"Composing long vocabulary lists may indeed be valuable for full-time language students, but perhaps they are not as effective for a busy business professional on the go."
Everyone knows that increasing your vocabulary is the best way to make progress in learning a language, but is composing long lists of vocabulary words and then never looking at them again really useful? Many of us make long lists of words, never to look at them again. We encounter words we don’t know the meaning of, look them up, and then dutifully transfer them into our notebooks. These lists may give us a sense of accomplishment, but are we really learning new vocabulary words when we do this? Are we really learning these words by writing them down once? And just how useful are these lists? Vocabulary lists may indeed be valuable for professional, full-time language students, who will be forced to look back and study those words for quizzes, tests, and final exams, but perhaps they are not as effective for a busy business professional on the go.
1. Write what you speak to boost your vocabulary
So which words should you focus on? There are words you use more when speaking and words more appropriate to writing. Even if you write a lot for your job, I would advise focusing on learning more speaking words, since you will be getting more practice with them, and everyone knows that practice makes perfect. Another reason why it is better to use speaking words when you write, they tend to be easier to use and you will be less likely to make mistakes when you use them. When answering questions, taking the questions and reversing them into statements is a particularly effective way of writing. Think of it as training wheels for writing: reversing the question you are given, reforming it into a statement, and inserting your answer is not only a better way to write, but also a better way to retain vocabulary. If you just looked up a word in the question, then rewriting it will boost your retention. What did we just say? Practice makes perfect.
2. Make a list and check it twice
Vocabulary lists can be effective when done properly. With the Great Walkout well underway in our post pandemic work world, many people are changing their careers, moving to new companies, or deciding to work for themselves. Regardless of what career move you are making, every change comes with a vocabulary change, even for native speakers. Companies have their own language, full of acronyms or shortened versions of words specific to the company. Clients come with their own vocabulary, too; they may come from a different part of the United States or a different English-speaking country than the English you are used to hearing, and, besides the accent, there will most certainly be a set of vocabulary words you have not heard before. In your first days at your new job or with your new client, I would keep a running vocabulary list going, that way, each time you encounter a new word, you can add it to your list for a quick reference guide for yourself. This list will definitely save you time, and will help seal the words into your memory, especially if you are a visual learner. Finally, don’t just write the list and leave it in your notebook where you are least likely to look at it; tear the page out of your notebook and pin it to your bulletin board or somewhere handy where you can look at it easily and more often. Even if you are not a visual learner, the repetition of looking at a word will emphasize the visual memory you have of looking at it, so that when you hear the word again and try to remember its meaning, your mind will automatically recall the image of seeing that word on the list without even looking at it.
3. Link your words together for better retention and faster grocery shopping
Long laundry lists of vocabulary words followed by wordy definitions is not a good way to retain vocab. Without being tethered to other words, these new terms will float out of your brain and into the ether above it. Instead, try linking new words together into a short phrase that you can remember and reuse in the future. For example, if you mark the word optimist on your list, besides writing down the definition, someone who always looks at the good side of things, find a phrase that uses the word you are learning, for example, she is a cock-eyed optimist, or she has an optimistic outlook on life. The first phrase uses the word exactly as the original word, but the second phrase uses a variation of the word, enabling you to learn another word. In addition, by including the forms of the word in different parts of speech – not just an optimist, where noun form of the word is used, but an optimistic outlook, where the adjective form of the word is used, you can get more bang for your buck. Are you ready for more? Let’s go one step further; let’s link and learn another word by adding its opposite meaning to the list. The opposite of an optimist is a pessimist, so add pessimist to your list. Pessimist, someone who always expects the worst. Add a phrase like pessimistic outcome, and now you have a sort of sub-list which links words in phrases to help you remember them and reuse them more easily later, words with other words that have the same root but different parts of speech, and words with words of opposite meaning to seal the deal. Now, instead of a long laundry list of disconnected words, you have a sort of shopping list organized by foods in the same aisle. Easier to remember, easier to grocery shop.
Let's review
If you have read up to here, then hopefully you have realized that vocabulary lists can be effective when you use them to your advantage by organizing them in a way that promotes retention and learning. Writing how you speak, that is, using the same words that you would speak with to write, instead of using separate, more sophisticated words as you would naturally do in your native language, will help you to retain vocabulary words by using them more often; making lists of high frequency words placed somewhere visible will help you to identify and retain the company, cultural, or client lingo much faster; and finally, linking the vocabulary words in several ways within your lists will also help you to maximize your learning and retention. I hope that these three tips will motivate you to add many more words in English in '22.
November 30, 2021
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