ways to expand your vocabulary.
- Get rid of parasitic words
Make room for new expressions. Throw out “uh”, “well”, “how to”, “this is the most” and the like, as well as obscene language and clichés, from your speech. Send overly capacious expressions to them, like “real”, “fuck” and “cool”.
The trouble with them is that they are able to replace a significant part of the lexicon and make speech scarce.
Watch out for unwanted words. Record your own speech on a camera or voice recorder, imagine that you are at an interview or presentation. Reread your social media posts.
Analyze all this and write down the words and expressions that you want to get rid of. Share this list with a friend or colleague, ask him to pull you up every time he hears forbidden vocabulary.
- Add variety to your reading
It is logical that in order to know more words, you need to read more. But do not cling only to high literature. Flip through low-brow novels, scroll through social media posts, blogs from people you don’t know, and magazines that don’t suit your interests.
You should know equally well what “indifferent”, “emancipation” and ” simulacrum ” means and what “hype”, “crowdfunding” and “punchline” are.
- Learn the meaning of obscure words
Do not be lazy to look into the dictionary and do not hesitate to ask the interlocutor again if you do not understand what he is talking about. There is no shame in confessing your ignorance. This is better than pretending to understand everything, continuing an unproductive conversation and losing the chance to learn something new.
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- Hang out with people who are different from you.
Your usual social circle is constantly “cooked” in the same lexicon, because you have the same interests and topics for discussion. You have probably noticed that when someone from your company finds another job or meets new people, his speech changes. He sprinkles with unusual words, jokes, and even the manner of speaking can become completely different.
Every new person changes you. Therefore, strive to constantly expand the circle of your acquaintances. Chat at the gym, shop, go to more events, and connect online. Don’t push away those who are different from you.
- Carry a notebook with you
In it, without delay, mark interesting words that you have come across, and undesirable expressions that you have noticed behind you. But just taking notes is not enough – review them regularly and draw conclusions.
- Learn a foreign language
itwill forceWhy learn a foreign language? Benefits of bilingualism / Telegraph Reportersyou pay attention to your own. You will become more careful with grammar and syntax, you will begin to carefully select words.
In addition, while studying a foreign language, you are already working out the mechanism for memorizing new words, as well as introducing them into the active vocabulary.
- Write
Start a personal diary or blog on social networks. Every day, describe your thoughts and events in great detail. Write about your goals and desires, invent stories and stories. When chatting with friends, avoid broken messages and don’t use emoji instead of words.
First, writing is a great way to put to use what you’ve learned and reinforce it. Secondly, if you are writing by hand, it iswill helpP. A. Mueller, D. M. Oppenheimer. The pen is mightier than the keyboard: Advantages of longhand over laptop note taking / Psychological ScienceIt’s even better to memorize new words.
- Memorize aphorisms, poems, quotes
Catch phrases that touched the soul are much more pleasant to learn than to cram vocabulary items in turn. Mark and write down everything that is hooked. Learn, repeat and reread. Over time, there will be more interesting expressions in your vocabulary.
It’s not just about embellishment. Imagine how great it will be to show off your knowledge in a conversation. Just do not be zealous with quotes and high-flown lines: you may be mistaken for an upstart.
- Use flashcards
If you can’t remember a very complex and interesting word in any way, use the flash card method . Many people know this method from school.
On one side of the card you write the word, on the other side you write its meaning. First you need to try to remember the answer yourself, and then turn the element over and check yourself.
This method is very simple and effective: the memorization process begins with preparation. Therefore, it is better not to use applications, but to create cards yourself and write on them by hand. Yes, and you can take a small pile with you anywhere.
- Exercise
- Make up sentences where each word starts with the next letter of the alphabet. For example: “The stork was a great harmonica player. Even the raccoons howled plaintively and nodded their curious muzzles, enjoying the charming songs. That skill became fatal, fatal. The gloomy heron ambitiously threw poison at the frail, selfish youth.
- Make up stories from words that belong to the same part of speech. Describe your morning using only nouns. “Call, wake up, alarm clock, turn off. Rise, search, clothes. Approach, window, opening, freshness. Cheerfulness, inspiration, joy. By the same principle, make up stories with only verbs, adjectives or participles. This activity seems simple only at first: if you set yourself the goal of adding more and more details, you will have to learn how to carefully select words and pull them out of the passive vocabulary.
- Compose tautograms. So called sentences, all words of which begin with the same letter. Here is an example from Nikolai Kultyapov’s Olgin Ostrov: Onuphry’s father, Osip Ostromirovich Ordynsky, graduated from Oxford full-time. He unequivocally refused to remain far from the Fatherland, going back. The obsessed Ordynsky announced a survey of individual districts, regions, vast outskirts.
- Find synonyms and antonyms for the words. This exercise can be done anywhere and anytime. Bored in line or at lunch – come up with a synonym for the word. For example, “beautiful” is picturesque, wonderful, gratifying, beautiful, and so on. Do the same with antonyms.
- Play
You can also learn new words while having fun. Solve puzzles, solve puzzles and crossword puzzles – it’s practically a vacation. Apart from the hard work of the brain, of course.
- Follow the word of the day
Install applications on your smartphone like ” Words of the Day “, subscribe to relevant blogs and mailing lists. As a rule, in such headings , complex and unusual lexemes are presented with an explanation and an example of use.
This will help if you can’t find time to look for new interesting words and their meanings. All you have to do is learn them and put them into practice.