How to Learn English Vocabulary and Improve Speaking

in this lesson we're going to talk about something very important how to learn new words so that you can use them when speaking in English hello my name is Maddie from PC English and welcome to another lesson one of the most important things that we should do and a lot of students are trying to do is to learn new words and then use the words that they have learned when they are speaking or writing so it's very basic learn learn new words use them in speaking or writing but it's not as simple as that I'm

pretty sure you know in fact most of the students who are trying to improve their vocabulary are struggling with this but don't worry because in this video I will take you through a stepbystep guide so that you can learn new words and eventually use them when you are speaking or writing in English part one where to learn words from one of the mistakes students make is just to see some words write down the translation in their mother tongue and then try to memorize that but learning individual words is not helpful at all it's a waste

of time in order to learn the words you need to have a context a context will help you see how the words are actually used within a text or a speech so there are three main sources that you can learn words from you can use text-based sources audio- based sources or video based sources let's start with the first one text based if you like reading books there are many good vocabulary books out there one of the best ones that I always recommend is Oxford word skills there are three levels to this book beginner intermediate and

advanced this book offers a topic based approach and presents vocabulary Within clear context plus you can choose the book depending on what level you have beginner intermediate or Advanced next thing you can do if you like reading text is using blog articles in fact on my website you can find a lot of different blog articles in which I've tried to teach you certain words I've tried to provide very good context for the vocabulary I've tried to teach you go to P english.com blog or click on blog here and then you can see all the blog

post that I have written for you seven pages wow click on one which is about vocabulary for instance 54 business English vocabulary you can see the video here you can watch it if you like jobs and you can read the text and as you can see I've explained everything I've used diagrams pictures Sometimes some short videos for you to make it really fun and easy to understand if you want to read some of my blog posts you can simply click on the link above my head and go to PC english.com blog another thing you can

do is to read graded readers what are graded readers these are classic story books whose level has been adjusted for students so you can find books that suit your level A1 A2 B1 B2 C1 C2 depending on what level you have you can choose one of the story books you can read them and you can underline the new words that you think are useful for you now if you don't like texts but you prefer audio you can use podcasts podcasts are excellent resources for you to learn new words because they provide clear context and you

can usually find a lot of different podcasts out there with different accents and for different levels for example if you like the British accent you can use BBC 6 minutes English podcasts they usually come with an audio file and a PDF file of the transcript that way not only can you listen but you can also follow and underline the new words that you want to learn if you search for 6 minutes English by BBC learning English you can find this website I will also leave the link in the description of the video you can come

here click on one of the topics that you like for example I'm going to go for eating F two and then here you have a video here you got a PDF and an audio file I want to download the audio and click on the PDF to see what it is and there you go you have the transcript you can follow the transcript while listening to the audio file and you can see some of the words are already bolt that means these are the new words and I think towards the end of this document you can

find the meaning of these words yes vocabulary this is an excellent resource for learning new words but if you like to have an American accent podcast you can use voice of America vaa similar to BBC podcast for vaa you can find the audio and the transcript PDF file if you search for vaa podcasts on Google you can find the link to this page but I will also leave the link in the description of this video here you can see a lot of different topics you can say Lo more and you can have a lot of

different options to choose from I'm going to choose the first one the1 the hit there you go you have an audio file here and let's see if they have the PDF they used to have one but I don't see it here probably they don't have the PDF file but you can download the audio and this is an excellent American English podcast another method that you can use which I think is quite fun is using music to improve your vocabulary who's your favorite singer choose a singer that you like then choose one song that you like

then listen to the song and check the lyrics while listening and checking the lyrics you can also sing along if you know how to sing along with that song and then underline the new words that you sing for example one of my favorite singers is Chris the BG and one of the songs that I really like is called lady in red but what about videos well if you are a visual person that means a person who learns by seeing videos are great resources there are many creators out there on YouTube and you can follow their

videos for example on my channel you can find a lot of videos in which I've tried to teach you new words phrases phrasal verbs or IDI you can watch those videos and take notes of the new words that you learn all right so far we know that to learn new words we need a context and to get the context we can use text audio or video-based resources but and there's an important bot the words that you learn at this stage are added to the passive vocabulary knowledge passive vocabulary what is passive vocabulary and do we

have active vocabulary part two passive versus active vocabulary passive vocabulary is like this if you see the word somewhere or if you hear it or if you watch it or if you read it anywhere you may remember the meaning but when you are trying to speak or WR you cannot use it this is passive so you may know the meaning back in your head but you cannot use it however active vocabulary on the other hand is the words that you have learned before and you frequently use them to communicate that means you frequently use them

in speaking or writing now which one is better of course you would try to make your passive vocabulary active and this is the key if you want to be able to use the words that you have learned when you are communicating you need to make them active now here's an important thing to know you learn new words they're added to the passive vocabulary knowledge and then if you don't practice what will happen you will forget you will forget the words and then again you will use text or audio or video learn new words add them

to your passive knowledge and then again don't practice and forget and then again you go around and around and around in circles you will get caught in this vicious cycle of learning new words and then forgetting them and learning and forgetting and learning and forgetting and this is really frustrating for students you may feel like I'm doing something wrong or that the language is very difficult or that I'm not smart enough but none of these is true you are just not trying to make the past the word active but how will you do that there

are three things you should do part three how to activate in order to make your passive vocabulary active you need to do three things WP write practice review start with write it goes without saying that when you learn new words you need to write them down otherwise how are you going to remember what the words were but how will you write them down this is very tricky and very important for instance let's say I want to read a text and from this text I'm going to learn some new words look at the text within this

text I have identified some words that I want to learn exercise Health Fitness strength cardio Wellness relationships friendship support communication trust quality time loyalty affection connection nutrition love understanding empathy now it's time to write down these words and something that I have seen a lot of students do is this exercise relationships wellness support cardio affection Love empathy endurance strength but what is wrong with this method these are all random words written together right I mean yes they come from the same text and from the same context but there is no clear link between the words

for example what's the link between exercise and relationship or between empathy and strength however another way that you can take notes and write down the words is this I have identified two categories health and fitness family friendship and relationships under health and fitness I will write exercise strength endurance cardio and wellness under family friends and relationships I would write loyalty communication trust affection and empathy what I've done is so simple I've just categorized them right under certain topics now what you can see is a group of words that have a strong link there is a

common theme there is a Common Thread that connects all these words together this is called learning words in a topic based approach so you select a topic and under that topic you list the words related in this way in your brain you can easily categorize them and next time you're talking about health and fitness you will remember all the words that you've written it will help you remember them more easily so step one one was writing step two is practice how will you practice at the end of each word list at the end of each

topic vocabulary list that you've written it is a good idea to write a small sentence or a small paragraph trying to use as many of those words and phrases as you can for example at the end of my list under health and fitness I'm going to write a sentence like this regular exercise is key to improving strength endurance and cardio Health leading to overall Wellness as you can see it's just a sentence but in this sentence I've used 1 2 3 four five of the new words similarly under family friends and relationships I'm going to

write something like this loyalty is built on open communication trust and real affection and that's how we develop empathy again in this one sentence I have used loyalty communication trust affection and empathy five of the new words that I have written down now what does this help you with first you you practice using the words that you have learned in written form that means you're basically pushing the words to come out of the passive box in your head and go towards the active box and secondly this will help you in the review stage which we're

going to talk about now how will you review from time to time go back to your notebook and then instead of reading the words and their meanings read the sentences that you have written or the short paragraphs that you have written at the end of it now how is this helpful first you will see the words in context you're not seeing the words alone but in a text second the text is written by you so it's very familiar for you and third because they all relate to the same topic you can easily categorize them in

your head and the next time you're talking about that topic bam they're there so the overall diagram is like this you use text audio or video to learn new words and then you add them to your passive vocabulary knowledge if you do not practice you will forget but if you follow the wpr steps you will activate your vocabulary and eventually your activated vocabulary will be used in spoken or written English and that's it next time you're learning new words follow this method give it a try and then let me know how it went I hope

you enjoyed this lesson if if you want to have the summary of this lesson and my other lessons on YouTube in one PDF file you can simply download My ultimate English book which is for free for my YouTube subscribers this book has more than 500 pages of lesson summaries that is words or phrases or idioms or collocations with their meanings and example sentences and beautiful pictures all for free and to get this you can simply click on the link above my head go to my website type in your name email address country and click download

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