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Building Your Vocabulary

Improving your vocabulary will help you:

  • Read textbooks more quickly and with better understanding.
  • Improve your performance on entrance exams for graduate school.
  • Impress family, friends, and colleagues when the need arises.

Determine the level of understanding you need:

  • To prepare for the GRE, you may need only a vague understanding of the word, sometimes simply a sense of whether the word has a positive or negative connotation (mark your list with + or -).
  • To improve your reading speed and efficiency, you will need to achieve a fairly clear understanding of a word’s meaning.
  • To improve your writing or speaking, you will need to focus on nuances of meaning, as well as commonly occurring phrases. For example, deign almost always occurs with to and involves condescending to do something: The company has not deigned to respond.

Ways to improve your vocabulary:

  • Take a class: Take Classics/Linguistic 201 or ASP 092. The ASP 092 course meets for just the first eight weeks of the semester, and one section each spring is usually reserved for students preparing for graduate entrance exams.
  • Buy a vocabulary book: Look for a book that contains helpful exercises and the kind of words you’d like to learn . You will probably have better success at actually working your way through the book if you study with a friend and set specific goals.
  • Read more and keep a dictionary nearby. Reading widely is the most effective and natural way to improve your vocabulary. However, don’t stop to look up every unfamiliar word as you read or you will lose track of the content. If you are able to guess at the meaning, simply circle the word and look it up later. If you are unable to understand the meaning of an entire paragraph or you need a very precise understanding of a word, stop to check your dictionary as you’re reading.
  • Buy two dictionaries: Keep a quality dictionary at home, but buy a portable dictionary to keep in your backpack. Vocabulary is best learned a little bit at a time, and a portable dictionary will insure that you’re able to do a quick check of a word while you’re sitting in lecture, waiting for the bus, or reading in the cafeteria.
  • Pay attention to word parts: Learn Greek and Latin roots or simply pay attention to word parts and use that to guess at meaning. When encountering a new word, ask yourself if part of the word is already familiar to you. For example, when you encounter epidemiology, you might think of epidemics and then think about ology meaning "study of" – as in sociology and psychology. You will then guess correctly that epidemiology means "the study of epidemics."
  • Devote a day to learning a group of synonyms: For example, write up a list of words meaning "difficult to understand" and spend the day learning them: arcane, enigmatic, esoteric, inscrutable, obscure, opaque. Be sure you understand the subtle differences in meaning and usage.
  • Subscribe to a service that will e-mail a new word to you each day. One service is available at Merriam-Webster.

Strategies for remembering new words:

  • Say the word aloud several times: Yes, you need to start talking to yourself! Saying the word aloud, especially along within a short phrase, will help you remember it. Learn how to use the pronunciation guide in your dictionary, and if you are ESL, ask a native speaker to pronounce new words into your tape recorder. You might also want to purchase a "speaking" dictionary from a place like Radio Shack.
  • Tie new words to old: When you encounter a new word, think of a method for recalling the meaning. This will often involve using a word you already know. For example, I might tie the meaning of non sequitur to sequence and then recall that a non sequitur is a remark that doesn’t follow logically or in sequence.
  • Use visualization: For example, to recall that draconian measures are harsh and extreme, visualize Dracula biting someone’s neck for missing class.
  • Write vocabulary cards: This is perhaps the most tried and true method for increasing vocabulary, and yes, it DOES work. Keep a stack of cards in your pocket and whenever you hear or read a new word, write it on a card (if there’s time, also write the sentence or phrase in which you encountered the word). Set aside a few minutes each day (maybe as you ride home on the El after class) to look up the words in your portable dictionary. On one side of the card, write the word and its pronunciation cue. One the reverse side, write the definition (in your OWN WORDS) and also write a sentence for the word.
  • Use your new words: Warn family and friends that you’re trying to improve your vocabulary and then drop new words into your conversations, trying to maintain a sense of humor about this. (If you don’t warm your friends, they might accuse you of becoming a snob.) Vocabulary should not be learned in complete silence!
  • Use rhyming and other mnemonic devices: For example you might use the rhyme "Rain is the bane of my existence."
  • Review, review, review: You can’t expect to learn a new word and never forget it. Periodically go back over words you’ve learned and quiz yourself. Flag the words you missed and review them again.

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