Note: If you are really serious about improving your vocabulary, we highly recommend you check out the popular Ultimate Vocabulary Builder

Improve Vocabulary: Software Can Help!

If you want to improve your vocabulary, software can really help! Most people tackle vocabulary studies by using flashcards. The trouble with flashcards is that they really only help you memorize definitions. Sure, they are great if you just need to spit out definitions for a quiz, but you’ll probably forget them quickly. In order to truly improve your vocabulary, you need to read. Even without looking up a word in the dictionary, if you see it enough times in your reading, you will eventually get a sense of what that word means. You need to read it over and over in many different places before you’ll really understand it well enough to use it yourself. Reading is an awesome way to improve your vocabulary naturally, but what if you need to learn certain words for a big test? How do you find places to read those words over and over again in different contexts? That’s where vocabulary software comes into the picture.

There is a lot of vocabulary software out there, and not all of it is good. The WordSmart system costs hundreds of dollars and is pretty widely known as a scam. The Vocaboly system is basically a computerized deck of flashcards. A lot of the programs try to teach vocabulary in exactly the same way most people try to learn it: memorization. But we already know that memorization doesn’t work very well for long-term vocabulary expansion. You need to read the words over and over in context. Fortunately, there are some really advanced programs designed to improve vocabulary, software that is designed by people who understand how you learn new words.

Programs like Ultimate Vocabulary help you learn words by showing you many different sentences that use each word. Some programs show you as many as 50 different sentences, which is a lot like reading that word in 50 different magazine articles. Rather than spending hours reading and hoping to encounter the words you want to learn, good software gathers up those words for you.

A good vocabulary program will also give you in-depth information about each word you want to learn. To remember words, you need to build connections in your brain, and the more you know about the word the more connections you will have. Improve vocabulary software can show you the root and history of a word, the etymology and the part of the world it came from. Some programs even give you links to Wikipedia so you can keep reading. Vocabulary software usually includes lists of words for major standardized tests, and word filters to help you focus on the words you actually want to learn. Good programs help you learn words just like you do when your read, but faster.