How to Improve Your Vocabulary

How to Not Sound Like a Dope

One very important aspect of being a man and improving yourself overall is increasing your vocabulary.  How many times have you been caught trying to think of a word to describe something and you come up blank.  There are so many people out there now that simply describe an object as a "thing".  You don't want to be that person.  The man of tomorrow needs to be better than that.






Read, Read, Read

I know there may not be much time left in the day after work, kids, and other random errands you have to do but you have to set aside some time to read.  Pick up a book or magazine, it doesn't matter.  If you enjoy reading novels then that's your best bet.  It doesn't matter if you like fiction or non-fiction, just find something you might enjoy start reading.  An easy way to pick up the habit is to find an autobiography of your favourite sports star or celebrity.  After that you can start working up to more difficult stuff like books on philosophy or ancient history.

Define the Word

Even comes in pocket version

Don't be afraid or embarrassed if you encounter a word you don't know.  If you are reading something and encounter a word you don't know, just take a minute and look the word up, Dictionary.com is your friend.  If you happen to be in a conversation and a word is said that you are unfamiliar with make a note of it and look it up later.  One other option when you are talking to someone or a group and a word comes up and you want to ask what it means and don't want to seem unintelligent, do this.  Say, "I'm sorry, (repeat word)?" or take a guess at what you think it might mean and ask if its similar to what you were thinking.  More often than not people will correct you and tell you the definition.

Talk to People

Regularly conversing with people is important in many ways and one of them is exposure to different words, terms and phrases.  The best people to talk to are people that are in a different field of work or study than yourself.  If you are a Mechanic than go talk to a Scientist or a Police Officer and vice-versa.  Being exposed to something different will always teach you something and it goes the same way with people.  Talking to someone that doesn't do the same thing you do will always result in some kind of story or experience.  In so doing the person will have to explain some terminology to you while telling the story.  When this is happening saying, "I'm sorry (repeat word)?" becomes much easier but be sure not to exhaust the story teller with doing this too much.

Documentaries Are Your Friend

It doesn't matter where your interests lay, invariably there is a documentary on that topic.  History, Nature, War or Sports, you can find anything online.  The great part about documentaries is that you are being shown pictures and video while a person is narrating.  This means that when the narrator is talking about something, whatever it is they are talking about that's currently on screen.  For the type of person that learns visually this is perfect.  Instead of reading a definition you can hear the word and see what the word represents or even an entire concept of the word.


Use Your Larger Vocabulary

Repeating a word in the proper context will help you remember it and someone may ask you to define the word as well.  Telling them the definition will give you a better understanding of the word or concept as well.  You don't need to overdue it though.  Don't search for the most complicated word to describe something.  Overly complicated words most times will have the opposite effect.  Instead of explaining something more clearly you will have made it harder to understand.  The best time to up your game and use underutilized language is to describe a concept to someone rather than going into long-winded detail.

Final Words

Increasing and improving your vocabulary is something you should be doing regularly as a routine. You will always come to a word that you are not sure of and instead of skipping it, find out what it means.  Having a larger vocabulary will help you on your job, with people, with women and reading comprehension.  It certainly cant hurt you in any way.