Hello English Learners!!
A good way to end this year is posting another lesson to learn English. Today it is about vocabulary. I'm sure you all know what vocabulary is. It's the set of words which form a language, the words that a group of people use or even words only used for a specific field. The question is, what do you do when you don't know a word?
I'm going to explain some of the strategies that are useful for me when I don't know a word. If there is a word you don't understand but there is a picture of it below, you can describe the object, its shape, colors, size, what it is made of,etc. You can explain why is it used for and what group of people are most identified with it, in what context it is used, etc. Besides, you can guess the name of the object in your mother tongue. Sometimes, there is a word in your own language that is very similar to the English word. Another strategy I use to know new words is looking for its morphology. If it's a compound word, I can work out the meaning of the words isolated and then try to guess it all.
Some people look up each of the words they don't understand in the dictionary. I don't recommend you to do it. If you look up all the words, you will waste a lot of time and you won't remember what the text is about. Some words may not be important to understand the general idea of the text. But, if the word you don't know appears quite often, it means it is important and in this case you should look it up in a dictionary.
Do not think that you will learn a word by saying it many times. You learn a word when you find it in eight different contexts.
The context can guide you to guess what a word means, too. You can use words that are close in meaning or substitute words.
However, how do you know you have learnt a word?
There are some characteristics that prove you know a word. You know a word when you can define it and therefore you know the concept (meaning). What's more, you can translate the word into your own language, use it in a context, know possible collocations (words that go with the new word) and idioms, how to spell and pronounce it, register in which it is used (formal or informal), if it's slang (teenagers vocabulary) or not, and if it has a positive or negative connotation.
Finally, I attach some resources on dictionaries that can help you when learning vocabulary.
That's a dictionary that translates words and expressions and gives you definitons as well. For me, one of the most effective dictionaries you can find on the net
It translates English into Catalan. I didn't know this dictionary existed before, I think it's very interesting specially for those who are Catalans.
Happy New Year, English Learners!!!!
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