Improve your vocabulary without learning new words.
You already know a lot of words in English, but many of them are only in your passive vocabulary.
Passive vocabulary are all the words you know when you hear or read them, but you don’t use them. Maybe you don’t know how to spell it or pronounce it. Maybe you’re not 100% sure of what it means.
Active vocabulary are all the words you can actually speak and use. These are words you are confident about.
The trick to increasing your vocabulary is simply to put your passive vocabulary into your active vocabulary. To do that, you need to increase your confidence in those words.
How to move passive vocabulary into active:
1. Pick just ONE WORD every day.
This is a word in your passive vocabulary. You know it when you hear it but you never use. Why not? You don’t have confidence in it.
2. Learn the spelling and practice the pronunciation.
Google “How do you pronounce” your word. Listen to a video or audio clip of your word and practice the pronunciation until you feel confident of it. Say it ten times fast. Twenty times!
3. Research the meanings.
Words often have several meanings. Figure out which is the most common and make sure you understand it. Read all the other meanings, too.
4. Look up sentences with that word.
Google “sentences with” your word. Read them and see how native speakers use the word in sentences.
5. Idioms!
Google “idioms with” your word of the day and learn one or two.
"word of mouth" information passed from person to person informally
Example:
We get a lot of our business through word of mouth.
6. Use it.
Make it your “word of the day.” Use it in your next email. Say it to a colleague. Write me and tell me what your word is and give me an example sentence or two.
7. Repeat with a new word tomorrow!
I offer:
Conversation Groups.
Online English Lessons.
Pronunciation Workshops.
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