What is a good way to build up your vocabulary?

Thank YOU

Reading is number 1. But most important is a concious effort to use the newly aquired words.

There are two vocabularies, the active vicabulary and the passive.

The passive vocabulary is what you understand. Thing is, you don't have to know a word to understand it through context and cognates.

so it is therefore more important to work on active vocabulary as all that is in teh active vocabulary is also found in the passive vocabulary.

Since vocabulary improvement is something that is related to memorization techniques you need to find what works for you.

I used to do this (for increasing my vocabulary in both English and other languages):

Id write down 50 words from the dictionary that I didn't know and put them in my pocket.

While in elevators, on subways, waiting for appointments I'd take out the paper and read over the words using them in sentences in my mind.

I'd then make a concious effort to overuse them in daily conversations until they took (then I relegate them to a more appropriate use level).

Using that technique I was able to add 50 new words to my active vocabulary every day and with minimal time lost (after all I was taking advantage of wasted time).

The method also is useful because memory is strengthened through repetition more so than intensity. A 30 second review 10 times a day is more effective for memorization than is an intense 2 hour session and the difference in long term memory gain is significant.

of course it did nothing to teach me to type. I'll just let my spelling errors and typos in that last post stand, as per usual.

Vocabulary? Pththth . . . That's easy!

1) Search A2K for all the posts written by Setanta or Asherman.
I gaurentee each of their posts has one or two words you've never heard before.
Look them up at dictionary.com and read them again in the context of their discussion.

You will learn a great deal.

2) After that, just write as much as you can, about absolutely anything that catches your interest. Anytime you get stumped and can't find quite the right word for what you mean, treat it like a puzzle! Fish around on thesaurus.com until you catch a good one. I like the syllables. They just sound good. And the symbols ... whoa! Words have a lot of stuff to them, you know? Imagery and simile, vitalization and meaning.

I'm tellin' ya, the web has everything you need! There's more words and ideas here than ... than ... well almost anywhere else. Write on!

Read at least a book or two a week. Whenever you run across a word you don't know, jot it down, and then look it up in a dictionary.

You can get a daily email from A Word Of The Day, but that's more fun than intensive. In college we'd write a new word a day on a list on the fridge and try to memorize it before the next one was posted.

I grew up on a Southwestern ranch before television. We had a windmill generator that charged a series of automobile batteries enough to listen to a few programs in the evening, but other than that we didn't even have a radio.

I learned to shoot and survive alone in the desert at an early age. I learned to draw from calendar pictures, greeting cards, and from the cartoonists Al Capp and Walt Kelly. We had a lot of time and filled it with learning. My first books were Hamilton's Mythology and Arizona Highways. I learned to read rather easily and had devoured Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by the age of six. I read the entire dictionary in that same timespan. When I found a word in the definition that I didn't understand, I looked that up. Long chains of definitions. All that did not make me a good writer. My sentences were often long and too complex. Misspellings were common, and connective sentences weak.

My writing began to improve in college, but not a whole lot. It was in Law School that I first began to write half-way decent sentences. The flood of reading material that had to be abstracted and briefed each day for months and months on end is a hard, but effective means of cutting out the BS and getting to the point. Short, clear sentences with as little ambiguity as possible are the only way to survive Law School writing. Later, I took a three day writing seminar by Grogan, and my writing improved again significantly. One of the best pieces of advice I've seen came from Winston Churchill. Churchill advised never using a fancy word when a perfectly good and common anglo-saxon usage was available. Most readers have limited vocabularies and will abandon anything that stretches them out too much. The more complex a sentence is, usually when it grows too long, the more difficult it is to understand. Keep sentences short, around 14 words, and the chances of screwing up the grammar is greatly reduced. Use your computer's spelling and grammar checking programs. Many computer programs also have a thesaurus function, and some even have pretty good dictionaries.

As other's have said before, there is really no substitute for reading. My average is around three books each week. When I was younger I read mostly non-fiction and reference works. Now, my reading is much more frivolous. I still read a whole lot of history. Poetry was once a passion, but now I seldom read or write it. Poetry is especially good for stretching vocabulary, but even a bit of thriller/suspense fluff can be instructive if the writer is any good at all. I've come to like Stephen King, whose skills are often underated.

I hope this might be of some little use to you.

I have a friend who is dyslexic. She kept a huge dictionary opened and at the ready on her bookcase. If, while watching tv, listening to the radio or talking to a friend, she heard a word she didn't understand or couldn't spell, she went to that dictionary. I always admired her determination to, if not beat, then to at least handle, her circumstances.

I was going to say, just watch the movie "I'm gonna git you sucka."
But asherman's answer was probably more helpful.

Start doing crossword puzzles. Not the lame TV Guide ones, do the NY Times or the Boston Globe ones. Challenging ones. I've learned more words cheating on these then reading a dictionary.

I do crosswords and whenever I remember, I pick one word from the puzzle that I didn't know or have never used and make a point of using it somehow that day. Once you have used it you will find lots of occassions to use it.

wow people you area all awesome than kyou soo much for this insight it has definitely helped me a lot thank you so much I don't know how else I can thank you. We sure do have an awesome web site with awesome people keep it up thanks once again.

thansk I have a web site i write poetry it's EDIT (Moderator): Link removed, do not post your links i love to write that is why i am trying to improve my vocabulary skills, Also i am trying to get better with my speech i have trouble pronouncing words sometimes I go to www.dictionary.com to see the meaning but thank you soo much for that insight. I will definitely do this.

why can't i post my link to my web site?

Take the time to read over your material before publishing it. Writing is spelled: E-D-I-T. Choose your words carefully, and make everyone of them do a job. Un-necessary words add clutter and obscure meaning.

Have your read the English Romantic poet Hopkins? Actually, the 19th century English produced some wonderful verse. Highly structured and technically demanding, their poetry is among the best in our language. On the other hand, "I have seen the best minds of my generation ... howling in the wide-eyed junky streets." I've probably misquoted Ginsberg, but he's dead now and unlikely to object much. Allan once threw my two year old son out of a poetry reading for crying too much.

Well, I love reading poetry trust me, but I have trouble comprehending it when i read classical stuff I need help any suggestions how I can understand classical works little better?

Within arm's reach . . .
When reading ANYTHING or doing your writing, always have these three books (at least) within arm's reach: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Roget's Thesaurus, and the Chicago Manual of Style. Keep looking up a word until you no longer have to look it up - who's counting! All of the advice given here has been excellent. May I repeat, read, read, read! And, write, write, write! An extensive vocabulary comes through practice, practice, practice. Oh, and while you're at it . . . ENJOY!

A small word about your link - it does appear on your posts: that little house at the bottom of each one with the "www" (member's website).[/color]

oh heheh thanks enstien hehe sorry totally forgot about that thanks so much.

thanks everyone