Vocabulary: A new weapon!

Google the word ‘vocabulary’ for its meaning, and you will find it to be “the body of words used in a particular language.” There are millions of words in any language, but we can’t have them all in our active memory to use in our conversations. I tried to put up a few ways to improve your vocabulary through this blog that have worked for me(although there will be many more methods for sure, these are the ones I’ve tried and tested and got insane results).

But before diving into the methods to improve, let’s talk about why vocabulary is so essential.

We all must have been (and will be) through uncomfortable zones in our lives wherein we had to speak about some topic we were not aware of or had very meager knowledge of, say Interviews XD. Imagine identifying the right words to put your thoughts in the right place while thinking about speaking. So hard it is. How many things can our brain take care of at once, thinking about the new topic, finding the right words, maintaining appropriateness for society(like eye contact, good smile and body language etc.)?

Ever seen people getting along with the crowd quickly? Of course, that ability to find something to speak to someone unknown depends on the environment one is grown in and previous experiences. Still, you would agree that having a bunch of words in your head to put them together and form a sentence quickly makes it easy (Imagine how awkward it gets when you try to start a conversation with someone, and you stop to find the right words. Funny right ;) ).

So having a good vocabulary allows one to:

1. Be better at conversations: It becomes convenient to interact when we don’t have to struggle much(to bring words from passive memory) to express ourselves.
2. Be a more satisfactory speaker: A good speaker often gets more attention, for people need to spend less energy understanding what they speak.
3. Be a more acceptable writer.
4. Be more confident: The inability to express(due to lack of vocabulary) often leads to breaking down one’s confidence.

So if you have issues with any of the above aspects, then vocabulary deficiency can be one of the reasons. Don’t worry if you are willing to improve but unsure about the road map. Continue reading(although this is a long blog); you will have it in a minute or two.

So let’s dive in straight!

A few things that immensely helped me improve my vocabulary are:

1. Reading news: I always wondered why my vocabulary isn’t improving even though I read a couple of novels and self-help books? Then a friend of mine told me to read the news. In her words: “novels help develop creative imagination skills, but I observed people who read more news having vibrant vocabulary.”

• This point has touched me, and suddenly it all makes sense. To make it attractive, an author takes his own sweet time to re-read the exact phrase 100 times (if required) and identifies words from the bottom of the ancient dictionary. So there will be a bunch of new catchy words, but this will engage our brains in imagining the scene, and we will have so little time to add a particular phrase or word to our active usage (I don’t say that it’s impossible tho).
• When it comes to news, a typical news writer hardly has a day to write an article, so they have don’t have time to dig through enormous dictionaries for handsome words but use their active vocabulary. As a result, in a news article, there will hardly be one or two new words in a sentence that our brain can catch and store in its active memory for use later, hence improving our vocabulary. George Orwell, Charles Dickens all were Journalists before becoming the authors they are known for ;)
• The key to good vocabulary is not learning 100 new words in one sentence; it’s about learning one new word in 100 sentences which a typical news article provides in abundance. I have received numerable comments appreciating my improved vocabulary last year, and I give decent credit to news reading. Thanks to that good friend who was almost a stranger back then :). But there are other methods too which have significantly helped me.

2. Listening to sports commentary: I watched a lot of WWE and cricket in childhood. The only English vocabulary I ever had was through this. I seldom interacted with people through my childhood.

3. Listening to Podcasts and people who have a rich vocabulary — another benefit of Listening. I will write a blog someday on the importance of being a good listener and observer.

4. Conversing in the language of choice(English for me): I made English the mode of communication for informal chats and conversations. This helped me talk about various topics and overcome the fear of not expressing myself.

5. Writing a diary: Initially, it becomes so hard to put our thoughts as words and sequence them, but as time passes, it becomes so smooth, and we become less anxious while speaking (yes, writing a diary improves vocabulary!).

6. Watching long web series in the same language: This seems counterintuitive because actors generally prepare for their dialogues before acting, so how can it be different from a typical novel, you might be asking. You are absolutely right. But I said “LONG web series” and not just any series. I have watched many large series like Arrow and Flash; each roughly has 170 episodes of 45 minutes each. (Also repeated Game of Thrones 3 times). The reason for this is, we get so used to the characters and the plot by the first 10–20 episodes that we would no longer be needing even subtitles and can listen to the statements like regular conversations ;)

I’m sure there are many more; please feel free to comment if I have missed out on anything.

To conclude, having a rich vocabulary helps you get one step closer to having a good communication skill-set. A lot more comes under the umbrella of communication skills; I will be covering more of them in my future blogs ;)

Optional to read:

Q. How did I realize I needed to pick up my vocabulary?

I wanted to write a novel, but as I wrote a page or two, I realized I was inferior at putting my thoughts on the paper, and all the statements appeared redundant. As an author, I’d like to engage more and more audiences, so I decided to improve my vocabulary and speaking skills to be a better writer!

I started by being a little more active on social media and started tweeting and posting stories (responses improved over time). Now, this blog is another attempt to communicate some of my thoughts with awesome people like you. I’ll be posting a blog every week for the entire 2022. So keep checking ;)

In the next blog, I will be covering how I made news reading a habit as a step-by-step guide. I’m sure many of us start something out of excitement but never manage to pursue it for the long term.

Please let me know if something helped you. Also, don’t forget to share your own experience.

Thanks a lot for reading.

Lots of respect,

Mallik.

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Edit: [Me from future] The blog that I promised above(how to develop a news reading habit) is here. Click here to read and enjoy ;)