Mirth, genial, convivial, enraptured, blithe, unalloyed, delirious, exhilarated, rhapsodic, enrapt, beatific, bonny, exultant, rollicking, jaunty, elysian, chipper, cavort, carousing, revelling.
Isn’t it interesting to discover that a normally used word ‘happy’ has so many synonyms?
Won’t it be a delight to know most of these words – so that it is easier for you to comprehend most of the text you read?
Have you ever read a book, a magazine or a newspaper where in you could not enjoy it completely, because you couldn’t understand or comprehend a particular word? Or have you some time left reading something; may be some article because you got stuck up with a word? Or for that matter, did you sometimes feel the problem of not laughing at the punch line of a joke, because you couldn’t understand a vocabulary word in the punch line? Or you couldn’t follow a piece of conversation because you were not able to understand the words spoken by the speakers! Doesn’t this all make it a mandate for all of us to be reasonably good (if not very good) with vocabulary? In a nut shell – to read, to enjoy, to converse, to understand – for almost everything, you require a good vocabulary.
You can always use the various techniques mentioned in this book like the link method, imagination, visualization, rhyming and others to learn and register new words in the vocabulary bank of your memory. However, here is another interesting way to do the same.
Have you tried relating the new vocabulary words to some person? Say you don’t like an acquaintance because you think he is foolish & gives sudden stupid statements. You can give him another name as a ‘dolt’ whose dumb remarks come in a bolt (dolt = dumb + bolt). Try using cognates (words directly related to the word in question) & things will be easier for you. For example, semper fidelis (“Always faithful”) is the motto of US marines. Cognate of ‘fidelis’ is fidelity. Isn’t that interesting?
(Caution: The cognate is rarely the exact equivalent of the meaning of the original word).
You should also try inserting the new words you learn into sentences you often use. (Doing this with foreign words will be special fun). Like now, we know ‘semper’ is ‘always’. So, the sentences could be:-
Isn’t it interesting to discover that a normally used word ‘happy’ has so many synonyms?
Won’t it be a delight to know most of these words – so that it is easier for you to comprehend most of the text you read?
Have you ever read a book, a magazine or a newspaper where in you could not enjoy it completely, because you couldn’t understand or comprehend a particular word? Or have you some time left reading something; may be some article because you got stuck up with a word? Or for that matter, did you sometimes feel the problem of not laughing at the punch line of a joke, because you couldn’t understand a vocabulary word in the punch line? Or you couldn’t follow a piece of conversation because you were not able to understand the words spoken by the speakers! Doesn’t this all make it a mandate for all of us to be reasonably good (if not very good) with vocabulary? In a nut shell – to read, to enjoy, to converse, to understand – for almost everything, you require a good vocabulary.
You can always use the various techniques mentioned in this book like the link method, imagination, visualization, rhyming and others to learn and register new words in the vocabulary bank of your memory. However, here is another interesting way to do the same.
Have you tried relating the new vocabulary words to some person? Say you don’t like an acquaintance because you think he is foolish & gives sudden stupid statements. You can give him another name as a ‘dolt’ whose dumb remarks come in a bolt (dolt = dumb + bolt). Try using cognates (words directly related to the word in question) & things will be easier for you. For example, semper fidelis (“Always faithful”) is the motto of US marines. Cognate of ‘fidelis’ is fidelity. Isn’t that interesting?
(Caution: The cognate is rarely the exact equivalent of the meaning of the original word).
You should also try inserting the new words you learn into sentences you often use. (Doing this with foreign words will be special fun). Like now, we know ‘semper’ is ‘always’. So, the sentences could be:-
- I will ‘semper’ have trouble with vocabulary unless I give time to it.
- Two & two semper make four-SEMPER!
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