How can I improve my vocabulary?

Read lots and lots of books (fiction and non fiction)....when ever you come across a word you don’t know the meaning of, or you haven’t seen before, write it down and then look it up in the dictionary.

@j0ey ditto :)

If you are into writing and find yourself using certain words over and over again you could try a thesaurus.

Plenty of free thesaurus websites online.

Sign up for the dictionary dot com Word of the Day program, and try to use it at least 3 times that day. Try to make it stick, you’ll have a huge vocabulary in no time!

Go online or to the library and read the weekly magazine The Economist. You’ll learn more than just vocabulary.

@Disaster_Porn , can u send me the link to the thesaurus? :)

Because I really want to improve alot;)

Read, read, read.

Try some Victorian literature, it doesn’t have to be boring. Around the World in 80 Days? Fun book.

There is a lot of vocab you might need to look up, but once you know it, you will love using it.

I was thinking of going to the library today and look up some book to read. The books I enjoy reading are love stories, teenage girls becoming pregnant, or having sex for the first time and stuff like that. Those are the books I really enjoy;) so if you guys have any suggestions just send me the link so I can check for them at the library.

Around the World in 80 Days has probably the most ridiculous love story I’ve ever read in it.

There’s this Indian princess….

@Thesexier I’m not sure if they will be the best books to improve your vocabulary…

Read the dictionary. Its acually pretty interesting.

A website that gives rice to the needy for every right answer might be a good way to do it.

Here’s a really fun website. I have taken you to the dictionary portion of it, but it’s full of fun and interesting things about words. Poke around. http://phrontistery.info/ihlstart.html

http://thesaurus.com/ I am not sure if there is a best one but this is the first one I seen in a search. Works for me…

I talk gooder than you!

Watch fox news or one of those crazy political networks. I have learned many new words and phrases from doing that. But you have to put the word down in a notebook, and look it up. Plus it might not be spelled right, but hey at least you tried.

What’s another word for “thesaurus”?

http://thesaurus.com/browse/thesaurus I like lexicon…never heard of until now.

@shego Fox News? Is that a joke? That channel is like a comic-book caricature of itself.

@filmfann , thank you for the rice website its really nice ;)

I don’t watch it to enjoy it, my dad does. I however ( like I said before) learn new words and phrases. I like to insult people with big words, and make them feel stupid.

Stay on Fluther and read posts by people like @gailcalled, @Jeruba and @dpworkin. They all have excellent vocabularies; look up any words you don’t understand and you will learn a great deal. Read The New York Times online and do the same thing.

@stratman37 , what do you mean you talk gooder than me…..?

I was kinda hopin’ that would be self-exploratory!

I’ve become especially fond of an unabridged international thesaurus I found. It’s full of a lot of cool words.

@shego, You might enjoy making shakespearean insults. There’s no better way to insult someone! http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/shake_rule.html

Someone else may have already suggested this. Read.

Reader’s Digest It pays to increase your wordpower online (Their website is having technical difficulties at the moment.)

@snowberry thanks I’ll look into that.

I just got the book Unchained Melanie from the library and I just started reading, I don’t understand like 8 words in the first 6 lines:(, should I look the words up in the dictionary or just continue reading?

Look the words up in the dictionary!!!

@Thesexier If there are that many difficult words in the fist 6 lines, you probably have picked too difficult a book. You’ll end up reading the dictionary more than the book itself, and you’ll hate the book. Better to pick a book with a storyline you can understand, and a new word every few pages or chapters.

One good way to increase your vocabulary is to pick a word you don’t know, and use it 3 or more times in a day. This means you’ll be on the watch for ways to legitimately use it in conversation, and you’ll be thinking all that while about what it means, how to pronounce it, and so on. You will also need to learn its synonyms, so you can spot when it is appropriate to use your word. This is really effective.

@snowberry , do you know any books which I would enjoy reading?

I do not know your reading level. Is English your first or second language? If you give me these answers, I might be able to help you more.

But the Newberry Award has a long list of great books.

Well I am from Zambia and the we were under the british (cologne) I think its spelled right. So I don’t know how to say if its my first or second language…:S

Whatever language you are most comfortable with is your native language. It is possible to have more than one.

You said “The books I enjoy reading are love stories, teenage girls becoming pregnant, or having sex for the first time and stuff like that. Those are the books I really enjoy;)” I can only suggest the books I know. The Newberry Award books are a great start, and will broaden your mind as well. Do you know at what grade level you read? If you don’t know, you can ask your English teacher; he/she should be able to tell you. If you can find that out, it would be easier to tell you which books would be more suitable for you.

The word is “colony”

Interestingly enough, the word comes from the Latin for “external Roman settlement”, which is why the name was given to Koln/Cologne in Germany (it was one), which is what “cologne” is named after!

Go to Thesaurus and click on the word games on the left side of the page.