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Question: I'm frustrated about my vocabulary!.!.help!?
i'm 16 and i like reading but when i read alot of but sometimes i can't grasp alot (i mean alot) of words!.!.!.so while reading the book i keep a piece of paper infront of me and write down all of the words and look them up!.!.after that i study them!.!.!.alot of words lists !.!.!.very depressing i feel like i'll never catch up with all the words great authors use(my only dream is to be a fantasy author)so isn't there any other way that help me grasp more words in a less time!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Relax, you're doing great!.!.!.it will come to you!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
To quote a character from 'akeelah and the bee' merely memorising words is pointless, you must learn how to use them in sentences!. So rather than go through hopeless word lists and learn useless words like 'xanthosis' (alright so no word is useless but!.!.!. learning a lot of scientific or medical type words is not useful to expanding oneself as an author)!.!.!.
Read essays by great authors or books by Victorian authors!.!.!. they often had huge vocabulary!. read translations of Socrates!.!.!. Virginia Woolf, Dubois, Thoreau all had large vocabularies!. As did America's founding fathers!. And Winston Churchill often uses 'big words' and has a grand style!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
well what you're doing is what college professors expect you to do when you're reading a piece of lit (but w/o writing it on a piece of paper, i write all my notes in the books that way when i go back to read it i can look for the definition right there) and also when you're reading try to figure out their meanings yourself (if you can)
Hope that helps, Good Luck! : )Www@QuestionHome@Com
You could subscribe to dictionary!.com word of the day!. They will email you a new word every day!. Then for that day you can practice using it in your vocabulary!. Truth be told all authors are not excellent in English, they use a thesaurus and those who don't should (Stephenie Meyers comes to mind- I hate the word chagrin because of her!.)Www@QuestionHome@Com
You should listen to 1960's and 1970's music - it's from back before music became about being cool and there was an element of art to music!.
also, if you scan thesauri, you'll absorb some "sexy words" [as my Literature teacher calls them] for very simple things,
For example:
Didactic; overly preachy
Juxtaposition; two things of polar opposition put together to highlight their differences!.Www@QuestionHome@Com
You're pretty much doing the best way to build your vocabulary!. All the greats say that reading is the best way to do it, and that if you don't understand a word, look it up in a dictionary!. With me, if I care about something enough, it'll cement in my brain automatically!. I learned five new vocabulary words yesterday in relations to literary terms, and they're well cemented in my brain because I care enough to know them!. This may not be true of everyone, but all I can say is that repetition is another great technique to get something stuck in your head!.
Writers should have a good vocabulary, but they also keep dictionaries and thesauruses next to them!. Microsoft Word's synonym program doesn't give you accurate ones all the time!. For example, when I tried to look for a synonym for encase, it gave me encapsulate and encapsulate means 'sum up!.' The thesaurus is your best friend!. And if you want to be an author of fantasy one day, why not start now!? Better to start young so you'll be ahead of those who start at, say, 'thirty!.' Www@QuestionHome@Com