7 Ways to Master Vocabulary

Necronoro, Necronomon. Hi, James from engVid. Vocabulary is very important.

Well, if you don't have vocabulary, you can't really learn a language, right? And E is giving us a special lesson today on seven ways to master vocabulary. Ready?

Let's go to the board and see what we got. So first question we're going to say is why build your vocabulary? What I might say to you is when you have a large vocabulary, you have a large world.

And if you're going, what do you mean by that? The more you can articulate, which is to say the thoughts in your mind, the different ways you can say it, the more you can create your world or create your thoughts clearly in others' minds. We use vocabulary.

When you're limited to just, you know, when I say bad words, like the F word and the S word and that's all you can say. You really limit your emotions and your communication ability to another person. So let's learn a skill that will help us create a greater world for ourselves, which means a brighter world, and the ability to communicate with other people clearly.

Cool? I might have used too much vocabulary in the introduction, but trust me, these lessons will help you. So let's start off with number one.

We live in the modern age, and the great thing about the modern age is every single one of you guys has one of these. Right? Brilliant.

I'm kind of like Cro-Magnon. That's a vocabulary word for you. Like an old-fashioned guy, like 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 years ago.

Neanderthal, ancient man. I like dictionaries and thesaurus. You see, the problem is when people use things like Grammarly or what have you, they press a button, the answer's there, no thought required, and they move on.

The problem is, remember I talked about building your world inside and being able to express yourself? You don't get that. When you go through a dictionary, here's the thing, you will learn synonyms.

You will learn, what's a synonym? Words that are similar to the words you're looking at. So you can be a little bit more creative and not repeat the same words.

You will learn antonyms, words that are opposite the words you're using. Right? That's kind of cool.

And you'll learn related words, words that are, it's like a family. You know, you're not the same as your brother or sister, but you come from the same tree, but you're different. You learn related words.

All of this is from dictionaries and thesaurus, so you get to expand your vocabulary. Open a dictionary, it will say right underneath, synonyms, antonyms, related words. So you're learning not just one word, but a family of words.

Pretty cool, right? All right, so this is one way we can work on our vocabulary. And these, when I say seven reasons, seven reasons we're talking about these actual application reasons, right, why you should master vocabulary.

Over here, play word games. Word games, yeah. When we play word games, they help you recall words, they help you remember because you have to use the words, right?

I specifically like crosswords because crosswords are a little different. When you use crosswords, they give you the meaning and you have to remember the word. Now think about it, when you go to the dictionary, you have the word and it tells you the meaning.

Crossword is exactly the opposite. It says, here's what this word means. Do you know what this word is?

It forces your brain to work. It's going to reinforce or make stronger the meanings of words to you. Cool, right?

So you get to play a game, have some fun, and also have your vocabulary enforced so you don't have to try and work so hard to remember it. This will do it for you. So crosswords are beautiful, okay?

Next, we've done crosswords, which you can find in almost any magazine or newspaper in the back somewhere in the entertainment section, or you can buy books on crosswords. Another thing you can do, you babies of the 21st century and your computers and your cell phones, subscribe to a word of the day. There are many websites, I was going to say web something, I couldn't think of it, websites that have words of the day.

So it'll tell you today's word is bivalent, and it'll explain it, and just that's the word of the day. So you can go, okay, bivalent means with two things, okay, got it. Cool.

Learn a new word of the day. Different word, different word. It's fresh because it's not repetition.

Your brain likes what we call novelty, something new, and because you're getting these new words, your brain's like, oh, that's interesting, and it's more likely to remember it. Cool? All right.

So you can subscribe, and there are many of them on there, so go looking, and you'll see like I got a little laptop, you probably have a tablet, that's how old I am. I'm taking a laptop and you're taking a tablet. Okay, so subscribe to them and you can learn new words every single day.

I want you to keep a number in mind, 2000, because if you're thinking, well, I learn one word a day, that's not much. It's only 365 words. Well, in order to get a baseline of English, you only need 2000 words.

So if you do one word a day, do the math, right? You're one sixth of the way of getting there. All right, maybe one sixth.

I'm not good at math, that's why I'm teaching you English. Got it? Well, that'd be 400, 500, so you're 20% of the way if you do that.

If you want to learn more words, go ahead. You can be there faster. Next, once we're doing the subscribing, getting words of the day, and we're using our dictionary and playing games, we can make flashcards.

All right? Take a new word that you have that's difficult, ornery, all right? Write it down, then write down a.

. . draw a picture that reminds you of that, like horn for ornery, right?

Write it down, whatever it is, to help you remember, because then you're using two senses. Flashcards are a great way to use pictures to help you remember words. Our brains remember pictures.

I can ask you to picture your front door. Close your eyes, boom. You don't see the word door.

Most of us won't anyway. You'll see the door. You're not going to think wooden brush, windows, or.

. . you just see it.

All of it's there, but it takes about a thousand words to describe it. So with a picture, you can contain a lot of information. So when you use a flashcard and you put a picture with the word you're trying to remember, you can remember a lot of information.

Isn't that cool? So flashcards are a great way to combine with the word of the day site and use your flashcards to really learn this vocabulary. Here's something people don't like to do, whether it's in their own language or in a foreign language.

And in a foreign language, I definitely understand it. It's difficult to do. But even in our own language, people don't read books a lot.

They'll look at magazines and articles. I don't say they don't read, but reading a book from cover to cover, not a lot of people do that, right? Especially after they finish high school or college or university.

But for you, if you're learning a language or if you want to improve your language, the beauty of books is this. The words are in context. They tell you what they, not just what they mean, how we would use them.

The dictionary and thesaurus are brilliant. They're going to tell you all the words. I mean, if it's in a book, it's in a dictionary.

But you don't necessarily see it in its fullest context. It will give you an example sentence. But until you read it in the book, the gossamer wings of the butterfly were flapping gently in the breeze.

Now, if you speak English, you hear that, you're like, damn, that's some poetry. It seems to be poetry. But if I say gossamer are light and fine, you know, and butterflies have them, you kind of get the idea, but you don't get that whole visual.

You're like, oh, man, read. You will see words in their context, okay? And you're going to be introduced to new words because there will be many words you just don't know because the different books you read, and that's what I do recommend, read a variety of books, you'll be introduced to not only different words, but different concepts.

Remember we talked about growing your mind? This is how it happens. Learning a vocabulary to grow our mind.

Now, the beautiful thing about reading, because I have number six, I don't want to go too far ahead, is that you can take your time and go over a word and over it. You can read the sentence again with the vocabulary again and again. And to be honest, usually we use synonyms in sentences around the original words.

So once you get that, you read the next one, you go, ah, I totally get it. In a lot of books, you'll find that they'll say one word and not to repeat the word, they'll use a different word, a synonym, and it gives you a depth of understanding. But the beauty of the reading is you can read it again and again so you understand it, which is very important when I go to point number six.

Conversation. Once you learn a new word, it's great. You know, you read it, I learned it, I've got my flashcard, close the book, put it away.

Well, now it's garbage. Yep, I said it, it's garbage. You don't want it to be garbage, what you need to do is use it while you converse or speak to someone.

Conversation has a power that reading doesn't have, but it's also its weakness. In conversation, things are rapid, it means going very, very quickly. You don't have time.

And if you were in a conversation and you were saying to someone, gossamer, gossamer, gossamer, gossamer, gossamer wings, gossamer, they would think something's wrong with you. You can do that when you're reading a book. You can't do that in a conversation.

It happens quickly, you must communicate. So conversation is like a test for your reading abilities. You learn a new vocabulary, you have to say it very quickly to communicate with someone else to keep their interest.

So you will know if you used it properly because if they go, hmm? You didn't use that correctly. You might have to say, one second, one second, let me think about that and go over it.

But this is real world, so this means you have it or you don't because you can communicate your ideas quickly, right? And if they use words that you've just learned, you can see if you really understand them because it will make sense in the context or won't for you. Then you'll know I need to study that because I thought it meant this, but it doesn't.

So conversation is like a test. If you do all of this stuff to learn vocabulary, this is your test. And the seventh hint I'm going to give you to master your vocabulary, to help you.

You figured out yet? Number seven, subscribe to engVid. We have nearly a thousand videos on vocabulary, words that you need to know, words that are not just basic words but can help you expand your conversation with other people.

All sitting there, just at the click, you just have to, at the bottom, go down there, click and hit the bell, and it's all waiting for you, right? You can combine all of the stuff I said with great teachers who know what they're teaching and are really good at it, okay? Anyway, so here are my seven things or seven ways to help you improve your vocabulary.

Try them out. They'll be helpful. Now, we're going to go through our next board because as you know, we always have homework.

That's why you're here, right? You know you're going to get the homework. I gave you a bonus for sticking around.

Ready? Okay. So, we dealt with seven ways on how to improve your vocabulary.

I gave you seven different tactics, right? You can use them together or you can just pick your favorite one and use it, right? But here's something I wanted to talk about, and it's the five keys to having a strong vocabulary.

I found a lot of students think if they learn the words in a class, they hear it, they hear a new word, they've got vocabulary, or if they read the dictionary. And I would really say that if you don't have these five, you don't have a strong vocabulary. It doesn't mean you have zero vocabulary.

It's just in my opinion to truly have command or mastery of a word, you have to have all five of these. And if you aim for five of these, your ability to remember these words or your new vocabulary I think will be very high. Okay, so what are we talking about?

Well, the five keys to having a strong vocabulary, and here's a word, I'm not going to pronounce it. I'm not going to pronounce it. I'm going to say all these things and I'm going to let you go through and see if you can figure it out, and then I'm going to give it to you.

So the first thing you must be able to do is say it. And notice I'm not saying it for you, so you're probably going to go, you keep trying. Because if you can't say it to somebody, then you can't use it to communicate, right?

Oh, ooh, okay. Next, you have to recognize it when you see it. Have you ever seen this word before?

I know you know it. I know you do because if you're alive, you've experienced this, but you've never seen this word before, so you're like, I don't know what it is. I'm like, you should, and you do.

The summertime and wintertime, you know about it. Next, you must recognize it when you hear it. So when you hear that word, because some people, and I am guilty of this, I am guilty of this, I am guilty of this.

I have read, because I like to read and I got a decent vocabulary, let's say. I have read many words, but when somebody, something like that, anathema, anathema. I have a hard time saying it because I've read it a million times.

I know what it means. I cannot say it. You know, it's not having difficulty saying it.

And before when people would say it, I go, what's that word? Because I only read it. I've never heard it.

So if you can't recognize it when you hear it, you don't have vocabulary, in my opinion. Just saying, okay? So I'm saying you want to get strong vocabulary, try and get all five of these things at the same time.

Next, you must be able to spell it. When I say this word and you look at this word, you're going to say, how the heck is that this word? Like, I'm sorry, I didn't make the language.

I don't make the rules. But it's something you have to master, whether you're learning English, German, Russian, Spanish, whatever language, Hindi, you have to master their rules. And finally, and this is the one you were thinking, well, this is the first thing I have to know.

Yes, you must know what the word means. But most people start there and get there and don't really work on the other ones. And you know this is true if you have ever used some of your new vocabulary and a native speaker is looking at you like what?

Very quizzically. Or they've said something to you and they're thinking you understand and you're looking at them quizzically, which means you're like, what? What does that mean?

That's because you may not be able to say it, you can't recognize it when you see it, if it's written down somewhere. When they say it, you don't know what the word is, and you may know the word because you know what it means, but you've never heard it before, like me in my reading, and you can't spell it. So what is this word up here?

A new word that you learned? Achoo! Ugh!

Flem. It's that wet, gross, nasty stuff that comes out of us. Flem.

And you go, that's not a PH, it is as in photograph. Right? Flem.

Silent G. Silent G. There you go.

I can't even think of a word right now that's going to silent G. The silent G, a PH sound, you're like, what the hell? That does not look like the word Flem.

That's what it is, and now you know what it is. You have to be able to say it, recognize it when you see it, you won't forget now because I made you go through this. When you hear it, Flem, you'll know it, you'll know how to spell it because it's weird.

Right? And you have to know what it means. It's like that bodily fluid we have, like hay fever when you're sneezing and whatever, it's that phlegm building up in your body that you're trying to get out.

Ew, that green, nasty stuff. Yeah, lots of phlegm. Ugh, nasty.

Anyway, now you know that and you understand why I talk about strong vocabulary because this is a word that even a lot of English people would go, what is that word? Like, you know, talk to your doctor, what is that? You got a lot of phlegm and you're thinking F-L-E-M?

Nope. This is it. Okay, so here's my quote.

Oh, before I go to the quote, I've got to give you homework. Here's a 30-day challenge. My homework is this.

Take one word, okay? So what I want you to do is take one word every day and I want you to try and master all five of these things. Okay?

And keep adding a word a day. Now that's not just it because you're okay, well, you just told me that. Here's how it's going to get a little bit.

. . It's going to be fun.

You're going to take your word and what I want you to do is take that word and you're going to make a sentence out of that word. Now on the second day, you're going to have two sentences, but I want you to join those sentences together so you kind of start making a paragraph and after a paragraph, I want you to start making a story. So after 30 days, you will have a 30-word story that you've created for yourself.

All right? That's going to give you context for the words because you're going to have to. .

. And it's going to help you understanding the words and how they work with other words. Think about that.

You're taking one word here and you're just going, okay, I learned this word. You're adding another word and then you're adding another word and another word, but you're putting them together in a story so you have to actually understand. .

. Remember we talked about related words, how words can be related together, which is really, really cool. And at the end of 30 days, you'll have 30 words.

All right? So you can keep repeating this over and over again. Remember that number I told you about, 365 words in a year?

We can play with that. Now I would like to go to the quotes, okay? Now I picked the quote and I picked two of them because I think vocabulary is really important.

Well, I told you I like to read, so I like vocabulary, but I know if you're building. . .

You're building a language, you start from a base and you're building a world. And Ludwig Wittgenstein, he was an Austrian-British philosopher, okay? And his philosophy was in logic.

He also did language, and I believe it was philosophy of mind. His quote, first one I want to read is, the limits of my language mean the limits of my world. Remember when we were talking about expressing yourself?

Well, you limit your world when you don't have the language, the ability to communicate it out there, so you limit what you can actually conceive or believe or think of. So you really want to get a greater language so you can express yourself. One of the things I find most interesting is people.

. . There are people out there, and I've met them, who like to say they're angry about everything.

And they are angry, and they can't seem to do anything about it. And one of the things is once you introduce them that anger is a secondary emotion, you need to use other words to describe what's going on, then they say things like, I'm disappointed. That's why I'm angry.

But as soon as they're able to say I'm disappointed, they have the power to fix it. But without that extra vocabulary, they just go from, me no get what I want, angry. It's like, you don't have to be angry.

If you're disappointed, you can figure out why you're disappointed, but that's a word of vocabulary you have to introduce to the situation. So we don't want to limit ourselves. We introduce vocabulary, we can describe how we're being affected, and that gives us a level of freedom.

Okay? Now, if we spoke a different language, we would prece. .

. Excuse me. Remember we talked about vocabulary?

If you can't spell it, it's not strong vocabulary. Well, sorry, I made a mistake here. And if I'm going to follow my own rules, I'm going to fix this.

Let's perceive. Okay? If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world.

And my friends, that's exactly what you're doing. You're learning English. If you're.

. . If you speak another language, like a Russian or a Japanese language, which is a little bit more orderly than ours, you will find that we're not as orderly, but that allows us a little bit more creativity and flexibility.

Right? Ah. So as you're learning a different language, you're going to start finding that you think a little differently from your own people.

And it's natural. You see the world differently. That's why we use different words.

That's what makes the world beautiful. Anyway, time for me to go. If you'd like to support our channel, which I would love for you to do, because you just watched the whole video, right?

Okay. Press the subscribe button below. Hit that notification bell.

Okay? And I can see you in the next video. Anyway, time for me to go.

And thank you, E, for helping us master our vocabulary. Ciao.