Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Tips of Improving Your Vocabulary

For someone who learns English as a foreign language or as a second language, the mastery of vocabulary plays an important role beside the other components that should be mastered in learning a foreign language. It can rationally support a foreign language learner to comprehend texts, articles, or essays written in the foreign language. By mastering the vocabulary, learners can easily express ideas or feelings using the language they learn fluently. In doing an English examination, it also helps learners catch the meaning of the questions so they can automatically give the answer in a right way. Thus, increasing vocabulary is a must for English language learners to do if they want to be successful in learning it.

There are some ways that learners can do to improve their vocabulary. Some tips that will be elaborated here are taken from the article presented by eHow Education Editor. The article provides some valuable tips for English learners in order to be able to develop their vocabulary. The following are the steps you can perform:
  1. Read books, magazines, poems, plays, stories, and more. The more language you are exposed to, the more new words you will learn.
  2. Make it a habit to find a new word everyday. You can look in the dictionary or make swapping new words as game with a workmate or fellow student.
  3. Speak to people. You will be exposed to an amazing range of cultural influences and occupations, all which will introduce you to new words.
  4. Write down words you do not know. Keep a pad in your briefcase or purse jut for that purpose.
  5. Look up the words in a dictionary so you will understand what they mean, how they are spelled and their various usages. They will also help you remember the words.
  6. Make flashcards of the words and go through them regularly.
  7. Create or play word games. Scrabble, for example, is great way to reinforce new vocabulary words.
Finally, the seven steps above are hopefully able to aid foreign language learners in the effort of increasing their vocabulary. Just do the tips and see what happens to your English vocabulary.