How to Learn 500+ Big English Words?

Have you ever been flabbergasted by someone who talked to you by putting too many BIG words in a single sentence? And you wondered how did that person develop such a strong vocabulary?

Why is Strong Vocabulary Important?

Once I was going through my twitter feeds & I came across a neatly written tweet among the debris of junk. I instantly glanced at the profile. To my surprise, he was an Indian politician. I was so flabbergasted by his perfect English that I pressed the follow button & started following him.

Exasperating farrago of distortions, misrepresentations&outright lies being broadcast by an unprincipled showman masquerading as a journalst

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) May 8, 2017

This is the power of vocabulary.

It can turn a stranger into an admirer. Would I have ever noticed this twitter profile if the tweet has not taken me aback by its tenacity?

The answer is a straight “NO”.

The science behind why you like what you like is simple. Random & reckless is off-putting. Something orderly & well designed entices people more. This holds true in the case of linguistics as well.

As a blogger, my task is to play with words & engage people using a story line.

A part of my job also makes me learn new words on a routine basis. Be it slang, abbreviations or the mighty scary BIG words.

My colleagues are sometimes in awe with my knowledge of words & idioms. Many of the comments on my blogs are directed towards how I stitch words to make a blog perfect.

In today’s blog, I am going to reveal my much-hushed secret.

How to Remember Big Words?

Some years ago, I was reading a story about the man shot by militants in a terror state. I was oblivion about the meaning of the word “militant”. I was considering it a synonym to the military man.

Stupid me, right?

Only until I realized I was taking it wrong. As I found some parts contradicting.
I picked up the Oxford dictionary & searched the word. To my amazement, the word meant exactly opposite to what I was assuming. Militant means someone who is vigorously active for some cause (mostly in a negative way).

This was an eye-opening incident & I took an oath to know the meaning of each and every word I encounter every day.
This simple habit takes less than one minute but has many benefits. It not only increases your vocabulary but also improves your knowledge in many aspects. Improved memory is an underhand benefit of learning new words.

Fear of Big Words 😱

For any non-native English speaker, big words are mind numbing.

The fear of pronouncing words in a wrong way eats them in mind. To build the English-speaking confident, one need to follow these steps.

• Break the big words in the smaller chunk of two to three letter each. Like, say, contemplation is a big word for you & you can break it into kon-tuh m-pley-shuh n.
• Start with pronouncing these words slowly. If you’ll start speaking English in full swing initially, you might miss some basic & yet important lessons.
• Once you master the pronunciation, you will be carefree & you can shift your attention to preparing your mouth & throat to produce more English sounds.

Takeaway: Your favorite English singer can teach you much about the language than anyone else. I would suggest you to hear to Adam Levine, Jason Mraz & One Direction.

Where do I find New Words?

Anywhere. From the packaging of a food product to the flyer that you crushed & dumped in the dustbin, everything has some new words for you.

So next time, before dumping that paper into the trash. Read it thoroughly. Find new words & search the meaning on the internet.

Your task doesn’t end here. You have to read the usage of the word as well.

Still easy? Let’s add another step & this one is going to be the game changer.

Try to use this word in next 3 days. This countdown engages your mind & makes it difficult to forget the meaning of the word you learned newly.

Remember that revising is the key to becoming a pro. This technique has helped more than hundred people in my network if followed religiously.

Even if you learn two words daily, you’ll be armed with more than 500 words in your arsenal within just one year.

Please note that it is not the quantity that wins over quality. Improving your vocabulary is a process of excellence.

It’s your turn to take the 21 days vocabulary challenge & revert me in the comments or my Twitter Garima Kaushik