In my prior article, we learned the first step to improving one’s vocabulary: Reading. This time, we will discuss what you should do when context isn’t enough to help you suss out a word’s meaning, or when you want to know a little more about the word and how to use it. Step Two is:
2. Reference. You know what reference is—it’s those books you can’t check out of the library, right? The encyclopedia, the dictionary, the World Book (do they still make those? I'm old). Well, you can’t run to the library every time you read something new, but you could get a good dictionary for your home. Some dictionaries are definitely much better than others. I’d skip anything that said “quick reference”, for example. Dictionaries that refer to themselves as “college dictionaries” are a pretty good bet. The best dictionaries, like the legendary Oxford English Dictionary, even have an etymology for each word- where it originally comes from, the form it originally took, if it has had a different meaning at some point, et cetera. (Like “et cetera”, for example, which is Latin for “and things”. But more on that later.) And of course, you can always look up words on your phone -- be careful of trusting the AI summaries, though - they aren't that good, yet. Better to click the link and get it straight from Merriam Webster's mouth.
Whether you are reading at home or are out and about, carry a notepad with you and make a note of any words you run across to look up later. If you hear someone use a word you don’t understand, you can ask the person what it means. If you’re embarrassed about that, you can write it down in your pad to look up later. Even if they’ve told you what it means, you should look it up later, anyway, just to be sure they were right in the first place. You might also learn more about it, like alternate meanings, spellings, and more. I do want to emphasize one thing about using reference to learn vocabulary words: one of your most powerful tools for learning is that little pad or notebook. When you look up a word and its definition, no matter whether you are using printed reference or the internet, write them down.
Again, let me stress this: write them down, the word and its definition. It has been shown that the physical act of writing something down stimulates the formation of a memory of that information. Just think of all the times you have written something important down, like a phone number, and then found sometimes you could remember it without even looking. But if you didn’t write it down? That phone number is gone, honey! And you can listen closely in class, but if you have notes, it’s a lot easier to study for that test, right? You can fill a textbook with yellow highlighter, but it still won’t be as strong as writing it out. Typing out the word to google it or saving the definition to the Notes function on your phone is not the same and doesn't make that strong pathway like actually writing the words.
Okay, now remember when I mentioned that some dictionaries tell you what form the word may have originally taken? And do you also remember when I mentioned that when you are learning a foreign language, you may note similarities in word formations? That brings us to the third step…which we will discuss next time!
Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/dictionary-text-in-bokeh-effect-267669/
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