vocabulary

[suhana]

I am taking English course. Anyway, my lecturer said that I have to increase my vocabulary. Is there an effective and quick way to expand my English vocabulary besides reading? Can anyone help me?

[yekban81]

Read dictionary...haha just kidding. :lol:
Do a lot of reading is enough to enrich your vocabulary. The efficiency of it depends on your effort to look up in dictionary for new words or familiar words(but you are not sure of their meaning).
Enjoy your reading. :wink:

[lilet]

Haha.. guess that there's no short cut when it comes to learning languages.. I don't see any more effective way to learn vocab other than reading, and I mean extensive reading, if you hope to improve a great deal in a short period.

Maybe talking with those people with perfect English will help too! Good luck~! :D

[DecentMerson]

read and memorize the SAT word list... hahaah


no lar, that's for desperate ppl to increase SAT score....

read more and speak more... watching movies is a good way to increase ur vocabulary...

[chiunlin]

read and memorize the SAT word list... hahaah

I actually think that reading the frequent words of SAT word list helps to build up vocabulary quickly.

[zAiTsEv]

a journal full of sat words a day will help. read english dailies too.

[ElansarGelmir]

yeah, just read SAT words... But please do not abuse them ... I have a friend who just insert them whenever he thinks he can ... and it just spoil the whole meaning of the structure coz the words just don't fit into the picture. Use if u must, but sometimes, simple English can be better....

[littlebigone]

also, I think if you read alot, u build a really huge passive vocabulary such that you could guess words when you're reading sometimes. Of course passive vocabulary doesn't help much with your writings but it does help if you have a long reading to do and don't want to keep consulting the dictionary.

[janewai]

vocab vocab~~~~~ for me, lack of vocab too :oops: ... hehe.. that's why I everyday login here and read the post in some interesting threads... think this is a way to enrich my vocab :wink:

[b_ronick]

one way is to speak to a person who is really good in the language..
that way you can learn from the person..

reading is also a good way as a lot of ppl have said..reading SAT wordlist would be good but ermm you may have the tendency to misuse the meaning of the word..
yupz movies, i mean good movies where the ppl speak good english would help as well..

[chillout]

First of all, do not to be too hard on yourself. The more you force yourself to learn the English vocabulary, the more it'll become difficult to be retained. Be consistent by just finding 5 to 10 'BIG' words daily and record them in a notebook along with their definitions... not a definition point blankly taken out from the dictionary... but words you understand.. you can write some Malay words too.

Where do you find these words? Read a book or browse through the Internet... find something that interest you and read about it.

Don't expect to see results immediately... it takes time..
and Best of Luck!

read The Economist www.economist.com

Have a dictionary by yourside (or even faster google the definition of the words), and you'll almost definitely find words like incredulous, effusive, etc.

[ElansarGelmir]

One thing bad about me is I dun like to consult the dictionary when I read as this will disrupt my flow of reading (my vocab is as bad as well) and as the consequence, i despise reading. I dunno how to improve my reading skill, but i guess learning SAT words actually helps - a lot. At least now i dun have to refer to the dict that often

[budakkerek]

well..do what i do...read a dictionary...a page a day...definitely will help increase ur vocab... :wink:

[ElansarGelmir]

Yeah, i think reading dictionary is definitely more interesting and worthwhile than spending time on Ethics

[yekban81]

Wow...I thought I am just kidding. Learning vocab by studying dictionary; one page a day.
Studying in that way is quite boring. Indeed it's more boring than looking up dictionary regularly during your reading.

[SpRInG]

hmmm. increasing vocabulary ah.......

talk more..... haha...... yea... like someone mentioned earlier.... talk with someone who's good in the language you want to pick up, and then... who knows.... you can pick up the slang also.......

hahhahaha

[qedx]

just read. and read. and if you come across a word you dont know, guess. and then read and read and read

[ElansarGelmir]

just read. and read. and if you come across a word you dont know, guess. and then read and read and read

Yeah this is what i do everytime. IT's convenient, but rather ineffective

[b_ronick]

hmmm. increasing vocabulary ah.......

talk more..... haha...... yea... like someone mentioned earlier.... talk with someone who's good in the language you want to pick up, and then... who knows.... you can pick up the slang also.......

hahhahaha
ehem ehem about the slang part!! :lol: :lol:

[SpRInG]

ehem ehem.... but it's wise not to learn how to cough from other people lah.... haha. jk.....

well well, yea, i'm serious... it's cool.... learning is cool..... i guess imitating can be the first step in learning... as in for example, to be applied in this language thing, we first imitate how people construct sentence, and then slowly, we learn how people write paragraphs....

in term of speaking... we learn when people pause and thigns like that.. and then we pick up slangs....... cool, isn't it? hahaha

:wink: :wink: :wink:

[chiunlin]

Learn from Reader's Digest Word Power.

[PeiWen]

Mmm, that's the same question I asked my friend, who is very pro in English. She told me, some more in a very lame reaction, she said, just listen to English radio station.
That's it, her answer. I took it seriously and i tuned in to English radio station every night ( that has to trace back to when I was in Form 2). Believe me, it works! And my English has improved a lot, in terms of understanding and speaking. By listening to the way they pseak English and converse among the broadcasters over the radio, you'll learn indirectly the way they pronounce the words, the way they convey the message, the intonation for delivering the correct message. Sometimes the sentence itself is correct, but if you convey it in different intonation, different voice level, high or low pitch, all these do make a difference. Besides that, reading and writing in English language also the ways to improve English. Another suggestion will be, be diligent in looking up meanings in dictionary. Learn the usage for certain words through the examples provided in the dictionary, then you'll have a better grasp of how to use the word and the exact meaning for it.
The above are just my experiences, hope could be of beneficial to you.

[trishotiwuth]

Reading is prob the best way to improve your vocabs. I'd say go for newspapers because the language is precise and the sentences are kept simple. Plus you get to broaden your mind! And once in a while try reading it aloud, you'll notice the difference in your pronounciation in real soon.

[darkhorse_86]

well if you're bored and nothing to do you can always just randomly look up the dictionary. A few years back i think i used to keep a ''Words Book". I would write down the meaning of words that i didn't really understand in the book and occasionally i would look at it. Well I think it really works but after 2 editions i stopped haha!! Anyways if you're not that dilligent just randomly browsing a dictionary should help., but the most effective way to improve vocab is by reading.....duh! you may say . People who read newspaper or magazines or both daily have a better command of language compared to those who don't

[iQing]

some internet website got achive of vocabs.. i think www.dictionary.com has one too...
it has a huge collections of vocabs...

[darkhorse_86]

hmm so now i can write all the meanings down hahaha

[kucingbiru]

watch spelling bee.

well, i dont think reading itself will make your vocabulary mastery better. you'll have to read, and have a dictionary beside you. and you have to have the courage to put down the book whenever you encounter elevated vocab.

[darkhorse_86]

i think reading improves your vocab indirectly without referring to a dictionary you know. Sometimes when we encounter a hard work, we tend to guess the meaning according to the context of the sentence, and most of the time i think we're right. Anyways, reading is also good for other purposes e.g writing essays duh

[ElansarGelmir]

some internet website got achive of vocabs.. i think www.dictionary.com has one too...
it has a huge collections of vocabs...

u mean archive?

[gatecrasher]

Reading is prob the best way to improve your vocabs. I'd say go for newspapers because the language is precise and the sentences are kept simple. Plus you get to broaden your mind! And once in a while try reading it aloud, you'll notice the difference in your pronounciation in real soon.
Maybe the language is precise generally, at least that's the case in news reports. But there is always a good number of grammatical errors in a local English newspaper (or the Star, at least) on any day. You don't want to sabo your grammar while improving ur vocabulary. And sometimes the journos don't apply their knowledge (vocabulary) very well, eg they use inappropriate words. But if you read widely enough then i guess you'll be able to spot errors and not be influenced by them.

[ElansarGelmir]

Haha.... gatecrasher, maybe only u can spot the errors... how come u dun want to be a journalist, since ur English is so powDerful? Hmm.... interested in ECONS? anyway, what's ur secret of getting high scores for SAT verbal? Everyone's dying for your scores man!

[Randomphantom]

Try mozilla firefox. There's a plug-in that allows you to highlight a word, right click and search dictionary.com. And a 'dictionary bar' plug-in like the google bar. Verrrry useful if you're online. The website has Word of the day too.

My speaking su.x though... seems like I always mispronounce words especially long flowery ones. Pronounce, pronunciation...