Towards Building A Sound Vocabulary

The importance of building a sounds base in vocabulary can hardly be overemphasized for learners of English language. It helps one to broaden his communicative range both verbal and non-verbal. It's all the more important for aspiring writers and those who plan to venture into careers in which command over the language is a key element. And one has to be resolute, hardworking and disciplined in making headway in this regard. While your grammatical knowledge helps you in laying the infrastructure but the super structure of sentences, speeches is built on this through words which can be described as the building blocks. The choice of words is very vital in creating impression on the minds of the persons you are speaking or writing to. Similarly situations and occasions perceptibly or imperceptibly guide one in the arrangement of words. For example, when you are in an animated chat with your friends you are never that mindful in the selection of words and a lot of informal words are used which are off-limits in a formal environment.

English is a fascinating language and any attempt to master it would involve obviously mastering its vocabulary apart from other exercises. Then how do we go about building a sound vocabulary? There are no short-cuts simply. You have to develop an enlightened and interest in this field. As it takes a fairly long time running into years , you have to prepare a roadmap for it and stick it.

In English there are words which convey multiple meanings and it is the same word but this acquires different meaning in different context and to learn these different contexts you have to go for extensive reading of standard literary works of noted literary figures to study the shades and nuances of the words and their masterly uses by these literary masters. To my mind daily newspapers are the veritable store-houses for vocabulary-builders . You can pick up 5 to 10 new words on a daily basis and make a mental note of the peculiarities of their uses. I am sure if you continue this practice for a few months you would feel the difference and at the end of this journey would know what kind mastery enabled Mahatma Gandhi to describe a cow as a poem of simplicity!