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USING CURIOSITY TO INCREASE VOCABULARY!

The human mind is like a sponge- it has a natural tendency for absorbing, processing and storing the stimuli it receives. The process is especially heightened if the stimuli- or cause of attention- is intriguing to us and/or manages to arouse curiosity. As children, we were all able to pick up language and coursework so quickly because the novelty of everything around us stirred up our inquisitiveness. While our minds gradually attained a certain level of immunity to our environment and became more adept at separating stimulus that is of interest to us from that which is not, our inherent curiosity continues playing an important role in our desire and capacity to learn. That same curiosity, when applied to learning new words, is an effective technique that you should utilize if you want to increase vocabulary. Here’s how:

1. RANDOM SKIMMING

Open the dictionary and skim through its pages glancing through the words. You could also just take a look at the note at the top that mentions the first and last words on any page. While you are doing this, you’re sure to come across words that incite your curiosity- because of their shape, size, sound etc- and you will want to stop and find out what they mean. You might also come across words that you have heard before in the past but didn’t know the meaning of. Because you will be learning the meanings of these ‘random’ words out of curiosity, and not the burdensome obligation to ‘learn’, your mind will quickly absorb them and retain them better- effectively expanding your vocabulary

2. PLAY FAVORITES

If you like a certain actor, singer, sportsman or politician you probably follow their appearances in the media and often tune in to their interviews, speeches, movies or songs. Because their creative output is of interest to you, you would be far more interested in knowing exactly what they meant by a certain word or phrase than you would be in character-less word lists used to increase vocabulary. So whether an unfamiliar word comes up in the speech of a politician you support or a new song you like, don’t just let it go by. Your natural curiosity would have already started working (because of your interest in the content) and all you need to do is remember to look up the phrase or word in a dictionary.

3. TEST YOURSELF

We all want to find out exactly how good our vocabulary is. The best way to know the answer is through testing yourself. You could get a friend to test you on an entire list and then find out your score. There are also plenty of vocabulary tests online that grade you on how many words you correctly guessed the meaning of. Because we all want to find out our standing (and improve it), our drive to find out about our mistakes and learn more kicks in. Every time you learn new words, you’ll be curious to find out how many you have been able to retain. Because of your curiosity to find out your learning capacity and progress, you will be able to pick up words much faster.