THE IMPORTANCE AND THE WAY TO ENRICH ENGLISH VOCABULARY

THE IMPORTANCE AND THE WAY TO ENRICH

ENGLISH VOCABULARY

By Nickyta Nur Aryda

 Vocabulary is a person's own knowledge of words. It may be anyone, not necessary to be a just language user and it is really very useful to have a good vocabulary because today we can't keep up without any good treasury of words in our minds.

There are really many benefits that an enriched vocabulary can give to someone. The biggest benefit is the impact on others. When you use a language with good words, it really gives an impact to others in such a way that people really tend to think that this man is really smart.

There are many reasons why it is important to enrich your list of vocabulary words. Here are a few reasons to consider:

Ø  Building your vocabulary is important in reading comprehension.

This will be very important in academic exams, such as the SAT, ACT, and MCAT.

Ø  Building your vocabulary will improve your communication skills

Your verbal and written communication skills will improve and you may be able to better understand another individual.

Ø  Building your vocabulary may help improve your personal life, social life and career life.

·         On a personal level, you might develop a better perception on many things in the world.

·         On a social level, your communication skills with friends, family and other individuals would sharpen.You might be able to better articulate certain meanings or become an eloquent speaker.

·         On a career level, you can use advanced vocabulary on a daily basis. This can be important for: Communication, Job Interviews or School Interviews, Examinations, Writing.

One material that important when you enrich your vocabulary is Multiple Meaning Words. In English, there are many words that have more than one meaning. They used in many sentences, phrases, or spoken. Sometimes, English learners can not understand what the speakers says or the meaning of words that they read. Well, it is important for English learners to study hard about multiple words so that they will understand and will not look foolish in a conversation with native speakers.

Multiple words are different with idiom. The multiple words always have same letters in every sentence although it has different meaning. Idiom sometimes look same on their uses in every sentence, but it is exactly different because there are prepositions, suffixes, or adding other word so that two words become one word and one meaning.

In Bahasa Indonesia, there are also multiple words. So, it will not difficult for Indonesian people to study multiple words in English because they already familiar with words that have more than one meaning. It will not need long time to study multiple words.

How to enrich multiple meaning knowledge?. It’s easy. Just read many English book and look for many tutorials from library or internet. You can also ask your teacher or your friends to make your knowledge better and better every day.

Finally, enrich your vocabulary is very important, not only enrich your multiple words but also another vocabulary material. Here are 12 tips to make your enrichment is easy :

1.      Love words.

You have to really want to learn new vocabulary if you're going to succeed.

Learn Danish verbs

Practice their meaning, conjugation pronunciation and spelling online

2.     Look up words you don't know whenever you encounter them.

After encountering and looking up a word several times, you should eventually be able to remember its definition.

3.      Use a Thesaurus.

A thesaurus is a great resource which enables you to know the more advanced equivalent of basic English words.

4.      There are many computer programs and websites that have ways of giving you a short "Word of the Day" list with new words every day.

Try going to www.dictionary.com. Scroll down and click on "Get the Word of the Day e-mail". If you enter all of the required information, you will get a new e-mail every day with a word, its definition, and an example usage sentence.

5.      Get a personalized Google homepage and click on "Add Content". Search for "word of the day" in the search box, and pick some of the content choices that you'd like to have on your homepage. The author recommends Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com), Dictionary.com, and Wordsmith.org. When you log on to your homepage, there will be a list of new words every day.

6.      Read. Read all genres of books. When you come across a word you don't know, read the sentences around the word and try to figure out what it means from the context. Check your guess with a dictionary. This doesn't mean you should start reading medical textbooks or other books with lots of new words on every page. Set aside time each day to sit down with your book. Enjoy yourself

7.      Play word games with friends.

Try Boggle, Scrabble, or Catch-Phrase. There are so many great games out there to teach you new words. If a friend comes up with a word that you don't know, ask them what it means.

8.      Use the words you learn when you're talking to people or writing letters or e-mail.

Using your new vocabulary is not only fun, but a great way to remember all these new words. Try to use at least three new words a day when communicating with anyone.

9.      Learn roots, prefixes, and suffixes.

Many words in the English language come from Latin or Greek words. When you combine these Latin or Greek words, you get new words in English. For example: astro ("astron" meaning "star") + logy (logos meaning "speech") = astrology (meaning "telling of the stars"). Buy an etymological dictionary (meaning "a dictionary of word origins").

10.  If you learn any romance language

(eg: French, Spanish, Italian), or Latin or Ancient Greek, these will help you immensely with improving your vocabulary, especially the two ancient languages here because so many complicated English words are derived from words that are simple and commonly used in them.

11.  Find a friend who speaks English.

It's good to practice using your new words. With a web connection, your conversation partner does not need to live near you. You can email, chat, and even phone each other using your computers. A friend who understands that you are learning can help you practice, use new words in your conversations, and offer you advice. Since talking to a friend is fun, it won't feel like work! If your friend wants to learn your language, too, it will be easier for both of you to understand each other's mistakes.

12.  Listen to the radio, watch television, or find a podcast that you like in English, and practice understanding the language when spoken, too.