Five Tips to Improve Vocabulary

Hello friends, In this post you are going to learn Five Tips to Improve Vocabulary. I believe if you follow these five tips, you must improve your vocabulary. It is always amazing to have a great collection of vocabulary whether it comes to speaking or writing.

How to improve Vocabulary

(1) Learn correct pronunciation

Learn how to pronounce the words correctly so people can understand you. Saying a word out loud will also help you to remember it.

You can listen to a recording and repeat or you can learn the phonemic alphabet and use a dictionary instead.

I recommend learning all the English phonemes so that you can use the phonemic alphabet. When you listen to a word you might not hear all the different sounds. If you learn the phonemic alphabet you can see what sounds are in the word, and you will be able to say new words using a dictionary.

(2) Learn in context

Learn a word in context to understand how to use a word. Nouns like cat and dog are easy to translate but other words and phrases are more difficult.

For example in Vietnamese people often say “trời ơi” which roughly translates as “oh my God”. The use is different however, in Vietnamese people say it a lot and it doesn’t cause offense. In English people may be offended if you say “oh my God” to them, as it can mean that you think they are stupid.

Another example is that in Vietnam men will often call strangers “đẹp trai” which translates as handsome. In Vietnam this is just a complement, but in England people may think that you are making a sexual advance.

To understand how to use words, learn words in context, using text books, graded readers, books, magazines, television programs, films or from conversations with native English speakers. This will help you to understand English or American culture better and how to use your new words properly.

Remember to think about the context of what you are reading, if the book is 100 years old the English will be different from modern English. I once had a student who would use words he learned from Sherlock Holmes books, despite my advice, which made him sound very strange and difficult to understand.

(3) Use Mnemonics

Using mnemonics means creating images or associations to help you remember a word.

For example the word for dog in Greek is “skilos”. The first half of the word is ‘ski’, and the second half of the word is ‘los’, which sounds like lost.
Imagine a dog skiing that is lost. This will help you to remember the word.

This method is effective, I have never studied Greek but after hearing this example once in 2012 I remember the word.

The more ridiculous, or strange the image is, the more likely you are to remember it.

Memrise.com allows users to share and upload mnemonics to help learn new words and is a great resource for learning new vocabulary.

Five Tips to Improve Vocabulary

(4) Repeat and Review

Repeat a word and review the word after some time to help you remember the word. If you translate a word and don’t practice it you will forget it.

Also decide how well you will need to know the word. Some words you will use everyday and you will need to say quickly without pausing, such as hello or goodbye. Other words you may only want to recognize.

For example in Vietnamese, when you speak to someone you will refer to them by a title depending on their age. These words such as ‘Anh’ for someone old enough to be your older brother are easy to learn, but I need to say them quickly so I can say ‘chao anh’ which means hello without pausing. I practice these words a lot because I want to say them quickly. Other words which are used less I only need to understand, and do not need to use.

You can make your own flashcards, buy some or use sites such as memrise. Remember to review words to help you remember them.

(5) Set Realistic Goals

Some people set themselves targets of how many words they want to learn a day, I prefer to set myself a goal of how long I will study new words a day. This is because some words are easy to learn and some words are hard, if I set a goal of number of words I may rush to reach the target, or be disappointed if I do not reach the goal. I think it is better to spend as long as you need to learning words.

It is important that you set yourself realistic goals, if you try to learn 100 words a day, or spend 5 hours a day learning words you will quickly tire yourself out and may give up learning English.

It is better to start with small targets and build your way up. You can use words from textbooks or graded readers to make sure you are learning words right for your level, and so that you can see how you are progressing.

Five Tips to Improve Vocabulary