How to develop vocabulary

The richness of any language is in his words, and the Russian language is known throughout the world for its diversity. Thanks to this, each of us can talk, convey our thoughts, express ourselves eloquently. The accuracy of the formulations we select and the beauty of speech directly depend on the amount of vocabulary that we have. The more words we know, the more often we use them, the brighter and more colorful our speech, the more accurately we convey meaning. In addition, a rich vocabulary is evidence of the intellectual development of man. It can be useful to us at work, in school, in public speaking, in ordinary everyday communication. That is why vocabulary development is so important and even necessary. In our articles “10 ways to replenish your vocabulary” and “Strategies for enriching your vocabulary” we have already talked about this topic, but there is something to add here.

What you need to know about vocabulary
For starters, it’s useful to know that in the science of language it is customary to use a special term “vocabulary” to denote vocabulary. It is the best suited to convey the essence of the concept of "vocabulary." It is important to understand that the lexicon is not just an archive of words, but a whole complex of vocabulary units of the language that society uses and man knows.

And here we must immediately clarify that possessing a vocabulary and using it are two different things, and one should not equate one with another. Lexicon includes:
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Active vocabulary. This includes the set of words that we use every day, constantly communicating with family, friends, work colleagues and everyone around us. Also, these are the words that we hear from other people and can freely insert into our speech, without really thinking about their meaning. Active vocabulary is manifested not only in spoken language, but also when we write letters, SMS, messages in social networks, etc. The main signs of an active vocabulary are considered to be the freedom of its use and the absence of any need to make efforts to select certain words, to search for their meanings in memory.
Passive vocabulary. Here are all the words that we know, including those whose meaning we easily understand when they are found in someone else’s speech, on the Internet, in written sources. However, all these are the words that we use in our speech very rarely or not at all. It is easy to guess that the passive vocabulary can be several times greater than the active vocabulary. Naturally, if necessary, we can delve into the memory and find words from a passive vocabulary there, but in ordinary life they serve as unused “baggage”.
External vocabulary. This definition is most often used in psycholinguistics to denote words that a person does not know and which relate to specific areas of knowledge. If we meet such words in someone’s speech or text, we will not understand their meanings. The external vocabulary can be called a “blind zone”, within which archaisms, neologisms, professionalisms, highly specialized concepts, terms, etc. are found.
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Defining clear boundaries between different types of vocabulary is not always possible, since they are quite blurry and can constantly shift one way or the other. Plus, you need to understand that, for example, a child who just goes to school can literally have a couple of thousand words, and by the time he graduates from school, there are about five thousand of them in his vocabulary. And, in principle, this amount is already quite enough for everyday life; almost all of these words are actively used.

If a person continues to study, reads and learns new things, his vocabulary can expand to ten thousand words, but a huge number of them will already refer to a passive vocabulary. But the lexicon of true scholars and intellectuals sometimes counts up to 50 thousand words. Of course, only a small part of them will be used actively. The rest will be used by such people to communicate with similar scholars or in the process of reading specific literature. At the same time, their passive vocabulary for most ordinary people will be in the zone of external vocabulary.
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Next, we will focus on how to develop an active vocabulary. We also recommend that you read the article “How to Transfer Vocabulary from a Passive Vocabulary to an Active Vocabulary” and go through a short video test to find out approximately how developed your vocabulary is currently.

Vocabulary Development
The exercises and techniques for developing speech and vocabulary below are perfect for both children and schoolchildren, as well as for students and adults. There are no special rules and directions for their implementation, except for one thing - they must be applied, and the more often you exercise, the higher your results will be. We start by looking at three groups of assignments, and then give some useful recommendations.

General vocabulary development exercises
Exercises from this group can be performed orally or in writing:
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Exercise "Alphabet". You need to come up with sentences in which the words begin with each letter of the alphabet in order. For example: “Antosha wanders in the thick of trees, eats honeysuckle, yawns. And the beauty of the forest is cute, gently charming ... "etc. Try to come up with sentences using all the letters: from A to Z.
Exercise "Nouns". You tell a short story using only nouns. For example: “Morning. Coffee. The car. Office. A computer. Dinner. Evening. Street. House. Entrance ", etc.
Exercise "Verbs". By analogy with the previous exercise, you tell a short story using only verbs. For example: "Came, saw, won."
Exercise "Adjectives and Adverbs". Everything is done, as in previous exercises, only using adjectives and adverbs.
Exercise "Monaural". You come up with sentences in which all words begin with the same letter. Words must be connected. It is advisable to keep the meaning, but at the first stage you can give yourself an indulgence - especially not to think about the meaning.

At first it will not be easy to perform these exercises, especially for schoolchildren and children, but with practice the results will become better: compiling interesting sentences and stories will be all the easier, and new words will gradually appear in everyday speech.
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Simple and quick vocabulary development techniques
As we already know, the development of speech and vocabulary is necessary primarily for voicing thoughts and conveying meaning. If you constantly train, this skill will develop, and if you do not pay attention to it, it will become weaker. Based on this, for the development of the lexicon, you need to communicate as much as possible with people, pay attention to the new words that they use, memorize their meaning and apply in speech ourselves.

Here we can give two main tips:

It is useful to communicate with diverse and dissimilar people. Among them may be: acquaintances, friends and acquaintances, classmates, classmates and colleagues, training partners, sellers in stores and fellow travelers in taxis and public transport, people on social networks and forums, etc. In other words, the volume of vocabulary is largely dependent on the breadth of the circle of friends.
It is equally useful to listen to audio books. This tool is quite effective and requires virtually no effort. In addition, it is very convenient: you can listen to audio books (as well as seminars and all kinds of trainers) in the headphones on the way to work or school, in the car during any trips, at home, doing housework or cooking. If desired, you can find special books for the development of vocabulary, collections of quotes and aphorisms, biographies, philosophical and scientific works, works of art and much more.
The presented techniques are suitable for schoolchildren, students, busy people and businessmen, as well as all those who do not have free time for special classes to expand the vocabulary. If you do not have problems with leisure, and you want to spend time with benefit, refer to the following tools.
https://alpha.iodide.io/notebooks/4142/files/african-school-inside-and-out-html.pdf
Special vocabulary development techniques
To apply these techniques, you will have to specifically devote time to them. But the effect will be much stronger than when performing general exercises and using simple and quick tools. Vocabulary development is promoted by:

Memorization. If you will not just listen and learn new words, but also try to memorize them, you will increase your chances of enriching your vocabulary, and at the same time you will begin to translate many words from a passive vocabulary into an active one. As you know, the best way to remember something is to repeat it, so at your leisure it is useful to retell the speech of other people, excerpts from books you've read, etc. Try to match the original as much as possible, to preserve the style of the author, as well as his manner of presentation. It is equally effective to memorize poems, songs, and even definitions of different concepts.
https://alpha.iodide.io/notebooks/4142/files/be-careful-poisoned-what-to-do-with-bullying-at-html.pdf
Learning foreign languages. You can not limit your vocabulary to the words of only one language. Learning English, Turkish, Spanish and any other language helps to expand the vocabulary in several directions at once. Firstly, the more new words you learn and remember, the more connections you make between them and the easier and faster you can “grab” the right word from your memory. And secondly, when studying foreign words, you get acquainted with the words of your native language, which you did not know before. By the way, an interesting fact: in the Russian language there are about 500 thousand words, in English - about 250 thousand, and in Japanese - about 50 thousand.
Keeping a diary. Suppose that for some reason you can’t start learning a foreign language now, don’t want to listen to audio books and don’t want to communicate with a lot of different people. There is still a way out - keep a diary. Writing for yourself is not a super-efficient way, but it can help in any case. Pick up a notebook or notebook and start writing down something daily. Due to the fact that you will constantly be forced to formulate your thoughts, your vocabulary will begin to grow by itself, because you will need to select certain words, including those that are in the field of a passive vocabulary. A bonus will be the training of your literacy and a test of knowledge of the rules of the Russian language.
https://alpha.iodide.io/notebooks/4142/files/better-to-just-hit-or-10-surefire-ways-to-html.pdf
Linguistic games. The development of the vocabulary of children, schoolchildren and adults is greatly facilitated by specialized games, such as word puzzles, charades, puzzles, crosswords, scanwords, etc. When you solve them, you will automatically learn new words and their meanings. In addition to this, on the Internet you can find many interesting games to expand the vocabulary, which are cool to play in the company. Here are just a few of them: “Hidden motives”, “New dictionary”, “One day in a life”, “Sound images” and “Taboo”. And here, too, there is a bonus - the general development of thinking and intelligence.
Reading. Sites, books, newspapers and magazines are not only a source of information, but also a tool for replenishing vocabulary. Naturally, when choosing what to read, you need to start from individual tasks and interests. Depending on the vocabulary of which “profile” you want to replenish, you can choose special, scientific, journalistic or fiction. It is recommended to read at least an hour every day, and so that the words are absorbed faster, it is better to read aloud, because memorization is more effective when speaking. If you want to focus on individual words, you can study all kinds of reference books and dictionaries: spelling, rare words, synonyms, explanatory of different authors and others.

The exercises and techniques we have proposed should be enough to fill your head with a variety of different words, concepts and terms. It is best not to resort to any one method, but to use several at once. You can even choose a specific activity for every day. And if with exercises, foreign languages ​​and linguistic games everything is quite simple, then with books it is quite possible to dream up. Therefore, we want to advise you for reading not just anything and anything, but something specific.

Books for vocabulary development
Books are always good in that they allow a person to learn a lot of new and interesting things. Reading in itself makes speech more developed and rich, but not all books will be useful precisely for these purposes. There are universally recognized writers, authors of real masterpieces, demonstrating the beauty of the great Russian language (and the language as a whole) as much as possible.
https://alpha.iodide.io/notebooks/4142/files/calm-and-not-calm-html.pdf
Let's start with the domestic classics, which influenced the formation of Russian speech, as well as morality. The books of the following authors will significantly expand the vocabulary:

A.S. Pushkin. It can be called the basis of Russian literature, because its vocabulary was about 25 thousand words. You can rest assured that with the help of his writings, poems and fairy tales, you will seriously replenish your vocabulary.
M.V. Lomonosov. No less “effective” are translations, letters and poems of this remarkable person, who is considered the founder of Russian poetic culture.
F.M.Dostoevsky. Reading the works of this philosopher and novelist (“The Brothers Karamazov”, “Idiot”, “Crime and Punishment” and others), you will not only plunge into the bowels of the Russian language, but also will know the world of new feelings and experiences.
N.M. Karamzin. We advise you to pay attention to the books “History of the Russian State” and “Poor Lisa”. They alone are enough to enrich their speech with many new words, including barbarisms and neologisms.
https://alpha.iodide.io/notebooks/4142/files/flipped-classroom-as-a-means-of-boredom-html.pdf
Foreign classics are no less capable of influencing the development of speech. In addition, reading such books, you can get acquainted with the behavior of people of different nationalities:

French authors: Honore de Balzac, Emil Zola, Jules Verne, Georges Sand and others.
English authors: William Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, Daniel Defoe and others.
American authors: Margaret Mitchell, Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Jack London and others.
Spanish authors: Miguel de Cervantes, Camilo Jose Cela, Eduardo Mendoza, Francisco de Quevedo y Villiegas and others.
Further on our list of more specific literature is dictionaries. Their study, perhaps, even better helps to develop speech and vocabulary. Feel free to take any of the dictionaries listed and start reading it:

"Russian literary pronunciation and stress", ed. R.I. Avanesov and S.I. Ozhegov.
“School phraseological dictionary of the Russian language” by V.P. Zhukov in collaboration with A.V. Zhukov, ed. G.V. Karpyuk.
"Dictionary of Russian proverbs and sayings." V.P. Zhukova.
“A unique illustrated dictionary of aphorisms and winged words for children” by S. N. Zigunenko and A. F. Istomin.
“Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language” 3. E. Alexandrova.
"Spelling dictionary of the Russian language" D. N. Ushakova, S. E. Kryuchkova.
“School etymological dictionary of the Russian language. The origin of words. " N. M. Shansky and T. A. Bobrova.
"Dictionary of antonyms of the Russian language." M.R. Lviv.
And a few explanatory dictionaries:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15yIrO5IL0RuHNTFU16CrLxTrD_XM47sn/view
Explanatory Dictionary of S.I. Ozhegov.
Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language V. Dahl.
Russian explanatory dictionary of V.V. Lopatin.
Explanatory Dictionary T.F. Efremova.
Explanatory Dictionary of D. N. Ushakov.
Explanatory Dictionary of A.P. Evgenieva.
And finally, if you want to give yourself real intensive training in the development of speech and speech skills, but also have an interesting time, turn to very informative specialized works:

"A word about words." Leo Uspensky.
“Do we know Russian?” Maria Aksenova.
"Living as life." Korney Chukovsky.
"Russian is on the verge of a nervous breakdown." Maxim Krongauz.
"Russian with a dictionary." Irina Levontina.
"From the Adam's apple to the apple of discord." Vadim Khrappa.
"The word is living and dead." Nora Gal.
"The oddities of our language." Nigel Brown
"How to talk with anyone, anytime, anywhere." Larry King

And in conclusion, a few words about how to quickly memorize new words from books. This is best done in a playful and creative way:

Solve themed crosswords on specific works.
Answer questions after reading books. They can be found on the Internet, and it is better to give answers in writing.
Write notes of your favorite works, imitating the authors. So you will develop speech, literacy and memory.
Keep a diary where you will write down interesting and words you like. Do not forget to include their definitions there.
Try your hand at writing. At the weekend, spend a couple of hours writing a short story or essay on a free topic.
Communicate with people, read books, study dictionaries and encyclopedias, write new words in a diary, notepad or on stickers - all these are components of the development of speech and vocabulary. If you want to expand your child’s vocabulary, read it out loud, review and describe wimmelbooks, play board and active games, compose words from cubes and magnets and explain their meaning, maintain curiosity and interest in the world around him.

Active and deliberate actions - this is what is a prerequisite and a guarantee of the development of vocabulary. Human speech can be compared to a muscle that requires constant training for growth and strengthening. Try to always maintain it in working condition, without missing or ignoring new words, recognizing, refining and remembering their meanings. And the most important thing is, of course, the use of new words in your everyday speech.

To complete the picture, we suggest you take a break from reading and watch a video with the participation of rhetoric teacher Anna Komlevskaya, in which she shares useful tips on developing vocabulary and speech. We wish you success and thousands of new words!