When I was studying English for my IELTS test, I found that it was difficult to increase my lexicon. I imagined that I have to remember all words from dictionary. It depressed me a lot because I did not have much time to remember new words to support my speaking, writing, listening, and reading skills. I searched information from the internet with keyword “how to increase vocabulary”. There were some links and videos appeared. I opted some videos and tips. I found some formulas to enhance lexicon. Tell you the truth, it is not only for learning English, but also for other languages, such as Spanish, Germany, or Japanesse.
There are several tips to enhance our lexicon or vocabulary:
Read! Write! The most important thing you can do to increase your vocabulary is READ. Read a lot. What you should read? Anything and everything. To make it easier, read what you are interested in. If you love movie, read movie magazine. It is better to read the script of the movie. If the movie was based on novel, read the novel. For example, The Hobbit. The trilogy was based on a novel named The Hobbit. I love to watch American serial called Vampire Diaries. This serial also based on novel, I read the novel after watched the movie. You will find new words from those activities that increase your vocabulary. Not only reading and remembering those new words, write it. Write a lot. Everytime you learn a new word, write it in your notebook. It is not only write a word you learn but make it in sentence that describe those new words for you. For example, imagine that the word beautiful is a new word. I believe that everyone knows exactly what beautiful means. Take your note and write the meaning of beautiful by describing it. The girl is beautiful. Yes, she is. But the girl is also slim. The sentence, “the girl is beautiful,” do not describe the word beautiful. Try this one, the beautiful girl is the one who has bright eyes, white skin, smart, and slim. I know it is a long sentence but you got my ideas.
Do not limit yourself to one word! When you learn a new word, make sure you learn different form of the same word. Our word of the day in April was evoke, a verb. It has optional form such as evocation, evoker, evocative, evoked. Try to find the other form and learn many words, instead of one word.
Find Similar words! As we found a new word “evoke”, look up for the synonyms. Evoke means make appear or occur. It has synonym, such as arouse, elicit, or invoke. After that, write it and describe the meaning in English. You may group a new word according to the theme or function. We talk about increase, find other words that describe about the same function, such as extend, expand, accelerate, intensify, and reinforce.
Listen! Look up Dictionary! Check on Transcript! I love to watch movies and drama series which use English for the conversation. I always listen new words from them. The thing we can do is listen very carefully those new words and try to find the meaning in the dictionary. If it is possible to look up transcript, read one.
Those are some tips for us to increase our vocabulary. Remember that learning foreign language is long time process. Do not worry when we cannot understand all words. Try some tips I have shared, I believe we can increase our vocabulary and become a good public speaker at last.
