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

Ten Easy Ways to Improve Vocabulary

1. Read! Reading is the very best way to learn new words. People who have naturally large vocabularies are usually avid readers. Even without looking up a new word in the dictionary, a good reader can learn a little bit about what it means just from the way it is used. Next time they see that word in a book they will learn a little more about what it means. Eventually they will be able to use it themselves.

2. Write! Writing and reading go together well. Write something every day, and be brave when you write. Try out new words and phrases, and don’t be afraid of looking silly. You can have someone look over your writing if you want to, or you can just set it aside and read it again tomorrow or next week and see if you still think it sounds good. You can write in a journal or diary, you can write your own stories or poems, you can even write a fairly long email to someone. Just write something every day.

3. Play a game! Word games like Scrabble and Boggle are great ways to stretch your vocabulary, especially if you play with someone who is better than you. Sure, you might lose every time, but you’ll get to see a bunch of words you never knew before. Upwords, Bananagrams, Scattergories, just about any game with words will do.

4. Go on a word hunt! Keep an eye out for new words wherever you go. On a restaurant menu or at the grocery store, there are probably words you don’t know yet. Even mostly familiar words can be fun if you start to really consider exactly what they mean.

5. Learn where the word came from! Did you know that most of our words for big ideas come from Latin? Did you know most of our simple words for everyday things come from Anglo-Saxon? A lot of other words come from French and Greek. Then there are words like “sandwich,” which actually come from somebody’s name.

6. Learn word parts! A big chunk of our language comes from Latin, and those words tend to be made up of recognizable parts called roots, stems, prefixes, and suffixes. You don’t have to memorize what each part means, just reading down a list of them will help you figure out how different words are related and is one of the easy ways to improve your vocabulary. Then when you see a word made up of recognizable parts, you’ll already know at least a little bit about it.

7. Look it up on the internet! Not only will you probably get a dictionary definition, you’ll be able to read tons of sentences where other people used that same word. It’s a lot like learning words from reading books, but you focus on one word and learn it a lot faster.

8. Use your computer! There are a bunch of programs out there with easy ways to improve vocabulary. Ultimate Vocabulary is a favorite because it has tens of thousands of words and dozens of sentences for every word. It’s like looking stuff up on the internet, only faster and easier.

9. Make flashcards! Mostly they help you memorize dictionary definitions, but flashcards can help you practice words you really want to learn.

10. Ask someone! When you hear somebody use a word you don’t know yet, ask them what it means. If they tell you to look it up in the dictionary, ask someone else. Telling someone to look up a word in the dictionary when you know what it means is mean, and mostly teaches them not to ask you what words mean. You can tell them that.