Why Should You Increase Your Vocabulary?

Do you need to increase your vocabulary? Maybe you are already perfectly satisfied with the vocabulary you have. After all, you probably use several thousand words on a daily basis.

Still, no matter how many words in English you already know and use, there are very good reasons to improve your word power. In fact, your life just might improve when you learn more words!

In the English language, there are probably about a million words. Even if you use ten thousand of these words on a daily basis, there are still hundreds of thousands of more words you could learn!

When you improve your vocabulary, you not only sound smarter to others, you can actually become more intelligent. By knowing more words you will be able to express yourself better. Your meaning can become clearer if you use words effectively to communicate.

And perhaps most important, you will be able to understand more. A person with a good vocabulary can potentially think more clearly and precisely.

When your vocabulary is poor, you will miss much information that could improve your life. With a poor vocabulary, you may sound uneducated to others, and you may miss out on many good social and career opportunities. A good vocabulary is often required for higher education that could lead to a better job. A person with a good vocabulary is a better public speaker, and may have an advantage when it comes to getting promoted in the workplace.

So, if you decide you want to improve your vocabulary, how should you go about it?
One easy way to learn more words is simply to spend a few minutes a day reading books or articles that are just a little bit more difficult than what you are used to.

When you come across a word you don’t know, see if you can figure out the meaning of the word from the way it is used in the sentence. Feel free to guess a few times, but then make the effort to look it up in a dictionary just to be sure.

Trying to figure out the meaning of the word before you look it up is good exercise for your brain. It will force your brain to do a little bit of detective work.

During the course of your day, every time you come across a new word you don’t know, jot it down and look up the meaning of the word later.

Once you have checked in the dictionary to be sure you know the meaning of the word, the next step that can help you reinforce the meaning in your brain is to actually use the new word in a sentence. Quickly make up a sentence or two using the new word, and speak the entire sentence out loud. This will help you remember the meaning of the word later.

If you are committed to boosting your word power, it doesn't take long for your vocabulary to increase. Learning two new words a day means you will add about 700 new words to your vocabulary over the course of a year!