This is a huge area and this page makes some suggestions about where and how to go about improving your vocabulary.




How to learn vocabulary

How many words a day?
This may sound a strange question, but it is nonetheless an important one. Opinion differs, but good research shows that to really learn a word so that you can produce it in speech or writing, you need to use that word about 6/7 times.

My suggestion is that if you focus only on 6/7 words a day and you recycle them every day for a week. If you do that 5 days a week, you will have over 30 new words by the end of the week - that's good.



Are they words to use or recognise?
This is another extremely important question. As a learner you will come across any number of new words - not all of these, however, are words that you will need to use yourself. There is a significant distinction between your passive vocabulary (words that you recognise) and your active vocabulary (words you can produce in speech or writing). My suggestion here is that you focus on your active vocabulary.

This is difficult without a teacher, but not impossible. Two possible resources here are

• Academic Word List - highly recommended
• Macmillan Online Dictionary - the words in red are the "must have" words for your active vocabulary
  

Collocations, synonyms and word families
It is not efficient to learn individual words, rather you want to learn words in groups. This is a complex area, but for a brief introduction, look at

• synonyms
  
• collocations
• word families

How to record vocabulary

A necessary part of the vocabulary learning process is to record the vocabulary you are learning. There are a variety of different techniques possible and it is a matter of individual choice which technique(s) you choose. Here are some brief comments to inform your decision:


Mindmapping
This method is particularly efficient for visual thinkers. Part of the concept is that we do not store language in our brain in lists, so we shouldn't record it in list format either. It is particularly relevant for recording synonyms and collocations - words that connect together.

Look at this example of some synonyms relating to law. The benefit of this method of recording vocabulary is that you can see which words fit together: for example "barrister" and "solicitor" are both varieties of "lawyer".





Writing examples
Another technique is to record the words not by themselves but in example sentences or phrases. The benefit of this approach is that you record how the word is used and not just what it means. This is particularly useful for collocations and prepositions.

A good resource here is Just the Word - an online concordance. It shows you how frequent usages are. For example, by looking up the word legal it is evident that a very common collocation is "legal action". An example given is

"Cycle Council of Australia has threatened legal action over plans to move the Australian Grand Prix from Phillip Island to Sydney"

This is helpful because we see that:

you threaten legal action over

A brief video tutorial on using Just the word

Where to learn vocabulary from

Dictionaries
Dictionaries - A good dictionary is a must in the process of learning vocabulary. The good news is that there are several excellent dictionary resources for free on the internet. This page links you to some of the best, with suggestions on how to use them. The suggestions are:

• focus not just on the meaning of the word, also look at how it is used in context
• think of the grammatical structures related to the word (-ing form, preposition, that clause, infinitive etc)
• words are learned by use: if you want to produce the word in speaking or writing as opposed to just recognising it, you will need to find ways of practising the word.

Reading and listening
Put simply, you learn most new words by reading and listening extensively. My suggestion is that you read/listen regularly but not for too long at a time - "a little but often". Some excellent resources can be found in Reading resources for IELTS, in particular look at Newspapers and RSS feeds.

Reading extensively is good, but you also need to read intensively as well. I recommend some of my Favourite exercises as ways to make the most of your reading and listening.


Where to go next

A good place to start is
collocations, synonyms and word families

An alternative suggestion is to look at
Academic Word List
Reading resources for IELTS

or

Back to Vocabulary resources for IELTS
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