When you reach an intermediate or low-advanced level of fluency, Native English Speakers understand you easily, and gradually, every-day conversation becomes a pleasure. You feel more confident, and generally, happier.
Then, when it is time to relax, you sit down with some tea in a cozy corner and open a pocket book, to read, just for pleasure, and it does not take long before that happiness turns to annoyance.
In spoken English, we use ordinary words. We don't use snobbish academic words, or complicated multi-syllable terminology. But in written English, we often come across words that are seldom used during conversation. These HALT us. We get bogged down with reading, and what was supposed to be pleasure suddenly became annoying. We give up.
The solution is to change our attitude. Make lexus-building (vocabulary-building) into a game. Find yourself a small, durable notebook. One you can carry anywhere. You can use your smart phone, but I recommend a note book because, then it is associated with a quiet and peaceful time, away from the back-lit technology of our time. In this book, you will begin to "COLLECT" words. You will write them by-hand, with a nice pen or pencil. You will NOT write a definition. Possibly, the day you write it, you will look for the definition, but do not write it in your notebook. If you forget this word, and it gets written into your booklet again, a few months later, that is okay. Even putting it in a third time will be fine. But in the future, in a few years, you will look back to the earliest pages in your book with wonder, as you see words that are now easily included in your writing and speaking. These will have become words that no longer cause you to HALT when you are reading for pleasure. You can share this booklet with family and friends in the future to show them that they too can improve, and have some fun doing so. Begin today - become a word collector.
Double Click on these images if you feel like doing an advanced vocabulary exercise. The exercise is adapted from Painless Vocabulary by Michael Greenberg
Then, when it is time to relax, you sit down with some tea in a cozy corner and open a pocket book, to read, just for pleasure, and it does not take long before that happiness turns to annoyance.
In spoken English, we use ordinary words. We don't use snobbish academic words, or complicated multi-syllable terminology. But in written English, we often come across words that are seldom used during conversation. These HALT us. We get bogged down with reading, and what was supposed to be pleasure suddenly became annoying. We give up.The solution is to change our attitude. Make lexus-building (vocabulary-building) into a game. Find yourself a small, durable notebook. One you can carry anywhere. You can use your smart phone, but I recommend a note book because, then it is associated with a quiet and peaceful time, away from the back-lit technology of our time. In this book, you will begin to "COLLECT" words. You will write them by-hand, with a nice pen or pencil. You will NOT write a definition. Possibly, the day you write it, you will look for the definition, but do not write it in your notebook. If you forget this word, and it gets written into your booklet again, a few months later, that is okay. Even putting it in a third time will be fine. But in the future, in a few years, you will look back to the earliest pages in your book with wonder, as you see words that are now easily included in your writing and speaking. These will have become words that no longer cause you to HALT when you are reading for pleasure. You can share this booklet with family and friends in the future to show them that they too can improve, and have some fun doing so. Begin today - become a word collector.
Double Click on these images if you feel like doing an advanced vocabulary exercise. The exercise is adapted from Painless Vocabulary by Michael Greenberg
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