If you ask me, "What is the most important factor in learning English" I will answer you without hesitation. It's "Vocabulary." Vocabulary is the fundamental factor in leveling up your skills in English. I have some ways to build your vocabulary base. I'm going to show you right away.
1, Learn vocabulary by topics
There are some common topics to practice in English, such as study, work, money, shopping, body, etc. It's easier for me to remember words by topics. There are many vocabularies by topics on Google and Youtube.
2, Collect vocabulary by reading books, listening to music, watching TV, and then writing them down in your vocabulary notebook
I collect words every day. Good vocabularies are everywhere. When I find some interesting phrases or words that I don't remember, I write them down in my notebook and review them whenever I have free time. I revise repeatedly my vocabulary to make it stick in my mind.
3, Learn word forms, synonyms, and collocations
Word forms: It's a beneficial way to build my lexical resources. For example, my sentence is "I love you so much." On the other hand, I can write "I'm in love with you."
Synonyms: It's so helpful to learn synonyms to avoid repeating words. For example, my sentence is "It's wonderful." I can say in another way, "It's amazing." In this case, the word "wonderful" has the same meaning as "amazing."
Website to collect synonyms: https://www.thesaurus.com/
Collocations: We learn collocations to make sure we use a group of words in natural ways. The common mistake is to translate from Vietnamese to English. It can lead to the wrong usage. For example, we say "true love" and don't express "right love." It's not correct.
Website to search for collocations: https://ozdic.com/
4, Make a sentence or write your own stories.
The moment you make a sentence yourself is when this word becomes yours. You can write everything you want, even if you make up some stories. Moreover, you can use the "4-word-exercise". You pick up four random words and try to make a story from them. For example,
"accelerate, humble, hilarious, queen."
Rosé is a humble queen. Everyone knows that she is so talented. But, she always says, "I'm just a normal person, and everything I need is on the ground." Rosé always tries her best to accelerate her musical career. She's learned to write her music. She usually stays up until 6 AM to practice singing her new songs. She adopted her dog called, Hankie, two years ago in her daily life. Hankie sometimes makes some hilarious jokes with her. They look so happy and cute.
5, Check your vocabulary with Oxford 5000 words.
This list is beneficial to help you define your level. You can check and learn some essential words in this list. https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/oxford3000-5000?dataset=english&list=ox5000&level=c1
6, Use Eng - Eng dictionaries
If your level is intermediate, you can use Eng-Eng dictionaries to improve your English fast. I highly recommend https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/.
Learning vocabulary is a long-term process. It's not an overnight success. I think what we can do is know a little every day. When we look back, we might see a remarkable improvement.
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