Fun Ways in Improving Vocabulary

One thing which is very important in studying a language is vocabulary. It is the all language words either used or understood by a person or group of people. Vocabulary, a language component, is a main component that must be learned. There are several fun ways such as reading, playing some games, listening, and joining at some social networks that can help you to improve your vocabulary easily.

First, one of those ways in improving vocabulary is reading literary works. It can be done by reading the works such as a poem, a short story, or an article. Improving vocabulary through reading an English poem can be done by recognizing meaning of words. Sometimes, you can get more than one meaning from a word in it. Therefore, when you try to understand a word, you will get more than a word. The next is reading a short story. You can choose the interesting one according to you. Then try to read and understand the words especially strange words for you. Meanwhile, when you always find some strange words, you will improve your vocabulary. Another example is reading an article. If your hobby is reading an article in Indonesian starting from now you should try to read an article in English. You can choose the easiest and shortest one. You can also try to read at least a paragraph in a day. When you find some difficult words while reading that paragraph, you should try to look for the meaning. Finally, when you always do them you will memorize those words that you found.

The next is playing some games especially English games such as guessing word and New York Fortune. Everyone likes playing a game because it can make him or her enjoyable. You can also try it while improving your vocabulary. First, you can play an English game like guessing word. When you mention a word, your friend must guess the next word based on the last letter of your word such as “apple èexampleè Englishè hour” etc. Another English game is New York Fortune. It is a game that must be plaid in the computer. In this game, you will match some words with some things. Therefore, you are going to know several words that you never heard through matching the words and the things.

Another way is listening English songs containing some interesting titles. There are some interesting titles such as Irreplaceable by Beyonce and Outta Here by Esmee. Firstly, the song’s title like irreplaceable is interesting because most of you know the meaning of replace or able word only. Therefore, you should try to combine those words then add prefix ir-. Then you should look for the meaning of that word. The next one is outta here. The first word is not familiar for you like the next word. Meanwhile, you should know that outta is combination of two words. They are out and if word. So that, you can find the meaning of outta here title.  

After listening to an English song, you can try to join at some social networks such as facebook and tweeter. Firstly, in facebook, you can chat to other people whether from this country or from overseas. You can converse them in English if they know English. If your partner of conversation is native speaker, of course you must use English. Therefore, you will get some new vocabularies through that chatting. Secondly, using tweeter through two ways can improve your vocabulary as well. The first is making a tweet in English. Tweet is like a statement that can be put in our wall. When you make a tweet, you will try to combine some words. So that, sometimes, you will try to look for some words that you do not know yet. The second one is giving an English comment. You will have an English conversation when you comment your friends tweet in English. Meanwhile, you will try to look for some new words in order to make some comments.  

In improving English vocabulary, you will need a tool that can support your learning like a dictionary with several tips. Firstly, for beginner, you should have a bilingual dictionary. It can help you to translate a strange word whether from Indonesian to English or from English to Indonesian. In addition, you can use it to look for synonym of a word. Then when you have adequate knowledge about English, you can try to use a monolingual dictionary like Oxford dictionary. This dictionary almost seems like bilingual dictionary that contain of some words descriptions. The difference is the words of those dictionaries. The bilingual dictionary is written in Indonesian and English, while the monolingual one is written in English only. Therefore, you may use your vocabulary that you found to understand another word.

To sum up, these activities are the fun strategies in improving vocabulary. The written English works, some games, songs, and linked group of people in the internet are the media that can be used in applying those ways. Also, a dictionary is needed to help you in finding a synonym, description, or translation of a word. Finally, those activities will be effective to improve your vocabulary when you do them regularly.