The Secret to English Vocabulary – Connect words with feelings

This answer excludes all the ways mentioned by other writers i.e newspaper, books, novels , websites, applications et cetera . No doubt these are helpful but in my case they were helpful to a limited extent.

As told by others I wrote a new word daily too but months later I found myself in the same place. I have a bad retention. I forget the words and their meanings and so I am unable to use them in daily life or while writing .You may find them silly but these silly things have enabled me to become a published writer in a UK magazine.

My way :

• Connect words with feelings: In daily life, whatever you do whatever you say or hear, try and analyse it. For example when your mom says “Dad was very angry today”

Think about it and analyse it. Think about finding words that would make this sentence better. Google it and you will have the following sentences:

Dad was furious today.

Dad was infuriated.

Dad was livid.

Well done ! You learnt three new words instead of angry! And believe me next time you won’t forget these words and their meaning.

The expression technique:

Similar situation while writing a novel ‘ Dad was angry’ can be expressed as

“Dad pursed his lips and clenched his fists into tight balls. Try as he might, he could not contain himself. Within seconds, he erupted like a volcano’

This expression technique helps you learn new words while observing one’s reaction. This is from my previous answer. [1]

 

Footnotes – The feelings chart [2]

• Notice everyday words: One of the ways is to notice how you and other people talk. In india mostly hindi is spoken but a few words of english are used in everyday life. That is where you get a chance to improve your vocabulary. Let me explain.

“ Food was delicious today”

You must’ve heard these lines in your house, now use these and follow the first step. Analyse the word which you can improve here- Delicious. Google words like delicious.

“ Food was appetizing”

“ Food was delectable”

“ Food is scrumptious”

See what I did there. Here you have three more words engraved in your mind!

Learning new words does not mean going through fat dictionaries and forcing your brain to learn difficult words. English is an emotion.

• Don’t get satisfied: Don’t get satisfied of the vocabulary you use. Keep changing yourself and soon you will have a rich collection of words in your mind.

The way I shared previously was to Kill Very.

‘Very’ is one of the most common words use but once you decide to stop using it, you will see the difference. Will this help you get new words? yes.

A man is not very tired, he is exhausted.

Nothing is very painful, it is excruciating.

No one is very scared, he/she is petrified.

You learnt 3 new words by removing the ‘very ’

Footnotes – GrammarCheck.net [3]

Similarly, start with simple words and think what can you use instead of it.

Improving vocabulary means continuous observation. Observe others and yourself. Reading for sure is important but it does not guarantee retention. The above methods have helped me change my style of analysis.

If you want your vocabulary to be better than others, you have to observe better than them.

xx

Footnotes

[1] Pulkit Khanna’s answer to What is the best writing advice you have received?

[2] The feelings chart

[3] Image on grammarcheck.net

Fix your English Grammar

Reference: Pulkit Khanna., “The difference between e.g. and i.e.” originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Fix your English Grammar