Communication is the essence of business. You need a good vocabulary for effective verbal or written communications. So, how to build a better vocabulary fast? Following are some of the tips that will help you to build your vocabulary.
- Keep a special note book for vocabulary study. Write in it the words that you mean to look up in the dictionary, leaving enough space for your own abstract of the definition. Let words occupy one side of the page, definitions the other; so that in studying you can put a sheet of paper over either side of the page, requiring yourself to supply definitions for words, or words for definitions. Mark the pronunciation of each new word.
- Be on the alert for new words wherever you hear them spoken. Wide reading with attention to words is probably the best way to extend a vocabulary. When you come upon a new word in your actual study, look it up at once since the content of what you are studying may depend upon the definition. But if you are reading for pleasure or general interest, and unfamiliarity with the word does not interfere with your understanding of the content, jot down the word and look it up later along with the other words you have listed. If you desire to enrich your vocabulary do not neglect this; but, while you are reading, beware of anything that retards your reading rate.
- As soon as you lay aside a book or an article, look up the words from it that you have listed as unfamiliar. Then return to the book to see how they were used, and whether that usage sheds added light on the definition. Decide to which of your vocabularies the word shall belong. You have three: the words you use in conversation; the words you use in formal speech and in writing; and the words you recognize when you hear them or see them written. You can increase all three by acquiring new words, and by transferring words from the more formal to the less formal vocabulary.
- The day after you have made a list of new words, glance over it again. Two days later, look at the definition column and see if you can supply the words. About a week later, review both columns a third time and the words will, after that, probably all remain in your permanent recognition vocabulary. An occasional review at long intervals will recapture any that have escaped you.
- Decide that certain new words are fitted to your daily use. Keep them in mind by any set of devices that appeals to you until you are wholly familiar with them. Try new words by way of experiment in deliberately framed sentences about your everyday affairs. Soon they will slip into your unconscious speech and you will build your vocabulary fast. This is the goal for all speech - that words shall shape themselves with your thoughts without your needing to seek them.
Two cautions are necessary. Do not use new words before you are sure of their pronunciation and meaning; do not use pretentious, high-sounding words where simple ones can do the work. It is as foolish to limit the words of ordinary conversation to a few overworked hundreds as it would be for a cabinetmaker to refuse all tools but saw and hammer; but remember that words are tools they are to be used for the work they accomplish and not for themselves. The workman who uses them successfully must have both skill and discrimination.
