How to Increase Your English Vocabulary
When it comes to setting New Year goals, defining and implementing the process for each goal is the most crucial part.
If you want to lose weight, for example, the process could be going to the gym 5 times a week, eliminating sugar, and cutting down on carbs by 50%.
In this post, I teach you a simple process to increase your vocabulary.
If you want to express yourself better and improve your understanding of English, the key to achieving this is to expand your vocabulary.
Vocabulary doesn’t only consist of individual words. It also includes idioms, collocations and Expressions.
Define
To start with, it’s important to define what kind of vocabulary you need.
Is it for business? A trip abroad? A topic of interest, like Economics or health?
Once you have decided, look for content about the vocabulary topic in articles, podcasts, and videos.
So if your topic of interest is Economics, go to the Economist website or YouTube channel, for example, and pick an article or video. This content will be your source of new vocabulary.
Review
As you are studying the content, you should take notes and store the new vocabulary in an organised way so that you can review it.
I recommend a flashcard app like Quizlet for this.
Reviewing the new vocabulary is extremely important for retention. Learners normally need to see new vocabulary several times to retain it.
Put into Practice
To really cement new vocabulary into your memory, you should look for opportunities to use it. So this could be talking about the content with your friends or writing a short essay about the topic while using the new vocabulary you learned.
So your process could look like this:
- Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning, take 20 minutes to study content on your defined topic.
- Then every Tuesday and Thursday morning, spend 10 minutes reviewing the new vocabulary.
- Arrange with a friend or accountability partner once a week to discuss the topic and make sure you use the new vocabulary.
To the next level!
