Strategies to Enhance Vocabulary: Steps to Explore the words’ Elegancy

Vocabulary is the versatility by which reading, writing, speaking and listening of a language can attain the elegant vivacity. In GRE/GMAT/SAT/IELTS/TOEFL tests the verbal sections are completely driven by the velocity of vocabulary. Even if our grammar is perfect by rules, if we don’t know the exact and specific word to express ourselves in English then we have to encounter hindrance to run through the exams and tests with a uniform velocity to attain a desired score. People can maintain regular strategies with a view to enhancing their vocabulary where the steps and strategies can help them to explore the elegant kingdom of words and productivity of their latent potential simultaneously.

• Reading

The most important step to enhance vocabulary is to read as much as we can which will give us a keen understanding along with enlarging our vocabulary and excelling the writing capability. We can follow the countries where the state language is English to improve our vocabulary in the kingdom of English words. So the reading material should have the standard reflected and resembled by American and British English standard. We can read newspapers, stories, novels, magazines and journals, e.g :

1. Newspaper/Journal/Magazine

• USA Today
• The New York Times
• The Wall Street Journal
• The Washington Post
• New York Post
• Reader’s digest
• Economics
• The Guardian
• The Times
• The Daily Telegraph
• Financial Times

1. Books

• Books of William Shakespeare
• Books of Dan Brown
• The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
• A Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela  
• Ulysses by James Joyce
• The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
• The Aubrey-Maturin Series by Patrick O’Brian
• Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville
• Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley
• To kill a mocking bird by Harper Lee
• Cosmos by Carl Sagan

The best way to nurture vocabulary while reading is to have a notebook to collect words and review following the immediate application of the word in real and daily functions in speaking or writing. In this way reading can be very effective to deal with vocabulary by meaning and application simultaneously.

• Listening

Listening is one of the most effective ways to excel vocabulary and listening skill simultaneously. It enhance the ability to sense an event with ameliorated attention. The more we listen the more we learn. We can maintain some strategies:

• We can listen our favourite songs having the lyrics before our eyes so that we can understand and read each and every word the singer sings.
• We can watch interesting movies with significance applying the subtitle to learn new vocabularies.
• We should listen news bulletin and broadcasts in English in BBC, CNN or in other English news TV channels or radios.

 

• Watch Movies

Watch movies in English can be a driving force both for enhancing listening capability and learning vocabulary when pay attention to new vocabulary and pronunciation. We should observe keenly how and where the words are applied and pronounced by the actors.

• Movies to aid enhancing Vocabulary
• The Shawshank Redemption
• The Pianist
• Aviator
• Inception
• The Matrix
• Interstellar
• The Martian
• Harry Potter
• V for Vendetta
• Sherlock Holmes
• The Dark Knight
• Lord of The Rings
• The Dark Knight Rises

 

• Design flash cards

Flash cards or index cards can be designed in English where a word is inscribed on one side of a card and the meaning with application of the word in a sentence should be on the other side. We can practise and play with the card in our spare time and review them in a daily or weekly basis.

• Speaking

Speaking can help us to store a word permanently in memory by regular application in our speech.  We need to be confident and speak as often as possible to as many people as we possibly can. The more we practice the better and more confident we will become in our pronunciation and vocabulary. Speaking is the smartest skill to nurture our vocabulary in a pragmatic sense.

• Writing

Writing is the most effective step to enhance vocabulary with skilled strategies where vocabs get and incentive care and nurture. Write sentences with new vocabulary words or compose a story or an article on any event or topic using a group of words or expressions can improve the level of vocabulary in an impressive way; e.g:

• We can maintain a diary or notebook to write our daily deeds and important memories in English at the end of each day regularly. It can help us to read the diary later to have ecstasy from the realm of memories and to enhance vocabs both by reading and writing together.
• If anyone likes to read sports or any other section of a newspaper he/she can get updated regulary with interesting news there and he/she can share the most attracting issue with a good friend or write it to share through a mail.

 

• Play with word-roots

One of the strategies to learn and store vocabs in memory is to play and analyse the roots of words which helps us to learn a bunch of words within a short period of time with effective application. For example: The word root ‘VOL’ means to wish which is reflected and resembled by all these words in specific senses and applications: voluntary, volunteer, volition, malevolent, benevolent.

• Memory trigger or Mnemonic  

This is a way to store words in memory by any resembling or relevant picture or event or by any tricks or rhythm; e.g: Abscission means the act of cutting off.

Mnemonic/ Memory Trigger: Abscission = Ab+scission ~ Ab+SCISSOR

Scissors are instruments used for cutting.

Application in Sentences: The doctor made an abscission with scissors in the operation.

The doctor had to perform an abscission of the inflamed appendix.

• Use of Technology 

We can do the best use of the technology to improve our vocabulary. We can install various effective applications on vocabulary and verbal reasoning. Few applications are suggested from Google Play Store :

• Vocabulary Builder
• VoLT – Vocabulary Learning
• Vocabulary.com
• Vocabulary.com
• GRE visual
• uVocab- Vocabulary Trainer

 

• Books to aid improving Vocabulary

In order to nurture vocabularies & to make them applied in an efficient way one can follow these books:

• Barron’s High Frequency 333
• Magoosh 1000 words
• Word Smart I & II
  • It contains more than 1500 words with real examples.
• Word Power Made Easy
  • This book provides root based word to store in memory with pragmatic application.
• GRE Word List: Vocabulary with Memory Triggers by Dr Prasad Raju
  • This book helps anyone to read vocabulary with memory triggers applying in real examples where versatile mnemonic strategies are shown. 

Vocabulary is an urge to deal having ample efficiency with daily life and the verbal section of various tests which can make us productive in the long run in stipulated arena. It is a universal truth for any language that vocabulary aids to visualize and reflect anything regarding that language so that anyone can interpret and express anything in a vivacious and versatile way. One should follow the effective strategies to enhance vocabulary by regular steps and exercise to explore the elegant world of words.