately conveys thoughts and feelings. Identifying unwanted elements in speech is easier than it seems: just carefully re-read your correspondence over the last week on WhatsApp, Facebook or any other messenger and make a list of the most frequently used words that you are used to plugging semantic holes. Hand the list to a friend or colleague and ask him to challenge you and make a note in his notebook every time a filler word slips into your speech or writing. For every 50 notes, you can treat a friend to lunch, or give him a bottle of champagne, or wash his car - without strict motivation, backed by economic or labor sanctions, it will be difficult to part with your favorite hackneyed words. It is likely that when you learn to slow down every time you try to say “crap” or “cute,” your memory itself will begin to throw up meaningful literary synonyms from a passive dictionary.

Exercises

Special exercises that need to be performed regularly will help increase your vocabulary.

1. Synonyms. We often use the same word without thinking that it can be replaced and give the expression a new color. For example, change the beloved word “cool” to “great, excellent, wonderful, luxurious, notable, mind-blowing, stunning, excellent, creditable.” Remember what words you repeat day after day and abandon them in favor of synonyms.
2. Retelling. If you watched an interesting movie or read a book, tell your friends about it. Try to make the retelling lively and detailed, achieve the absolute attention of your interlocutor, let the story captivate him. Ideally, the response to your half-unfinished retelling would be “Don’t tell me any more, I want to watch/read it myself!”
3. Parasite cleanup mission. We utter as many vermin words every day as there were no Colorado potato beetles in Colorado in 1859. These are absolutely unnecessary pests that do not carry any meaning. Usually a person says “well, sort of” when he can’t find a word. To avoid having to insert a filler word, it is better to remain silent, think, and then speak. By the way, another advantage of a rich vocabulary is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time finding the right word. The combo method is great for getting rid of parasites: they said a harmful word - throw money into the piggy bank. The benefits will be twice as great.

Ready-made program for increasing vocabulary for a week

Especially for you, I have compiled an express program to increase your active and passive vocabulary. Enjoy it for your health.

Monday:

• read 15 pages of literary text;
• write a summary of the film “Titanic”;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “conjuncture”, “gaslighting”, “alabaster”;
• make 2 sentences with each of the three words;
• come up with a sentence in which all words begin with the letter M;
• retell your favorite childhood cartoon.

Tuesday:

• read 15 pages of popular science text;
• write an essay on the topic “What freedom means to you”;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “unflattering”, “agoraphobia”, “underwriter”;
• make 2 sentences with each;
• learn a short poem and recite it in front of the mirror.

Wednesday:

• read 15 pages of business text (economic article, legal document or legal act, etc.);
• write a letter to a real or imaginary friend and describe the events of recent days;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “columella”, “bivouac”, “familiarity”;
• make 2 sentences with each;
• do an exercise to select synonyms.

Thursday:

• read 15 pages of entertaining text (publications on social networks, jokes, secular news, etc.);
• write a statement to the police about the theft (fictitious, you do not need to send it);
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “barbarism”, “dysphoria”, “aberration”;
• come up with 2 sentences with each of them;
• choose words with the same root for the word “sentence”;
• solve a small crossword puzzle (about 10 words).

Friday:

• read 15 pages of scientific text;
• write an article based on what you read and present the content in your own words;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “enfilade”, “perlustration”, “lemniscate”;
• make 2 sentences with each word;
• retell the last movie you watched.

Saturday:

• read 15 pages of literary text;
• write a detailed review about your favorite vacation spot;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “bruxism”, “liass”, “customization”;
• make 2 sentences with each word.

Sunday:

• read 15 pages of any text;
• learn and remember the meaning of the words “inclusion”, “reisshina”, “apocrypha”;
• make 2 sentences with each of them.

Our program is just a sample. You can start there and then continue on your own. Or make your own right away. The main thing is to start practicing and do it regularly.

Reading

Reading is one of the best ways to increase your vocabulary.

Of course, we are talking about quality literature, and not about cheap heart-warming novels or monotonously meaningless detective stories.

High-quality literature means not only domestic and foreign classics. Someone will like the 4th volume of “War and Peace”, and someone in the process of reading this will want to repeat the fate of Anna Karenina. Reading should be a pleasure, you just need to find an author you like. Evgeny Grishkovets, Boris Akunin, Sergei Lukyanenko - this is a small list of modern authors whose works are worth paying attention to.

Communication with smart people

Being in society, we, like sponges, absorb the vocabulary of the people with whom we constantly communicate. It’s unfortunate to absorb words like “in short” and “like” from friends or colleagues. It happens that there is nothing to absorb, since the interlocutor’s arsenal is a ringing vocabulary void.

Try to move in educated circles, at least sometimes. You don't have to put on a suit and point your boots in the direction of scientific symposiums. Smart people are in our environment, even if they are acquaintances of acquaintances.

Scanwords and crosswords

There is a common opinion about the uselessness of scanwords: they are only suitable for security guards in supermarkets.

In fact, scanwords and crosswords allow you to learn a lot of new words, often unusual ones, and, at the same time, understand their meaning. A simple newspaper or smartphone app will help improve your analytical skills and expand your vocabulary arsenal.

Types of vocabulary

Lexicon is the stock of words that a person owns or is familiar with. There are 3 types of dictionaries:

• active;
• passive;
• external.

Typically, the active vocabulary is smaller than the passive one. Over the course of their lives, people become acquainted with new lexical units, but do not use them all, or completely forget them.

Active

The active vocabulary includes those phrases that a person uses when speaking and pronounces or writes them every day. He says them without effort or need to remember their meaning or pronunciation. Exact data on how many words are in the active dictionary is not known (approximately 5000-35000 lexical units).

Passive

Passive dictionary refers to words that are in a person’s vocabulary, but he does not use them or rarely expresses them. At the same time, he needs time to think and remember what it means. There can be from 20,000 to 100,000 of them in the vocabulary.

External

The external dictionary is highly specialized vocabulary, professional and scientific terms. They relate to specific branches of knowledge. Their meaning is not known to everyone and is not fully understood. This also includes neologisms (recently appeared words) and archaisms (outdated vocabulary).

Be interested in other people's speech

Different age, gender, national, and social groups use words that are unique to them.

These could be professionalisms at work, colloquialisms of the older generation, buzzwords of young people. The characteristics and expressiveness of speech often determine a person’s character, his habits, knowledge, and experience.

In any case, we are constantly spinning in a whirlpool of familiar and unfamiliar words, filled with meaning and empty. Another person's speech can be a great way to increase your vocabulary. Our social nature allows us to exchange useful things, including words or phrases.

Adviсe

We have looked at proven ways to increase your vocabulary, and finally, a few tips:

1. Learn poetry. Even a quatrain a day will allow you to accumulate a significant number of new words and entire expressions. In addition, poetry perfectly trains memory and helps in the prevention of Alzheimer's disease.
2. Write letters. How we have lost the habit of writing regular paper letters to friends and loved ones. But this is a luxurious way to look at your speech from the outside. Rereading the letter several times, you understand which words should not be used, where to replace them with synonyms, to add depth and sophistication. And letters are romantic and original.
3. Expand the boundaries of communication. The world constantly surprises with its diversity, including the variety of words. A thirst for new things, openness to people around you and events can nourish your vocabulary and simply color your life with all the colors of the rainbow.

Parasite words

These include cliches, obscene language, colloquialisms and interjections. Frequently using expressions such as “to be funny”, “to show off”, “real/unreal” or “cool” is not at all so cool. Say goodbye to the drawn-out “uh-uh”, “well-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o” or “this is the very thing...”.

Yes, sometimes we don’t even notice how we fill our entire speech with them. Record your speech on a voice recorder or camera, listen to sent voicemails and re-read messages from instant messengers. Ask your family and friends to be more attentive and bolder, don’t be shy about correcting or even shaming them once again.

Conclusion

To have a rich vocabulary means to have an instrument to influence the minds and hearts of people. Subconsciously, we are always drawn to people who are able to express thoughts colorfully and fully. To increase your vocabulary, read more, communicate, solve crosswords, learn foreign languages. New words, and with them new knowledge, will be a help in any life situation.

What do you think: is it necessary to expand the boundaries of the vocabulary? Do you know effective ways? Write in the comments and don’t forget to rate the article.

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Author of the article Elena Simakina Lawyer

Remember synonyms

Make it a rule to write posts on social networks, spending 10 minutes on it three times a day. In the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening, hand out a miniature sketch on any interesting topic, carefully thinking through each phrase and trying to include as many strange words as possible. The goal is for your friends to suspect that your account has been hacked and that you are not the one writing this, because the style and style are completely unrecognizable. Regularly re-read your previous posts and try to avoid repetitions of both lexical units and grammatical structures. If you're annoyed by moral exhibitionists who post their breakfasts and mood swings for everyone to see, change your privacy settings and make these posts visible only to yourself. As an alternative, of course, you can keep a paper notebook or a Word file and write sketches there - but we are still on social networks, and the file still needs to be found in the folder and opened, for which we will never have enough time.

Keeping a notebook of synonyms or writing words on cards is one of the most popular classic tips for expanding your vocabulary. The big disadvantage of this method is that it is most effective to learn words not individually, but in context and in connection with a specific topic - it’s not for nothing that in foreign language textbooks each lesson is built around a specific topic

If you like to use notepads and flashcards (whether paper or electronic), it will be more useful not just to memorize words one by one, but to come up with phrases with them and visualize different dialogue situations

The widespread advice to always keep a dictionary at hand and look at it more often seems a little dubious. This in itself is a wonderful idea, but it is aimed at expanding passive rather than active vocabulary. Having opened any page of the explanatory dictionary, we will be convinced that we have long known most of the words listed there, and those whose meanings are not familiar to us, we probably simply do not need. So we keep the dictionary nearby, but we don’t place much hope on it.