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Improving your vocabulary can be a fun and exciting adventure. Did you know that your brain has two types of vocabularies? Your active vocabulary is a collection of all the words you know and use automatically when you write or talk. Your passive vocabulary is a collection of all the words that you know the definition of, but don’t really think of when you talk. In order to learn a new word, first you have to get it into your passive vocabulary by knowing and understanding what it means. Then you can move it to your active vocabulary by practicing using it when you write or talk. Flashcards and words games like Scrabble are a great was to learn and practice new words. When you improve your vocabulary, you become a faster reader, a better writer, and a good speller too!

Reading is a great way to find new words to add to your passive vocabulary. You can read a magazine or a newspaper, and highlight the words you don’t know. You may be able to figure out what the word means just by reading whole sentence or paragraph. Try to guess what each unfamiliar word means. Don’t try to take on too many words at a time, though. You may forget some new words until you see them again. If you are actively hunting for new words, you might want to keep a word journal. Make a page for each letter of the alphabet, and write your new words down. You don’t need to write down the definitions, that will probably take too long and you’ll get bored. Just keep track of whether you’ve spotted a word before. You probably want to look up definitions on the internet, it’s faster and more fun that looking them up in a dictionary. Computer software programs like Ultimate Vocabulary are another good way to find new words to learn.

Writing is a great way to move word from your passive vocabulary into your active vocabulary. You can practice using new words when you write letters and stories, even emails. Just be careful how many big or unusual words you put into your writing. Too many gigantic words can make you look snobby or just plain silly. Read your work out loud and see if it sounds like you are trying too hard to use big words. Don’t use a big word when a small one will do, just focus on finding the exact write word. English has a whole lot of words that mean basically the same thing, like “remove” and “extricate.” They both mean “to take out,” but “remove” is a more general word, where “extricate” implies more care was taken, or the removal was more difficult. If you are talking about walking away from a bully at the bus stop, you would want to say “I had to remove myself from the situation.” If you are talking about how you had to leave your aunt’s dinner party and make up an excuse and then awkwardly say goodbye to everybody without anyone guessing the real reason you had to leave, you might say “I had to extricate myself from the situation.” The meaning is basically the same, but the precise feelings are a little different.