How to improve your vocabulary

For anyone learning a new language, it can be a dull and tedious process to memorize all of the new words, grammar, style, sentence structuring, and pronunciation. I can't even count the number of times I've written a sentence in a foreign language that sounds absolutely correct in my head only to find out that structurally it made no sense!

Me personally, when I was learning French, my biggest struggle was improving my vocabulary. There was nothing worse than sitting at a table for hours, drilling one word after another from a thematic dictionary, not just me, but many of my schoolmates went through the same harrowing experience.

Unfortunately for us, there were limited language learning opportunities it was either reading a boring book, going through a vocabulary, or hope you get your hands on your favorite tv show dubbed in the language you're learning.  Nowadays everything's different. Improving your vocabulary has never been easier with a large array of dubbed shows or movies available online, podcasts, books, and gamified word learning tools like Worlde.games.

Without a doubt, the best way to expand your vocabulary is to read a book that you're highly interested in. When I was learning english and got my hands on the latest Harry Potter book, which had been released a few days prior I powered my way through it in 2 days, for a 12-year-old who had been learning english only for 3 years, that was a lot. Half of it I couldn't even understand, but I did get the idea of the overarching story. After re-reading it again, my english vocabulary changed considerably. I could understand most shows I was watching with ease, while my friends struggled, english lessons became a breeze and in all honesty, I never had to learn it again, it just came naturally.

For others, a better option could be watching your favorite TV shows that are dubbed in the language you're learning. This is a hit or miss because you have to be familiar enough with the show to understand what you're actually listening to - piecing together bits of plot and dialogue based on memory with the sounds you're hearing. This is a more advanced technique but surprisingly works best for children if they already have a solid foundation of the language they're learning.

Then there are word games. In my opinion a more relaxed approach to learning new words, I wish this were an option when I was growing up. You can control the pace at which you learn - set a goal, how many new words you want to learn during a session, and play until you encounter the set amount. Did you encounter a word that you knew, great, that's definitely a word added to your win streak! Did you encounter a word that you didn't know and 6 guesses weren't enough to guess all of the letters correctly? Well, now's your chance to learn, google it, look it up in a dictionary, find out what it is and expand your vocabulary!

If you ever encounter the same word again, I can guarantee that you'll remember its meaning.