How to increase the vocabulary of English: various ways

The Oxford English Dictionary contains more than 355 thousand active words, but it is not necessary to know all of them. A native speaker by the age of twenty-twenty-two uses about twenty thousand words, which is only twelve percent of the total dictionary.

For everyday communication in a foreign language, it is enough to know about two thousand of the most frequently used English words in speech. To read simple books, a vocabulary of four to five thousand words is enough. And, for example, in the fairy tale “Three Little Pigs” only one hundred twenty-four different words are used.

How to increase vocabulary

Remembering some twenty words a day is not so difficult (one phrase will still not be enough), but not forgetting them the next day is already more difficult. How to increase the active vocabulary of the English language? There are several effective ways that will help you to feel much more confident in standard language situations over time.

When choosing a learning method, you need to consider that words are better remembered in context. One and the same word can have several meanings, so you simply do not recognize it in an environment of a different context. Almost the only way to significantly increase vocabulary is to read books. This will remember not only the meaning, but also the spelling. The main thing is not to forget about the pronunciation.

How to increase the vocabulary of English? In the absence of time, you can memorize words on cards or using the application on your smartphone. Another new way is intelligence cards. And recently, watching TV shows in English has become increasingly popular in order to both relax and plunge into the language environment.

Reading books in the original language

How to increase the vocabulary of English words? The answer is obvious: read books. Two facts are known about this method: everyone can master a series of books about the young wizard Harry Potter, who got into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and you do not need to strive to understand every word, because the story will be clear from the context, even in general terms .

What else can you read? Here are a few options:

1. Big Little Lies, L. Moriarty. The female version of Stephen King. The storylines are, for example, parental irresponsibility or domestic violence.
2. “Dorothy Parker's Stories.” A good choice if you are still afraid to take on a whole novel.
3. “50 essays by J. Orwell.” It is worth familiarizing with the original language, if only because he wrote not only the utopia “1984”.
4. Ten years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books, N. Hornby. The language is more complicated, but it is very easy to read format. As a bonus, the reader will receive many excellent book recommendations.
5. On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, S. King. Reading about the basics of a writer’s skill and about the English language in general.

For teens, The Giver (L. Lowry) is suitable. This is the recommended reading for anyone starting to learn English. The volume is small (about 180 pages), and in the text there are practically no adjectives and complex constructions. Children can be given a read of The House at World's End (M. Dickens). This is a book about how five children left without parents do themselves well. Written by Dickens's great-granddaughter.

Photocopy

How to quickly increase your vocabulary in English? To save time on writing expressions into the dictionary, you can alternately copy sheets of words and phrases that you want to remember. The necessary phrases can be highlighted with a colored marker, which will reduce the time of searching for words in the dictionary. Words and expressions will immediately catch your eye. Such a simple trick will allow you to very quickly increase the number of words in the active reserve.

Use paper cards

How to increase the vocabulary of English? The old way is plain paper cards. On one side of the card you need to write a word in English, and on the other, a translation into your native language. You can take such training materials with you to work or review in transport. You need to look at the cards from scratch, remembering the translation. I can’t remember - turn the card over.

Draw an intel map

So you can easily remember all the unfamiliar words from the text. It is necessary to break them into groups according to their meaning. For example, if you read the description of the interior at the beginning of the chapter, then you can choose house as the main word, and give the names to the groups the following: bedroom (bedroom), living room (living room), dining room (dining room). After that, try retelling the text based on the map. The whole secret here is that the combined concepts are remembered more easily than a few scattered ones.

Download some apps

How to increase the vocabulary of English? There are several apps for iOS and Android. Voxy adapts to the needs of the user. There are several modes: words to prepare for the exam, go on a trip or prepare for an interview.

Easy Ten helps you memorize ten new words every day. It is enough to give classes twenty minutes. The program has more than 20 thousand English words, and you can improve the pronunciation using a special simulator. You can break words into thematic lists and keep track of progress.

Memrise is an application with a gaming approach to learning. The curator of the intelligence group will send the user on an exciting journey through the English language universe, which is full of mysterious puzzles, enemy agents and assistants.

Watch the movie in the original

How to increase the vocabulary of the English language? For beginners, the cartoons “Aladdin”, the animated series about the good ghost “Casper”, “A Man named Flintstone” are suitable. For the basic and middle level, the cartoon “Finding Nemo” is suitable, and for the main one - “Shrek” or “The Lion King”. But “Snow White” is for those who know the language well enough.

How to increase the vocabulary of English? Of course, watch TV shows in the original language. For beginners, “Extra” is suitable, and “Desperate Housewives” is suitable for a basic average. “Doctor Who” or “Doctor House” is for connoisseurs, but “Friends” can be mastered by those who speak the language at a basic intermediate level. Dialogues in “Friends” are full of everyday vocabulary, slang, idioms and proverbs. Monologues and dialogues are diluted with offscreen laughter, which gives time for the mental translation of phrases.

Words From Text Service

This service will allow you to learn a language much easier and more efficiently. You need to download the English subtitles for the film or series, open the service in a browser and register, click “Add Text”. After loading the subtitles, the resulting text will appear. Then you need to go to “Learn words”, mark all familiar positions with a checkmark opposite “Famous”. The problem with the service is that sometimes the service incorrectly defines part of the speech, so the translation is incorrect.

Chat with native speakers

This is the best way to increase your English vocabulary. How to find a pen pal? You can chat with a foreigner on Facebook, but there are special resources on which people who want to learn a foreign language are looking for friends by correspondence or for chatting on Skype.

You can find a friend from almost any country on the Scrabbin website. To start communication, you need to register and fill out your personal page. The system allows you to specify several languages ​​for communication. So, if you speak Russian, you can indicate that you want to practice, for example, English and French.

Twenty-five foreign languages ​​can be learned at the Gospeaky resource. You can choose a partner to learn a foreign language by age, availability of photos, level of language proficiency and so on. That is, you can communicate with both a native speaker and not. There is a mobile version and a built-in video chat, as well as a translator, thanks to which it becomes much easier to communicate.