"Not enough people realize that it is our ability to use our language that will determine our place on the social pyramid - and that will also control, to a great extent, the amount of money we will earn during our lives." Earl Nightingale
Want people to look up to and respect you more? Become a polymath (A person of great or varied learning). Consider this: the average English-speaking person knows roughly 800 words. Do you want to be AVERAGE all your life or would you like to be known as Above Average? You can do it!
How?
By increasing your vocabulary! And it isn’t all that difficult to do. You don’t even need to go to school to become above average. Here are four simple tips that can help you increase your vocabulary by as much as 45% a year!
According to The Stevens Institute of Technology studies about what made people successful, “The best single measure of success is how a person speaks, particularly the words they used. In the simplest terms, it is your vocabulary.” (Thanks to fellow Toastmaster friend, Paul Spiewak of Reunion Friendly for sharing this with us)
Want people to look up to and respect you more? Become a polymath (A person of great or varied learning). Consider this: the average English-speaking person knows roughly 800 words. Do you want to be AVERAGE all your life or would you like to be known as Above Average? You can do it!
How?
By increasing your vocabulary! And it isn’t all that difficult to do. You don’t even need to go to school to become above average. Here are four simple tips that can help you increase your vocabulary by as much as 45% a year!
According to The Stevens Institute of Technology studies about what made people successful, “The best single measure of success is how a person speaks, particularly the words they used. In the simplest terms, it is your vocabulary.” (Thanks to fellow Toastmaster friend, Paul Spiewak of Reunion Friendly for sharing this with us)
Pay attention to words – when you hear a word used by someone that you don’t quite understand, try to figure out what it means by the context in which it is used.
Read – the single best way to increase your vocabulary is to read. Read books that stretch your mind in a way that you may not be used to. For my birthday, my husband gave me a great book called “A Whole New World: Why Right-brainers will rule the world.” What I appreciated about this book (in addition to confirming what I already knew about right-brain function), is that it intorduced me to new words that I was not yet familiar with. I was able to figure out the meanings of most, and those I did not know, looked up in the dictionary.
Use the Dictionary – open the dictionary to any page and choose a word you are not familiar with. That becomes your word of the day! Use it in a sentence, write it down. Commit it to memory. Repeat this process daily or at least once a week.
Subscribe to a word a day email lesson via Webster's Online Dictionary, Dictioary.com or Wordsmith.org.
Google "word of the day" and see what comes up.
Keep a journal of each new word you learn and review them once a week or monthly. Once you have used them a few times, they will become a part of your vocabulary and voila! You have substantially increased your knowledge with very little effort. Okay, maybe some effort, and doesn’t it feel good?
Keep a journal of each new word you learn and review them once a week or monthly. Once you have used them a few times, they will become a part of your vocabulary and voila! You have substantially increased your knowledge with very little effort. Okay, maybe some effort, and doesn’t it feel good?
An ever-expanding vocabulary is sine qua non in society today!
Heidi
