How to increase lexicon, a lot has been said and written. Most educated people think about this regularly, even if their activities are not directly related to rhetoric or oratory. The Russian language, rich and beautiful, allows people who speak it to express their thoughts expressively, elegantly and variedly. Good command of your native language is a serious advantage in work, relationships, and in any communications with others.
How to replenish your vocabulary, what methods and activities will be most effective? Let's try to figure it out.
Varieties of vocabulary
When we think about how to expand our vocabulary, it is important to understand that first of all we are talking about increasing our active vocabulary.
Active vocabulary is the words that you and I use in everyday life, communicating with friends, family, and colleagues. We pronounce them easily and naturally, they are firmly embedded in spoken and written language. It doesn't take much effort for us to find the right word.
Passive vocabulary is words whose meaning is generally clear and known to us, but we practically do not use them. Perhaps this is inappropriate in our social circle, or there are some other reasons. Then, in order to remember a word, we have to make some effort.
External vocabulary is highly specialized terms whose meaning we do not fully know. Usually these are words that are used in a professional environment, among a small circle of people.
As a rule, most people have a very limited active vocabulary: it’s good if a hundredth of the total volume is used in speech. Therefore, when the question arises of how to replenish your vocabulary, this means that you first need to replenish your stock of constantly used words.
Learning to speak again
What do we do when we share our experiences with friends or call customer support and cannot find a suitable name or accurately describe our emotions or sensations?
But we agreed that we would think about how to improve our vocabulary, right? Then we begin to develop awareness:
The recipe is actually quite simple: to learn to speak beautifully, you need to... talk. This is true. Learn to speak in direct communication. Tell stories, plots of books or films, news or impressions. Try to use new words that you have not used before. Include them in your life consciously.
- Write letters
Writing can also help solve the problem of how to increase the number of words used. Write letters. Write on forums or social networks. Try writing articles or essays. Keep a diary.
Carefully select words and figures of speech, look for synonyms - practice and more practice are important in this matter.
- Give a speech
Public speaking and responsible conversations help to enrich speech very well. Make a sketch on paper in advance. Train, search different variants, most accurately and fully reflecting your point of view. If you have to speak in front of a large audience, make the speech bright and rich rather than dull and unemotional.
- Learn poetry
Learn poems by heart, retell texts. It is important not just to tell the text, but to do it as close as possible to the author’s style, paying attention to new words and phraseological units. Tell it emotionally, with expression, then new words will be easier to remember.
- Constantly expand your active and passive vocabulary: both are important. Listen to audio books, solve crosswords, watch useful educational programs and communicate with educated, developed people.
- To better remember a new word or figure of speech, create bright image, visualize it inside yourself. Words are remembered well in conjunction with others, in sentences, and not on their own.
- Write down your favorite quotes and expressions. Use them in your speech. The main thing is that it is appropriate.
- Do not use slang words and obscenities: approach the issue creatively, look for colorful, bright replacements.
- Don't fill your short-term memory with useless information.
- Learn a foreign language. Any. Oddly enough, this allows you to simultaneously replenish the active and passive vocabulary of your native language too.
How to activate a passive set of words
Our passive vocabulary is constantly growing. This mainly happens in two cases: while we listen and when we read. So its filling begins in childhood. Purposefully learning words in this case does not make much sense: they will remain passive.
- Choose synonyms for words
The selection of synonyms helps to activate the passive stock very well. There is a whole series interesting games when some phenomenon or object needs to be described in words, excluding the use of familiar and frequently used words from the list. You can arrange such games in a friendly company or practice alone.
It is useful to make lists of synonyms. For example, a dictionary of feelings. Write down all the feelings you know in a column and try to write as many synonyms for them next to them as possible. Of course, it is important not only to write them, but also to use them in your speaking and writing.
- Make up stories
Another useful and entertaining exercise: writing a story using only nouns. Or verbs. Or - the most difficult thing - adjectives. Remember? "Night. Street. Flashlight. Pharmacy". How can I continue?
Here are other options: compose a story where words begin with each letter of the alphabet in order. Or all words begin with only one letter. It is important that the story be connected.
Approximately half a million words. The average vocabulary of one person is 3,000 words, which means that expressive capabilities are quite limited. The more words you know, the more means you have for realizing thoughts in speech, the more pleasant and easier it is to talk with you. The following methods can be used to expand your vocabulary.
Communicate more - engage in verbal exchanges with different people. You can learn a lot of new words from your interlocutor, especially if he is a representative of a different generation, a different profession, or has hobbies that are different from yours. In addition, in a conversation you may hear words from your passive vocabulary, remember them and actively use them. And don’t be afraid to ask if you don’t know a word! Believe me, a person’s desire to understand another helps to find mutual language.
Read aloud. When reading “to oneself”, only visual analyzers are involved in perception. When the auditory ones are also involved, you remember new words more firmly.
Do a detailed one on fresh tracks. While the text you read has not yet faded into your memory, there is a chance to pronounce the rare words that you encountered in it. The child can be asked to close to the text the topic from homework. If he is unfamiliar with some words, explain their meaning. This kind of vocabulary work will benefit both of you.
Each word in the Russian language has a synonymous series, consisting on average of 5-6 words (synonyms are words that are close in meaning). Take any text you have written and try to replace the words in it with ones that are similar in meaning, but so that the content does not change and is understandable. If you find it difficult to find words, consult a dictionary of synonyms.
Memorize poetry. This will not only allow you to show sophistication at the right moment, but will also help you master many of the elegant and graceful words that are characteristic only of poetic speech. They are not suitable for everyday use and gather dust in the back of your memory, but this way you can at least get used to their sound in your head. You will see, you will be interested.
Write down a dozen new words and try to write a story with them. Words most often have no connection with each other, and weaving them into a meaningful text will be fun. This will help not only remember new words, but also introduce some of the passive vocabulary into the active vocabulary.
Replenishing your vocabulary is an indispensable condition for successfully mastering a foreign language. Here are some effective ways to memorize foreign words.
Cards
Write words on multi-colored cards on both sides: on one side - a foreign word, and on the back - its translation and example of use (it is more convenient to remember words in context, that is, together with nearby words). It's good to use cards different colors for sorting by parts of speech. Since the cards are not fixed, you will not remember the words in sequence and can always mix them up. They are small and compact, you can work with them even on the road.
Stickers
Place stickers with names on various objects in your room or apartment. They will constantly catch your eye, remember quickly.
Want to expand your vocabulary? 4 tips to help improve your vocabulary and show off your knowledge in front of your friends.
The Russian language is perhaps the most expressive language in the world.
And the number of words of our great and mighty exceeds five hundred thousand.
Well, just imagine!
Of all these five hundred thousand the most beautiful words You know at most 4-5 thousand people who are capable of expressing the beauty of the soul and the surrounding world, but you use even less.
Want to argue?
Here's a little test for you.
Write next to each next word its meaning (be honest with yourself - no one is looking at you :)):
- suffragette
- gentile
- penance
- aberration
- slander
- columella
- frap
Enough for the first time.
Now tell me, how many words from this list do you know?
How much do you use? Zero? Not much!
However, no need to worry!
Better think about it how to increase vocabulary and show off your knowledge to your friends.
great and mighty
Friends, I want to say that you (and my company) are incredibly lucky.
Already from birth you received the most powerful and means of expression at your disposal - .
There is no other language in the world that can so emotionally reflect a storm of feelings, experiences and indignation.
Sometimes we only need one word to express a feeling or emotion, while foreigners need whole sentences.
No wonder greatest poets they sang “great and mighty,” and many peoples still sing the praises of our poets and writers.
And knowing what wealth you got, it’s simply a shame not to use it and to be an illiterate lazy person!
So let's gather our courage and think how to expand your vocabulary.
And I, in turn, will help you with this.
How to increase your vocabulary: increasing your IQ
Naturally, you will never be able to use all five hundred thousand words, and it will be impossible to remember them.
However, I can guarantee you a couple of extra thousand.
But only if you apply the tips you received and start working on your vocabulary.
So, as a small introduction, I will say that the vocabulary of each person is divided into passive and active:
- passive - all the words that we know but do not use,
- active – all the words we use in our everyday vocabulary.
And if your passive vocabulary can count 4 thousand words, then your active one is unlikely to exceed 3 thousand.
So now your goal is to maximize improve vocabulary.
Tip 1. Engage in retelling and expand your vocabulary
If you didn’t like retellings at school, then you shouldn’t have.After all, these are not stupid inventions of teachers, but tasks aimed at developing the child’s vocabulary.
And in adult life you will have to return to them again.
What is required of you?
Read a short story or chapter from a book, then tell yourself what you read out loud.
Retell the text in as much detail as possible, using all the words in the text.
If you don’t know these words, then you will have to memorize them.
Interesting Facts:
- There is so-called basic English, consisting of 850 words. It is believed that this is enough for ordinary life.
- The lexicon of A. S. Pushkin’s works contains more than 20,000 words.
Thinking how to improve vocabulary, start reading all the books out loud.
By reading aloud we also expand our vocabulary.
After all, if you quickly skim the text with your eyes, unfamiliar words may not stick in your memory.
But when reading aloud, all rare and unfamiliar words will be better remembered.
By constantly reading aloud, later you may not even notice how you begin to use more words and expressions in your everyday vocabulary.
Tip 3. Use unfamiliar words and improve your vocabulary
Remember the main rule: unfamiliar words will never stick in your memory if you simply learn them.So do things differently.
In the evening, choose 2-3 new words for yourself, and the next day try to use them by inserting them into sentences.
For example, take the first word “suffragette” and use it on any appropriate occasion.
Your friend refused to go through the door that was open to her, and you said to her: “What are you, a suffragette?” (I imagined your friend’s reaction for a minute – it became funny :)).
Unfamiliar words used in everyday speech are remembered many times faster!
Tip 4. Learn poetry by heart and improve your vocabulary
Memorizing poems or passages from your favorite books also expands your vocabulary.
By memorizing a poem and speaking it out loud, you thereby memorize unfamiliar words and subconsciously begin to use them in everyday speech.
and expand your vocabulary a little!
Forward (too lazy!)
As you can see, the ways increasing vocabulary pretty simple.
You just need to pull yourself together and start with at least one piece of advice.
And tomorrow you can start using unfamiliar words in sentences.
Useful article? Don't miss new ones!
Enter your email and receive new articles by email
How to increase your vocabulary? It would seem like a simple question, but there are rules or certain tricks, but what exactly they are, today’s article will be about them, in the “Copywriting” section. Hello to all guests and readers;).
As you know, there are several types of words in our lexicon:
- 1 group. Frequently used: “Family”, “Work”, “Internet”, “Possible”, “Very”.
- 2nd group. We know the meaning, but we practically don’t say it: “Fetish”, “Outsider”, “Empathy”, Feedback (feedback).”
- 3rd group. We don’t know the meaning and don’t use: “Workshop - collective training”, “Eugenics” - the doctrine of the inheritance of various positive qualities, “Crowdfunding” - the voluntary participation of people in any projects. Agree, you need to study their meaning in order to realize that you understand what is being said when you come across such words in the speech of other people, on the Internet or in the press.
Eight Rules for Improving Vocabulary
It's no secret that there are many techniques and exercises for replenishing your vocabulary, they all have a right to exist and help you write beautiful texts or simply become a better conversationalist. I’m sure these little tricks listed below will also be useful for bloggers and copywriters who work remotely, without being tied to a location. Agree, today everyone needs high-quality, interesting content that should actively attract traffic and subsequently be monetized.
1. Rule: Communicate constantly
You can learn new words from different sources- this is communication, one’s own experience and targeted independent study of new terms, concepts, expressions, borrowed words.
Accordingly, conversations and correspondence with friends and successful people from different fields help to constantly learn new things. At a minimum, this develops the ability to establish contacts, communicate, and communication skills.
As a maximum, regular communication with others helps not only to maintain relationships with other people, but during a conversation there will literally be an exchange of words with the interlocutor. Plus, conversation is a great opportunity to show off your intelligence by testing new words.
2. Rule: write and read more often
This rule can be prioritized over others. It’s good if it’s at least 1 article written per week, one book read per month. Choose your frequency and tempo. Read: books, reviews, essays, interesting and useful blogs, websites on various topics.
3. Rule: develop not only professionally
Divide your work and personal time, think about your interests and hobbies. I know that finding time for them is not so easy, especially when your main job takes up most of your time. But once you discover a topic that interests you, you will magically begin to find time to study it, every day.
Take any blogger, for example, there is an interest in this type of activity on the Internet and he is constantly learning something new for himself, while constantly replenishing his stock of knowledge, words, and professional terms. There is only one conclusion, find an activity that you really like, the main thing is to understand what is right for you;).
4. Rule: don’t be afraid to invest time and money in your education
Educated and informed people, as a rule, have a broader horizon and have a better understanding of their professional activities. Therefore, today the desire of people to invest in their education is growing. Decide for yourself how you will improve your professional level. For example, these could be educational webinars, online trainings, universities, books, business travel...
5. Rule: study, memorize, use synonyms
The Russian language on average has from 3 to 30 synonyms for each word. That being said, there are a number of words that we use all the time. By deleting or replacing one word with another day after day, we can significantly expand our vocabulary and avoid repeating words.
Another example, a common phrase "Because" can be replaced: “due to the fact that; That's why; due to the fact that; because; because of; due to the fact that; because" and others.
Take any of your articles, try to replace frequently occurring words with suitable synonyms, but so that the meaning of your publication does not suffer. The ideal option would be a personal collection of the necessary synonyms for those words that have already become a habit in your vocabulary. Analyze your texts so that tomorrow you can start writing and speaking a little better than you did today.
6. Rule: Read aloud regularly
Why out loud? By reading texts, words, books in this way, we not only see them, but also hear and pronounce them. Thus, we remember better and successfully expand our vocabulary. Make your own channel on YouTube - this is The best way, learn to speak out loud yourself competently.
7. Rule: retell texts you read, listened to, movies you watched
When we have just received new information, when retelling it in a conversation, we begin to use exactly the words that we heard, saw, read. Thus, in our vocabulary naturally new active words appear. To stimulate vocabulary growth, be sure to look at Dictionary, Wikipedia, Google to more accurately find out the meaning of a previously unknown word or term.
8. Rule: learn by heart
This should become part of your daily life. Memorize poems, song words, quotes, aphorisms, proverbs, foreign phrases, words, synonyms, jokes, in the end;). This is a great way to spend time, especially when you are in transport or a car, you don’t waste time, but you replenish your vocabulary.
Conclusion. Today, according to labor market experts, about 3 million people work remotely and this trend will constantly grow. By constantly increasing your set of active words, you can always find work on the Internet in various popular specializations and beat the competition, these are the types of work: copywriter, rewriter, maintaining your own business blog, working as an editor of a website, forum, social. networks, telephone sales manager. There are really a lot of options and offers. Good luck! Read: "
The richest and most beautiful Russian language allows people who speak it to express themselves in a variety of ways. Accuracy of formulation and beautiful speech depend on the vocabulary a person owns. The more words he uses, the more intellectually developed he is considered. Therefore, it becomes important to increase the number of words used.
Scientific vocabulary is called a lexicon, meaning words familiar to an individual, a group, or included in a language. It is conventionally divided into;
- Active. The first group includes words used every day. They are included in both written and oral speech. A sign of an active vocabulary is free use that does not require additional effort.
- Passive. Passive words include understandable words that appear in various sources, but are not used in speech, or are used but extremely rarely. They are used when necessary, but it takes effort to remember.
- External. The external lexicon denotes unknown words related to specific areas of knowledge. These are professional terms, neologisms, etc. It is hardly possible to make clear boundaries between these groups. They are rather shaky and fluctuate in one direction or the other. When growing up and mental development the lexicon is growing.
So, if a child going to first grade speaks two thousand words, then in the last grade this number already grows to five thousand. For those who study and develop further, the vocabulary reaches 10,000 words or more. Then most of them are classified as passive stock.
Erudite people sometimes speak even 50,000 words. But only a small part is used daily when communicating. The rest of the vocabulary is used only with intellectuals like him.
Exercises to expand your vocabulary
The following exercises are performed in written or oral form.
- Nouns. They tell a short story using only nouns. "Day. Work. End. Exit. Door. Key. Entrance. Car. Key. Ignition" and so on.
- Verbs. The same thing that was told using nouns is repeated, only with verbs.
- Adjectives and adverbs. Then comes the turn of other parts of speech.
- Alphabet. Come up with related words that sequentially begin with the letters of the alphabet in order. “Alena talks in the evening, walking to the treasured spruce tree, gesticulating and eloquently cherishing the cute tender dandelions. Pasha follows nearby, dragging a convenient chrome flashlight, often catching the nimble chirping with an extravagant humorous language.”
- Monophone. They come up with their own speech, the words of which begin with the same letter. Each of them is connected to each other, even if the meaning suffers.
It is not easy to do each of the exercises. But words gradually move from a passive vocabulary to an active one and it is replenished.
Techniques for expanding your vocabulary without extra time
Developing vocabulary is essentially necessary for voicing your thoughts, intentions, analysis and conclusions. This skill is strengthened by practice and weakened by its absence. Therefore, in order to develop your speech, you should constantly communicate. The growth of vocabulary is ensured: by learning new words that we hear from our interlocutors; precise definitions when words are translated from a passive vocabulary to an active one.
- Therefore, it is advisable to communicate with unlike people. These are friends, neighbors, fellow students, comrades in the gym. People meeting on the Internet on forums and pages social networks, travel companions and vendors also serve as opportunities for communication and as a way to expand your speech.
- Another effective way replenish your vocabulary, which does not require special time - listening to audio books. This is relevant when you have to spend a lot of time on the road, driving your car, ideal for auditory learners (for people who better perceive information by ear). A variety of books are sold in this format: novels, aphorisms, and philosophical teachings. By recording it on a flash drive, you can now not get bored in a traffic jam, but listen to a fascinating story. It is convenient to listen to audio books before bed.
Replenishing vocabulary with time allocation
The following activities will help increase your vocabulary.
- Reading. Reading is a rich source of information. Books, newspapers, online publications, magazines - everywhere there are inexhaustible reserves of replenishing the vocabulary. It is advisable to devote an hour a day to this exciting activity. Sometimes it's good to say the words out loud.
- Studying foreign language. Do not limit your vocabulary to knowledge of one Russian language. Others are also useful to study. The more a person enriches his speech, the better connections are made, and it is easier to recall words from memory.
- Games. There are interesting and exciting linguistic games: charades, puzzles and the like. When they guess them, they inevitably become interested in the words and meaning.
- Diary. Another useful activity is keeping a diary. When it is impossible to take foreign language courses, they write for themselves. This good way improve your vocabulary, because when taking notes, you formulate thoughts that are in the emotional and motivating spheres.
- Memorization. Memorization makes it possible to introduce new words into the active stock. This is done by retelling what is heard, memorizing verses and definitions. It is one of the most effective methods of acquiring new knowledge.
For this it is important:
- include new words in speech every day;
- use a notebook, entering intricate statements, words, phrases with clever expressions;
- study the essence of new words by adding visualization techniques;
- memorize poems, quotes, sayings, etc.
Improving your vocabulary requires conscious action. To achieve beautiful speech, constant training is required. Ignoring new words will not give them a chance to enter the active or passive vocabulary. It turns out that those who want to expand their vocabulary and enrich their language should make regular volitional efforts for this.
