How to Improve Vocabulary

We see a lot more children struggling with the vocabulary section in their English paper. More surprisingly, even children who speak English at home and have adopted the Queen's language as their mother tongue, too find their vocabulary severely limited. The case for children from different ethnic backgrounds who speak a different language at home, or whose parents too cannot speak English is different, but there is no doubt that there is a great need and a cause of great worry among the parents all over the world. English is pretty much the language of the world, and a good command over it is hence very important.

Improving Vocabulary Skills

What is the need to improve the vocabulary anyway? After all, most people know 20000 words, which is a lot of words anyway to go about their lives without too many problems.

But in today's globalized world, you might encounter someone who has a better vocabulary, or a lot more people with a better vocabulary than you. In such cases, it can be really difficult to cope with people when you don't know half the stuff they are talking about. People from different ethnic backgrounds too can have a problem with their vocabulary and it can hinder their progress in schools, colleges or whatever field of work they enter into.

Read More
And not just fan fiction and comic books. You have to start reading those boring looking biblical-sized novels if you are to make any headway with your vocabulary. If that seems too tedious, get a copy of a better newspaper. Sump that sensational tabloid and invest in a better paper. Reading not only helps you learn more words, it also helps you gain a command over the language by helping you learn contextual usage and proper grammar of the words you learned.

Keep a Dictionary and Thesaurus
Just reading more isn't good enough. You may come across a lot of words you do not know so you need to keep a dictionary at hand. Otherwise you'll simply gloss over the words and without any value addition. A thesaurus will further boost your vocabulary as it will provide synonyms for all the words you do not know already.

Speak
So now if you have learned a few new words from a recent book you read, start using them more and more regularly. Not all new words you learn will be contextual, some of them may also have day-to-day utility. Encourage your friends too to use those words more often. Building a good peer group around you boosts learning and moreover, makes it a fun activity.

Specialized Books
Then again you also get these word builder books for those who are looking to improve vocabulary fast. These word builder books are a quick fix, and great to improve your vocabulary in the short term. They teach you the etymology of different roots of words and based on them, you learn how to build more words. 'Word Power Made Easy' by Norman Lewis in particular is one such book that has sold like hotcakes all over the world.

So these were some solutions to your quandary of improving vocabulary. Use all the tips and techniques specified in this article and see your vocabulary improve in no time!