Old School - Increase Your academic vocabularyI am not the biggest fan of books for academic vocabulary learning as I myself could never learn well from these. To be fair, the books were not to blame because I did not have the patience to make use of these books and increase my knowledge of vocabulary like that.
In hindsight, I should have probably done that more frequently because my vocabulary knowledge is probably my biggest weakness. The issue with extending your range of vocabulary is that it will involve lots of explicit learning as this is still the quickest way to increase your vocabulary knowledge. Research has shown that extending your vocabulary by guessing words from context or picking up vocabulary while reading or watching films is not very effective. If you want to learn more words, you have to do it deliberately. So if that is your goal and this might work for you. You will find my suggestions here. |
New School - Increase your vocabulary the fun wayBut who says that you have to stick to traditional approaches of learning new words. Nobody! So why don't you get a picture dictionary as a beginner, especially if you are a visual learner. This has worked much better for me than the traditional vocabulary learning books and provided me with a lot of motivation.
Another great source for vocabulary learning, and one that I always exploited, is to buy books, or even better magazines, in English about a topic that is really interesting to you and deliberately study the words. If you are interested in animals, buy a book about animals in English; if you are interested in fast cars by a book about cars or get a subscription to a British or American car magazine. If you are trying to become proficient in a foreign language, you need to know words, and the more you know the better. So find something that tickles your fancy. Especially when you have reached an upper-intermediate or advanced level, this is a good way to broaden your general vocabulary knowledge. So, if that is what you want to do, find some of my suggestions here. |
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