tips to improve vocabulary

[rocketman]

i already consider myself to have procured a fairly advanced vocabulary by this age. i attribute this obviously to reading every day and never turning on the television.

however, i still am not satisfied. nothing drives me more crazy than knowing that there is probably a specific word to express what i am intending to express, but not knowing what it is. other than reading dense material and just picking up whatever words you come across, does anyone know of any other ways to improve one's vocabulary?

you can obviously look words up in a thesaurus if you know a synonym, but what i hate is having a combination of words that make up the meaning of what i want to express and not being able to enter that somewhere to get what i am looking for.

[VIPFaktor]

Find 10 sites offering email subscription to their "word of the day" and subscribe. Most of such lists are made for people with good vocabulary who want to further improve it, and most of the words you'll be getting from them will be less common words that will probably be unfamiliar to you. Each of them will send you ~365 words yearly, 10 of them will send you ~3650 words yearly, and how much of them will be beneficial to you depends on the value of intersection of your vocabulary and received word set for integration (and your memory, ofc).

My favorite method is to get some specialized dictionary and go linearly through it, memorizing each word and integrating it into my vocabulary. Using mnemonics helps here.

[Thekla]

In addition to rocketman's great suggestions, you can also purchase books specifically designed to increase vocabulary. If you search for "vocabulary builder" on a site like Amazon, you'll find some.

I also highly recommend the Oxford English Dictionary, either the online version (which you can access for free through most library systems by logging into their website with your card) or the compact edition. Flipping or clicking through the OED always teaches me some new words, plus lots of fun geeky history of words I already know

[cacheborn]

Apart from sites like word-a-day, there is another site called Freerice where they ask you questions about meanings of words. You can answer as many as you want. For each correct answer 10 grains of rice are donated through UN World Food Program. Great way to improve vocabulary and feel good about it! And I love their warning which says : WARNING: This game may make you smarter.

Do you like literature? If yes, reading is a great way to improve vocabulary. Mine improved when I started reading anything and everything that came my way, from Dickens to Douglas Adams.

Note to self : Looks like I am putting out a strong vibration about learning languages. All I see around me is people learning new languages. They are everywhere.

[Glenda N]

Another nice thing about Freerice is that if you get a word wrong, it brings that word up several more times as you play, so that you can reinforce the correct meaning in your mind.

Thanks for bringing it up. I hadn't played in a while, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by Glenda N

Another nice thing about Freerice is that if you get a word wrong, it brings that word up several more times as you play, so that you can reinforce the correct meaning in your mind.

Thanks for bringing it up. I hadn't played in a while, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed it.

Hey, are you telepathic?
I just finished a game and was about to edit my post to include this aspect.

The pleasure is all mine.

[Lioness]

i already consider myself to have procured a fairly advanced vocabulary by this age. i attribute this obviously to reading every day and never turning on the television.

Never, ever?? For how long and why? Do you still own a TV?

[newmark]

Ha ha; I don't have a TV either. Keep reading, especially literature.

[stripysweatergirl]

Why do you think never turning on a TV helps your vocabulary? You're obviously just watching the wrong things.

[Tim Brownson]

I just downloaded Scrabble for my iPhone and that sucker is making me look illiterate! It doesn't give you the meanings, but you can always make a note and check them out after its whooped your ass.

[YourHumbleNarrator]

Originally Posted by stripysweatergirl

Why do you think never turning on a TV helps your vocabulary? You're obviously just watching the wrong things.

Most of what's on TV is dumb. Really dumb. Even when it's not, the programming is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, making obscure words an exceptionally rare occurrence.

I don't know what you're watching that you would deem intellectually edifying, but I find even PBS to be lacking. Not as lacking as what's on other stations, but I always get more from reading a book than I do from watching television. (At least when learning is the goal.)

[freewheelnat]

Great tips!

I live in England but English isn't my mother tongue so learning new words has always been a quest of mine, especially as I have a very good vocabulary knowledge in my mother tongue (French) so I feel dumb if I don't know the right word to express something.

I'm actually developping a little flash card app called "Big Words" for Google Android mobile phones, with 52 new words in each (weekly) update and I'm having great fun researching the words! I'm using my faithful Oxford Dictionnary and I've spent about 4 hours today going through words and picking up the ones I wanted to include in the first release of the app, which will be Monday. After that, I plan on releasing an update every Monday and I'm very much looking forward to my week-ends researching new words

For the app, I'm specifically focusing on long words (3 syllables or more) because I find them more difficult to remember.

As the app is developed in Java, I might also do a web version of it.

[stripysweatergirl]

Originally Posted by YourHumbleNarrator

Most of what's on TV is dumb. Really dumb. Even when it's not, the programming is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, making obscure words an exceptionally rare occurrence.

I don't know what you're watching that you would deem intellectually edifying, but I find even PBS to be lacking. Not as lacking as what's on other stations, but I always get more from reading a book than I do from watching television. (At least when learning is the goal.)

I live in Britain so don't really understand the PBS comment. Perhaps British television is a little more worth watching than American TV, I don't know.

Shows like QI regularly feature little-known words, and Call My Bluff is a show dedicated to teams guessing the meaning of an obscure word. There are many such programmes out there.

Perhaps it's a little different, since you might only be talking about learning a new word, whereas in some cases I'm talking about learning something. You can never fail to watch a David Attenborough documentary and come away enlightened, or even the West Wing is pretty intellectually stimulating.

I've never understood why people criticise television as a whole when there are interesting, intelligent and stimulating things out there if you can only be bothered to look for them. Just look at Everything Bad Is Good For You, by Stephen Johnson for an excellent explanation.

[cacheborn]

Originally Posted by YourHumbleNarrator

Most of what's on TV is dumb. Really dumb. Even when it's not, the programming is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, making obscure words an exceptionally rare occurrence.

Reminds me of a quote by Groucho Marx.
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."

[freewheelnat]

Yes, it's true, there are a few good TV shows in the UK but overall, I find that they are on often after 10pm. It's pretty hard to find a decent TV show at 8pm for example.

Freeview is a bit better than terrestrial though, thanks to BBC3/BBC4/More 4.

[freewheelnat]

The Google Android app I was talking about is now available for free on Google Android Market. You can view it at Big Words

I'm hoping to adapt it to the web in a month or so, I'll keep you posted.