Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic

Acquiring a large vocabulary can benefit you in school, at work, and socially. It will enable you to understand others' ideas better and to have the satisfaction of getting your thoughts and ideas across more effectively. While there are not any magic shortcuts to learning words, the larger your vocabulary becomes, the easier it will be to connect a new word with words you already know, and thus remember its meaning. 

Reading alone may not be enough to make you learn new words. Often people don't enjoy reading at all. It's more of a chore for them than a pleasure because they don't understand many of the words. If this is the way you feel about reading, there is no point in trying to read something you simply are not able to understand or are not interested in. The important idea is to make a daily practice of noting words of interest to you for further study whenever you are reading, listening to the radio, talking to friends, or watching television. Once you have begun looking up words and you know which ones to study, vocabulary building is simply a matter of reviewing the words regularly until you fix them in your memory. Set a goal for the number of words you would like to learn and by what date, and arrange your schedule accordingly. 

Perhaps the most important factor in a successful vocabulary-building program is motivation. It will be very difficult for you to study words month after month without a strong feeling that it is worth doing, that a larger vocabulary will help you in school and on the job, and that it can well lead to a more exciting and fulfilling life. 

Remember, we all started out in life knowing no words, and now we know thousands. 

Written & Edited by E.Kerr