hi guys today I'm gonna be sharing with
you my top 10 tips to increase your
vocabulary I'm so glad to hear that
you've been enjoying my English language
videos and I love reading your comments
so thank you very much for always coming
back and engaging and leaving lovely
comments I really do appreciate it i'll
leave my english language playlist here
in case you want to catch up with any
previous videos that I've done on the
subject but today I'm going to be
talking about vocabulary a lot of you
have left comments in my previous videos
asking for tips on how to increase your
vocabulary and I thought I would round
up my 10 best tips the things that I
find that helped me the most to build my
vocabulary just a quick little
introduction in case this is the first
video of mine you're watching I am
originally from Brazil and I have been
given in the UK for about seven years
now I learned English as a foreign
language my first language is Portuguese
and I decided to start making these
videos on how I became fluent in English
how I got a British accent and just
generally sharing my English language
learning journey learning new languages
is a passion of mine and I think that
has definitely contributed towards how
quickly I became fluent in english so i
hope you liked this video and let's get
to the top 10 tips tip number one is to
keep a diary of new words that you come
across you can keep a physical diary
where you write things down or you can
also write things on your phone which is
my preferred method because I always
have my phone on me so it's just quicker
and easier and it's a good way to make
sure that you always have those words on
you if you want to refer back to them so
let's say that you came across a new
word today I for example came across the
word preposterous today I hadn't come
across that word before so I made sure
to write it down on my notes in that
word means something that is not common
sense or something that is absurd or
ridiculous so if you think someone has a
completely ridiculous idea you could say
that idea is preposterous so I learnt
that word today and that's gone straight
into my little word diary tip number two
is to try and learn
many synonyms as possible of the words
that you already know because that is
going to increase your vocabulary so so
much and if you don't know what a
synonym is a synonym is the words that
means exactly the same thing as the word
that you already know so for example a
synonym of the word preposterous would
be absurd so if i wanted to expand that
even more I would look in a thesaurus a
good place to look is thesaurus.com so
I just have thesaurus.com open here on
my phone and I'm going to look at more
synonyms of the word preposterous so you
have things like absurd crazy excessive
exorbitant extravagant extreme fantastic
foolish and many many more so you get
the gist and sometimes that just
triggers your brain to find even more
words that you wouldn't think to
be associated with that word and that's
a really great way to build up your
vocabulary imagine that you just look at
one word and you realize that you
already know five or six words that mean
exactly the same thing as that word tip
number three is to take stock and by
that I mean every once in a while look
around you look the room that you're in
what do you know about that room if
you're just chilling out at home sitting
in your living room or in the kitchen
just look around you and start naming
things that you know about that room so
I'm currently in my office / study room
and if I look around I see the most
basic things like door window curtain
laptop so just look around you and name
all the things that you know and you
might find things that you don't know
when in that case if you don't know a
word look it up write it in your little
word diary and every time you go back to
that room you're going to look at that
item that you just wrote and it's going
to help you build your vocabulary slowly
if you do that to every single room of
your house then you go and do that to
your school or your workplace then
slowly you're going to start adding on
to your vocabulary tip number four is to
dig deeper try and explore a new topic
maybe not every single day but every
once in a while
possibly once a week or once every two
weeks depending on how frequently you're
practicing your English look for
something in the news or in a magazine
or in the newspaper and find a topic
that you're interested in and explore
that topic I myself love photography and
I've started to take an interest in
learning all the jargon in all the
specific language that goes with
photography there are lots of specific
terms like a aperture, depth of field and
shutter speed and these are all things
that are specific to the subject of
photography or videography that is a
great way to improve your vocabulary
because if you like that topic then
you're likely to talk about that topic
with your friends tip number five is to
try and find connections between English
words in your own native language words
you're bound to know a lot more words in
your native language and sometimes those
words are fairly similar to English so
I'll just give you a quick little
example of a word that someone might at
the moment in Portuguese the word preposição
is very similar to the word
preposition in English both in the way
that they are spelt and in the way that
they sound so if I were to try and make
a connection between the word in
Portuguese and the word in English that
would save me a lot of time trying to
figure out what that word in English
means obviously that doesn't work for
every single word and there are many
words out there they give you a false
sense of security into thinking that you
know what they mean when in an actual
fact they mean something completely
different so if you're in doubt always
check in a dictionary but as a general
rule it's a good way to build your
vocabulary if you can find those
connections between English words and
your native language tip number six is
to deconstruct words and by that I mean
get to the root of a word to understand
its meaning this is something that I
practice every single day and I have
done ever since I started learning
English it's something that interests me
in any case because I love languages and
even in Portuguese I do this
deconstruction technique because I like
understanding the meaning behind the
words and I think that's one of the most
important steps to becoming good at
in English if you can figure out the
meaning of words that you don't know
just by deconstructing them whilst you
read them you're saving yourself a lot
of time and a lot of effort having to
go back and forth into a dictionary I
look at two different things first I
look at the context and then I look at
the word structure so at the word itself
and how that word is formed so let's say
you're reading a book and it says
something like the diamond ring
disappeared and you don't know what that
word disappeared means first take that
word on its own and try and
deconstructed so break it apart into
separate categories so I would
deconstruct that word as dis, appear and
ed at the end and then I will try to
figure out what each part of that word
means so if I know what the word appear
means then that's already helping me out
loads but I know that appear usually
means that something became visible or
noticeable or so what are these two
connections go into that word to change
its meaning the prefix dis usually
tells me that that is a negative or a
reversing connotation to that word so
it's changing its meaning to the
opposite and the contrary so from that
deconstruction I would be inclined to
think that the word appear has changed
its meaning to the opposite because of
the prefix dis then the suffix ed
tells me that that has changed to
past tense so it's not something that's
happening in the present it's something
that happened in the past and so by that
I suddenly figure out that the word
disappeared means something that's
vanished something that was there but
suddenly is not there anymore so I think
that's a great way of learning new
vocabulary without necessarily having to
go back and forth into a dictionary tip
number seven is to do the opposite of
tip number six and to aggregate so group
words that are similar together and try
to categorize them and you'll find that
you know probably about 10 to 15 words
that all come from the same root so for
example i'm thinking of the word act you
can find words that are similar or come
from the same root as act such as
activity
action acting actor actress and all
of those are coming from the same root
so you could probably try and figure out
the meaning of these words without
looking at a dictionary just by
aggregating those words all under the
same root tip number eight is to use an
app on your phone that will give you a
new word every day to learn it might
seem something simple but there are 365
days in the year and if you have 365 new
words in a year then that's a lot of new
words in your vocabulary so an app that
I like to use on my phone is just
dictionary.com and it gives me a new
word every single day so here's the word
for today and it's something that I
actually don't know what it means so
that would be great for my little word
diary that I mentioned on tip number one
so the word here is Chanticleer and it's
a noun let's just press a little sound
button to see if i pronounced it
correctly chanticleer I think
Chanticleer so I actually said
Chanticleer but I think it's more of
like a ch- chanticleer set here the
Chanticleer is a noun which means a
rooster used as a proper name in
medieval fables. A rooster i think is a
cockerel in British English so that is
what chanticleer means and that was my
word of the day tip number 9 is to make
a commitment to apply the new words that
you learned as many times as possible
during that day so for example set
yourself a target to use a new word at
least five times that day it will force
you to have to remember that word which
means that that word will become part of
your everyday vocabulary for that day
you might forget it in the future but
some words might stick around and that
will slowly help to build your
vocabulary so my target for today is to
use this word Chanticleer five times so
that I don't forget it now how am I
going to find five situations where I
need to mention a rooster or a cockerel
so that I can use that word
that's going to be a big challenge but
I'm up for it and my last tip tip number
ten is to be curious and inquisitive if
you have an interest or if you develop
an interesting learning new words then
you'll find that your vocabulary will
grow much quicker so instead of always
relying on the words that you already
know find other new and exciting words
out there and that is my secret to
developing a good vocabulary in English
that tenth tip there be curious and be
inquisitive is what made me grow my
vocabulary so much if I haven't been
interested in learning all these new
words my vocabulary would never be as
close to what it is at the moment and to
be honest it's not something that's easy
to do you do have to force yourself
sometimes and you do have to try and
memorize those things because certain
words just don't make sense and you do
have to memorize some of them so making
the effort to stay curious and
inquisitive it definitely will helped me
the most to build my own vocabulary in
English I hope you found this video
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all of the videos that I've done so far
on the topic of English speaking English
fluency and English learning I hope
you're all having a lovely day and I'll
see you very soon bye