1 Simple Method to Increase Your Vocabulary | The 3R Technique | How to Improve Your Vocabulary

Learn 1 simple method to increase your vocabulary. This is the 3R technique. Also see - MOST COMMON MISTAKES IN ENGLISH & HOW TO AVOID THEM: • 50 MOST COMMON MISTAKE...
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Transcript:
Hello and welcome. In this lesson, I’m
going to teach you 1 simple method
that you can use to increase your
vocabulary. This is the technique that
I teach my students, and this is also
what I use personally to learn new
words - so I know that this works. So
what is this technique? Well, it’s the
3R method. It’s called 3R because
there are three steps: Read, Record
and Review. I will show you how to do
all three of these correctly to get
the best results. So let’s talk about
the first step: Read. If there’s one
secret to building your vocabulary,
it’s reading. There is simply no
better way. You should aim to read for
an hour per day. If that’s difficult,
do at least half an hour, i.e. 30
minutes but one hour per day will give
you the most benefit. Now I’m not
talking about reading the newspaper or
studying textbooks. That kind of
reading is good but it’s not the best
way to learn new words. For that, you
need to read what is interesting. So
here’s an idea: pick something that
you’re really interested in. Like
sports, movies, music, cars, fitness,
fashion, electronics etc. - whatever
you feel passionate about. Then find
material that you will enjoy reading.
Some great examples are magazines,
novels, short stories or biographies
related to your topic. And don’t
forget the internet - one of my
favorite places for reading online is
Wikipedia. There are millions of
articles on this site and whatever
your topic of interest is, you can go
on Wikipedia and find articles to
read. Now, there’s something really
important. When you read (whether it’s
books or online material), there will
be many words that are difficult -
that you don’t understand. But don’t
look up every single one of these in a
dictionary. Because that will distract
you and make you bored. Instead, your
focus should be to just understand the
overall idea of what you are reading.
For any difficult words, try to guess
the meaning from the surrounding
information. If you cannot, mark them
with a pencil, or write them down and
you can come back to them after you
finish reading. After you have
finished reading, you move on to step
2 - record. This is where you collect
new words. So now, you go back to the
text you read and find words to learn
- there are two types of words that
you can learn - unknown words (words
that you don’t know), and inactive
words (these are words that you have
seen before but you’re not sure how to
use). Aim to collect about 5-10 new
words every day. Once you have the
words, you’re going to note them down
in a notebook, on your computer (in a
Microsoft Word or Excel file) or even
your smartphone (there are many apps
that will let you save and learn
vocabulary). Start by taking your
first word and look it up in a
dictionary. I personally prefer to use
online dictionaries like Cambridge,
Oxford or Merriam-Webster. And now,
you can start to record the word.
Let’s look at the best way to do that.
In your notebook or file, first write
the word - let’s say ‘creative’ is the
word you’re learning. From your
dictionary, you should then write what
part of speech it is (that is, whether
it’s a noun, verb, adjective, adverb
etc.). This word is an adjective. Then
you write its definition - ‘creative’
means ‘having the ability to produce
original ideas’ - it can describe
people or activities. Then you note
any example sentences that you can
find or you can make sentences of your
own. Here are a couple of examples:
“Frank Zappa was a highly creative
musician.” “Children enjoy doing
creative activities.” Along with this,
you should also note down the correct
pronunciation of the word in phonetic
symbols. This word is pronounced /kri
ˈeɪ.tɪv/. There are three syllables -
/kri/, /eɪ/, and /tɪv/ with the stress
on /eɪ/ - /kriˈeɪ.tɪv/. You might not
know these symbols very well, that’s
OK. With the dictionary, practice the
correct pronunciation a few times,
then copy the symbols. Over time, you
will become comfortable with them.
It’s also a good idea to make a note
of the reference - that is, where you
learned the word: which book, website
etc. Because, later, when you are
reviewing the word, you can more
easily recall where you saw it, and
you can also go to the same website or
book if you want to check how it’s
used. You should also try to find and
note down the different forms of the
word. For example, we said that the
word ‘creative’ is an adjective. But
it has other forms too.