Sweeten Up Your Vocab: 10 Fun and
Effective Ways to Learn English
Vocabulary
Beyond Flashcards
Your brain has trouble remembering too many random things.
And that’s all flashcards are—random words.
Flashcards are great to remember words you already learned.
But to actually learn a new word, you have to see it in a sentence
Once you link
the word with something bigger, it sticks better in your mind.
How to Make the Most of Your Vocabulary Building
Activities
Use context clues
You should read around
the word to try and figure out what it means.
If you still can’t understand the word, look it up in a dictionary
or ask somebody to explain it to you.
Fun and Effective Ways to Learn English Vocabulary
1. Join Meetup.com
One of
the best ways to learn real vocabulary that you would use in a conversation is
by actually having conversations with other people.
Joining a Meetup group about something that you’re interested in can
help ease your fear about speaking to new people.
You might make a few new friends that way too.
2. Read, Read, Read
The more you read, the more you learn.
There are even some books that are meant to teach vocabulary.
If these are too difficult for your English level, you can try reading comic
books instead
3.Use FluentU to Learn Vocabulary in Real-world Contexts
New words need context for you to remember them.
Takes real-world videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring
talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.
There are six levels, from beginner to native.
4. Play a Vocabulary Game That Helps End Hunger
That’s the idea behind Free Rice, a free game you can
play online.
The game tests your vocabulary skills by giving you a word and
letting you choose its definition.
5. Play Text-heavy Games
Text-heavy games (games with lots of text) like Inkle’s 80 Days can introduce
you to new words through simple phrases. Other games like Elegy for a Dead
World can actually help you feel confident enough to write your own stories
and poems.
Games have a lot to teach us, and they remind us that studying
doesn’t have to be boring.
6. Have Fun with Word Magnets
Put some vocabulary
words on your refrigerator .
There are many different word magnet sets available to buy at stores and on
Amazon, so pick the one that is the most interesting to you.
Then you can make sentences with them and get something to munch on.
7. Use New Words in Cowrite.net, an Online Community Writing Game
If you make a sentence with it, you’ll remember it better.
But instead of keeping these sentences to yourself, use them at cowrite.net, a fun writing game.
In this game, you create a story with other users
8. Start a Blog in English
You learn
a lot through writing, too.
Write with a dictionary nearby, so that every time you can’t think of the right
word to use, you can look it up.
Share your blog with your friends
9. Find Ways to Use “Words of the Day”
Every day when you’re having your morning coffee, choose two or three words to be your “Words of the Day.”
Find ways
to use these words in conversation.
The dictionary Merriam-Webster has a “Word of the Day”
10. Use Pictures
Find new vocabulary words and draw what they mean.
Drawing what the word means helps you see the definition in
your mind whenever you hear it.