Communication is one weapon that can help you climb the success ladder in every sphere of your life, be it your personal life or your professional life. For effective communication, you need to express your thoughts with the right words at the right time, and for this you need to have a strong vocabulary. 无论在个人生活还是职业生涯里,交际都是帮你一步一步登上成功阶梯的武器。想让交流更有效,你就必须确保能在合适的时间选择合适的单词来表达自己的想法,因此你需要有强大的词汇量。 You must have wondered how some people are so good with their words while others fumble to express themselves due to lack of words. No one is born with it; they acquire it in the course of their life. Some do it naturally and faster than the others while others go a little slow and there are some who never do it, may be because they don’t know how to do it. 你肯定好奇为什么有的人能对单词应用自如,而有些人在表达自己时却词穷不已。没有人天生就能做到,大家都是在成长过程中不断学习掌握的。有些人能很自然快速的学会,而有些人总是进步缓慢,还有些人更是一辈子都学不会,因为他们不知道如何去学。 Here are a few ways to improve your vocabulary to a great level. 掌握了下面的方法,你的词汇量能上一个大台阶哦。 1. The first thing is to go back to your childhood and teach your mind to be as open as a child so that it can take in any new word that it comes across.首先要做的就是回到童年之心,告诉自己要像孩子般学习所有遇到的生词。 A child is ever inquisitive and always eager to learn. If it does not understand a thing, it never hesitates to ask for an explanation. We should train our brain in the same fashion. 孩子永远都充满好奇,渴望学习。如果不明白什么,永远都毫不犹豫的要求解释。我们需要训练自己的大脑回到这样的境界。 It is tough for an adult brain to learn a new word and remember it as a child can because their mind is comparatively empty and can easily store these new words. However with little and regular exercise, an adult brain can also teach itself to make space and open up his mind for new words. 小孩的头脑相对来说较空,较易记住这些生词,然而大人学习和记住生词的过程要比小孩困难的多。但只要坚持小练习,也能在成人的大脑里空出一部分来记住生词。 2. Words have greater retention when accompanied with related visuals.For instance, it is easier to remember names of persons whom we have met face to face rather than those whom we have only heard of or talked to over the phone. Therefore it would be a good practice to associate any new word that you come across with some sort of visuals. 单词形象化了以后要好记得多。比如,记住那些已经见过的人的名字,远比记住那些我们只是在电话里听过或谈及的人名要容易的多。因此把生词和某些视觉效果联系在一起是记住它们的好办法哦。 3. Another great exercise is to take note of any new word that you come across while reading. Now it is told that reading is a great habit to increase one’s vocabulary. 另外一个实用练习就是记下所有阅读过程中遇到的生词。很多人都说阅读是提高词汇量的好习惯。 However, one does not always understand every word one reads. So, it is a good practice to note down any unfamiliar word that you come across to look it up in the dictionary later on. While reading you can also try to understand an unfamiliar word relating it to the context, if you can not access a dictionary. 但是人们不可能熟知里面的每一个单词。所以记住那些你碰到的生词,稍后查字典是一个好办法。同时如果没有手头没有字典的话,阅读还能训练你通过上下文猜出生词的含义。 4. When you are looking up for a new word, it always helps when you elaborate on its explanation. You can look up for its synonyms and antonyms, that is, words that are similar and also opposite of the new word. 查生词时,总是能看到关于它的详细解释。能同时查到它的近义词和反义词,也就是和生词意思相近或相反的单词。 For example, “enormous” whose synonyms are “giant”, “huge” and its antonyms are “small” or “little”. You can also look up for homonyms in which two words have similar spelling and pronunciation but have different meanings. 比如,“enormous”的近义词是“giant”,“huge”,反义词是“small”或“little”。你还可以查查它的同音异义词,即拼写发音一样,意思却不同的词。 5. When you come across a new word, you can find out the different ways and context in which it can be used.Therefore looking up for the word’s usage helps in understanding the word more easily which helps in recapitulation of the word when needed. 遇到生词时,你可以找到它的不同用法和使用语境。找到这个词的用法能帮助你更好的去理解,还能让你在合适的时候用上它。 6. Experiments have proved that relevancy of any word helps in memorizing. For example, the word “nocturnal” which means active at night can be related with any nocturnal animal like an owl or a cat. 研究显示,任何与生词相关的东西都能帮助记忆。比如单词“nocturnal”表示夜间的,可以和任何夜行动物比如猫头鹰或猫联系起来记忆。 7. There are several vocabulary games that can be made use of to increase your vocabulary and again having fun.There are many word games which will help you increase your word power. 还有些词汇游戏能让你扩大词汇量的同时不会觉得乏味。还有很多的单词游戏能帮你提高单词运用的能力。 8. If nothing else works try repeating the words, an age old method of memorizing. You can either read them loudly several times or make repeated use of it in your conversations. 如果都没用的话,还是用最老的记忆方法,不断地重复单词吧。你可以大声地多读几次或是在对话中经常使用。 Though these eight methods are tried and tested and very effective, they are not the only ones. One can have one’s own unique way of increasing word power which is the ultimate goal of these exercises, that of increasing one’s stock of words. 上述八种方法都已被实验证实过,也的确十分有效,但也无需都照此学习。你可以有自己的独家秘诀来扩大词汇的使用能力,从而扩大你的词汇量。