The richness of any language lies in its words, and the Russian language is known throughout the world for its diversity. Thanks to this, each of us can talk, convey our thoughts, and express ourselves eloquently. The accuracy of the wording we select and the beauty of speech directly depend on the amount of vocabulary we have. The more words we know, the more often we use them, the brighter and more colorful our speech, the more accurately we convey the meaning. In addition, a rich vocabulary is evidence of a person’s intellectual development. It can be useful to us at work, in school, during public speaking, and in ordinary everyday communication. This is why vocabulary development is so important and even necessary. In our articles “10 Ways to Improve Your Vocabulary” and “Strategies for Enriching Your Vocabulary,” we already talked about this topic, but there is something to add here.
Get rid of parasitic words
Make room for new expressions. Eliminate from your speech “uh-uh”, “well”, “as if”, “that’s the same” and the like, as well as obscene language and clichés. Send them overly meaningful expressions like “really”, “fuck” and “cool”.
The trouble with them is that they can replace a significant part of the vocabulary and make speech poor.
Be aware of unwanted words. Record your own speech on a camera or voice recorder, imagine that you are at an interview or presentation. Reread your social media posts.
Analyze all this and write down the words and expressions that you want to get rid of. Share this list with a friend or colleague, ask him to pull you down every time he hears forbidden language.
Ready-made program for increasing vocabulary for a week
Especially for you, I have compiled an express program to increase your active and passive vocabulary. Enjoy it for your health.
Monday:
- read 15 pages of literary text;
- write a summary of the film “Titanic”;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “conjuncture”, “gaslighting”, “alabaster”;
- make 2 sentences with each of the three words;
- come up with a sentence in which all words begin with the letter M;
- retell your favorite childhood cartoon.
Tuesday:
- read 15 pages of popular science text;
- write an essay on the topic “What freedom means to you”;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “unflattering”, “agoraphobia”, “underwriter”;
- make 2 sentences with each;
- learn a short poem and recite it in front of the mirror.
Wednesday:
- read 15 pages of business text (economic article, legal document or legal act, etc.);
- write a letter to a real or imaginary friend and describe the events of recent days;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “columella”, “bivouac”, “familiarity”;
- make 2 sentences with each;
- do an exercise to select synonyms.
Thursday:
- read 15 pages of entertaining text (publications on social networks, jokes, secular news, etc.);
- write a statement to the police about the theft (fictitious, you do not need to send it);
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “barbarism”, “dysphoria”, “aberration”;
- come up with 2 sentences with each of them;
- choose words with the same root for the word “sentence”;
- solve a small crossword puzzle (about 10 words).
Friday:
- read 15 pages of scientific text;
- write an article based on what you read and present the content in your own words;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “enfilade”, “perlustration”, “lemniscate”;
- make 2 sentences with each word;
- retell the last movie you watched.
Saturday:
- read 15 pages of literary text;
- write a detailed review about your favorite vacation spot;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “bruxism”, “liass”, “customization”;
- make 2 sentences with each word.
Sunday:
- read 15 pages of any text;
- learn and remember the meaning of the words “inclusion”, “reisshina”, “apocrypha”;
- make 2 sentences with each of them.
Our program is just a sample. You can start there and then continue on your own. Or make your own right away. The main thing is to start practicing and do it regularly.
Connect with people different from you
Your usual social circle is constantly “cooking” in the same vocabulary, because you have the same interests and topics for discussion. You've probably noticed that when someone in your company finds another job or meets new people, their speech changes. He sprinkles unusual words, jokes, and even the manner of conversation can become completely different.
Every new person changes you. Therefore, strive to constantly expand your circle of acquaintances. Chat at the gym, in the store, attend more events and find people to talk to on the Internet. Don't push away those who are different from you.
How to read books
It is quite obvious that to enrich your vocabulary it is useful to read a lot - just what and how exactly should you read? For our generation, the reference speech will most likely be the speech of the mid-twentieth century, which, on the one hand, is close to modern in many ways, and on the other, has not yet had time to absorb the barbarisms and jargon that came with the perestroika era. Having picked up a work of art, we, as a rule, quickly get carried away by the plot, stop paying attention to the vocabulary, and the linguistic richness of the novel happily passes all our radars. To avoid this, you can use a psychological trick and read memoirs, autobiographies, or any other books written in the first person. If you read them slowly and thoughtfully, and ideally also out loud, ready-made phrases will settle in your memory that we can use when talking about ourselves. True, these phrases must be retrieved from memory as quickly as possible so that they do not disappear into the muck of a passive dictionary.
Reading and memorizing poetry is doubly useful - you learn not only vocabulary, but also syntax. Despite the fact that in Russian the order of words in a sentence is quite free, we do not like to take full advantage of this freedom (which is quite rational from the point of view of saving mental effort). Each of us has favorite syntactic constructions that limit our lexical range - accordingly, if we dream of expanding this range, we need to take a creative approach to constructing phrases. For example, if we are accustomed to using impersonal sentences in the spirit of “I want,” the synonymous series will turn out to be predictably narrow: “I dream / I want / I need / I need.” But as soon as you express the same thought with the help of subject and predicate, “I want,” the room for maneuver will expand: “I demand / I desire / I insist / I need” and so on. When you write sketches, feel free to juggle the order of words, rearrange the syntax, insert participial and participial phrases more often - this is a good incentive to activate passive vocabulary.
Finally, the most important thing. Don’t treat vocabulary acquisition as a responsible, multi-step task for which you need to set aside time and gather your courage. This is not rhythmic gymnastics or neurosurgery, where you need to spend many years and efforts to achieve results. Incorporating new words into speech is an extremely natural process, starting at a very early age, continuing until the end of life and, frankly, not at all difficult.
Icons: 1) Berkay Sargın, 2) Thomas Le Bas, 3) Kelig Le Luron, 4) Iris Vidal.
Write
Start a personal diary or blog on social networks. Write down your thoughts and events every day in great detail. Write about your goals and desires, come up with stories and stories. When communicating with friends, avoid jagged messages and do not use emojis instead of words.
First, writing is a great way to apply and reinforce what you've learned. Secondly, if you write by hand, this will help The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking remember new words even better.
Sign of education
The problem of expanding active vocabulary arises more often when learning a foreign language than when using a native one. Conducting a conversation in English, Italian or Chinese, we periodically find ourselves in a situation where we don’t know a specific word, we can’t find a synonym for it, and even in a roundabout way, through descriptions, comparisons and associations, we’re unable to express a thought - which means we have to grasp for the dictionary. It’s easier with our native language: if the required lexical unit doesn’t come to mind, we will always find a way to get out by finding a more or less exact equivalent for it.
We think about increasing vocabulary within our native language if we need to impress the audience or want to impress our interlocutor with eloquence - that is, when emotions come into play. An extensive vocabulary is an indicator of education and helps to raise self-esteem, and for journalists, copywriters and translators it is also a tool for earning money. Strategically, masterful command of words helps us express our thoughts, emotions and attitudes to life situations as accurately as possible and build effective communication.
The traditional list of recommendations for expanding your vocabulary is two or three clicks away from us and wanders from blog to blog, from year to year with minimal changes. There is some truth in this list, but some advice already does not correlate well with the realities of today's life and with the modern way of thinking, communicating and acquiring knowledge. And others seemed suspicious from the very beginning, but nevertheless continue to be presented as effective recipes. We will criticize typical advice later, but right now we’ll talk about something relevant.
Use cards
If you can’t remember a very complex and interesting word, use the flash card method. Many people have been familiar with this method since school.
On one side of the card you write the word, on the other - its meaning. First you need to try to remember the answer yourself, and then turn the element over and test yourself.
This method is very simple and effective: the memorization process begins with preparation. Therefore, it is better not to use applications, but to create cards yourself and write on them by hand. And you can take a small stack with you anywhere.
Reading
Reading is one of the best ways to increase your vocabulary.
Of course, we are talking about quality literature, and not about cheap heart-warming novels or monotonously meaningless detective stories.
High-quality literature means not only domestic and foreign classics. Someone will like the 4th volume of “War and Peace”, and someone in the process of reading this will want to repeat the fate of Anna Karenina. Reading should be a pleasure, you just need to find an author you like. Evgeny Grishkovets, Boris Akunin, Sergei Lukyanenko - this is a small list of modern authors whose works are worth paying attention to.
Exercise
- Make sentences where each word begins with the next letter of the alphabet. For example: “The stork was a magnificent accordion player. Even the raccoons howled pitifully and nodded their curious faces, enjoying the charming songs. That skill became fatal, fatal. The gloomy heron ambitiously threw poison at the puny, selfish youth.”
- Make up stories from words belonging to one part of speech. Describe your morning using only nouns. “Ring, wake up, alarm clock, turn off. Getting up, searching, clothes. Approach, window, opening, freshness. Cheerfulness, spirituality, joy." Using the same principle, compose stories with only verbs, adjectives or participles. This activity seems simple only at first: if you set out to add more and more details, you will have to learn to carefully select words and pull them out of the passive vocabulary.
- Make tautograms. This is the name for sentences whose words all begin with the same letter. Here is an example from the work “Olgin Island” by Nikolai Kultyapov: “Onufry’s father, Osip Ostromirovich Ordynsky, graduated from Oxford full-time. He definitely refused to stay away from the Fatherland and went back. The possessed Ordynsky announced a survey of individual districts, regions, and vast outskirts.”
- Choose synonyms and antonyms for words. This exercise can be done anywhere and anytime. If you're bored in line or at lunch, come up with a synonym for the word. For example, “beautiful” is picturesque, wonderful, gratifying, wonderful, and so on. Do the same with antonyms.
Useful exercises
Advice is, of course, good. But most recommendations are forgotten almost immediately after reading. So let's add some practical exercises to our vocabulary building program.
I warn you right away that they are very similar to school assignments in Russian language and literature. With one difference: you will not have any strict boundaries or restrictions. It is important for us to develop the skill of using words.
And don’t forget an important rule: progress in vocabulary development depends on the quality and regularity of the exercises, as well as on your personal responsibility.
Presentation
You watched a movie, read a book, listened to a song - please write a brief retelling on paper. Write how you understood the main idea, express your attitude to the issue. Try to write emotionally and comprehensively, do not limit yourself to a couple of lines.
Composition
Now try to compose something of your own. It is not at all necessary to squeeze out of yourself something highly artistic and complex, especially since you are unlikely to succeed anyway. You can remember an interesting incident from your life and put it on paper. If you have children, you can make up fairy tales for them.
No one will criticize you or grade you, so relax. Write to your heart's content.
Retelling
An exercise similar to presentation, but you only need to retell it orally. Choose a “victim” who will obediently listen to you for at least 10 minutes, and tell her the contents of something. Yes, at least our article! Let him also enrich his vocabulary.
If you are very shy, a reflection in the mirror, your favorite cat, or a toy phone will do.
Selection of synonyms
Pick up a dictionary, open it to a random page and point at the first word you come across. Now try to come up with as many synonyms for it as possible.
When your imagination completely runs out, take a look at a service that selects synonyms online. Assess your abilities and mark the words you didn’t remember.
Chains of words
In order for new words to be remembered better, you need to integrate them into the structure that already exists in your brain. I'll explain how it works.
For example, you learned today that the word “ivory” means the color of ivory. To remember it, you can make the following chain of words: white, milky, ivory, beige, yellow. Now the brain knows where to place the new word.
One letter
Make sentences in which all words begin with the same letter. For example: “Vasya won a bicycle in a virtual quiz.” Suggestions must be meaningful. The longer they turn out, the better.
Cognates
Take the first word you come across from the dictionary and select as many words with the same root as possible. You can use any part of speech.
For example, the word “running”. Similar roots to it: run, run away, run through, jog, escape, fugitive, defector, etc.
Role reversal
Learn to speak and write in different styles: business, artistic, scientific, youth. This will enrich your vocabulary and make your speech livelier and more flexible. To make the process fun, I suggest playing a little.
Every day, choose a role for yourself and try to get used to it as much as possible. For example, today you are a lawyer, Eugene, who is writing a letter to his friend to discuss the latest world news. And tomorrow - literary critic Eduard, writing a review of “Dead Souls”. Come up with roles yourself, improvise, experiment. This exercise is also great for developing creativity.
Scanwords and crosswords
There is a common opinion about the uselessness of scanwords: they are only suitable for security guards in supermarkets.
In fact, scanwords and crosswords allow you to learn a lot of new words, often unusual ones, and, at the same time, understand their meaning. A simple newspaper or smartphone app will help improve your analytical skills and expand your vocabulary arsenal.
Learning to speak again
What do we do when we share our experiences with friends or call customer support and cannot find a suitable name or accurately describe our emotions or sensations?
Parasitic words, verbal garbage, or even native Russian obscenities come to the rescue. “Like”, “This, what’s his name...”, “I’m freaking out...” - we are all familiar with them firsthand. And the expression “this nonsense” can describe anything at all.
But we agreed that we would think about how to improve our vocabulary, right? Then we begin to develop awareness:
- Start training with someone you trust.
- Take any short story: the best event for training is an emotionally charged event.
- Start telling it slowly, stopping yourself at moments when you want to use words like “wow,” “I’m shocked,” “well,” “here,” and others.
- Replace them with words that describe your feelings, use colorful epithets. If at first it is difficult to choose them, stop, pause, try different options until you find exactly the right one.
- Don't take the exercise too seriously, let it be a fun game and entertainment together. You can assign comic fines to those who use more filler words in one story. Gradually give up substitute words in everyday communication.
Be interested in other people's speech
Different age, gender, national, and social groups use words that are unique to them.
These could be professionalisms at work, colloquialisms of the older generation, buzzwords of young people. The characteristics and expressiveness of speech often determine a person’s character, his habits, knowledge, and experience.
In any case, we are constantly spinning in a whirlpool of familiar and unfamiliar words, filled with meaning and empty. Another person's speech can be a great way to increase your vocabulary. Our social nature allows us to exchange useful things, including words or phrases.
