Even if you practice reading your dictionary like it were a Bible, you’re no exception to the pains we all suffer when trying to learn new words. Today you sound like Shakespeare — after having learnt new words — tomorrow your sound most foreign to the English language when the learnt words choose to escape your word-bank (memory). But is it possible to learn words that will reside in your word bank forever, instead of being loaned to forgetfulness? Below are strategies that I believe will help you – not just learn new words but force those words to stick with you the longest of time.

So instead of burning that innocent dictionary or suing the publishers, here’s the first advice that will guide you in learning new words. The process of learning words can be divided into two forms: one form as learning words that let your say more, and the other as learning words that let you say what your already can differently. Which form do you think is more important?

When I started my journey I was fascinated by all the synonyms the English language afforded me; instead of saying ugly, I could say hedious. Instead of you’re beautiful, I can say you’re lovely. Instead of saying Lamborghini, I can say Ferrari (yes, both mean the same thing to us; we cannot afford them). As long as I could feel the relatedness in the meaning of the words, then I could tweak them interchangeably in any way I wanted. But on one unfortunate occasion my English betray me.

I was having a conversation with my friends and they began talking about sea life. Fine, I said a few things about sharks and unlocked all the synonymous adjectives about its wildness: dangerous, scary, biting, and evil. But the shark talk ended, and my friends started talking about sea lions (you can already imagine what I visualised). It was then that my talkativeness ceased, and I become the quiet boy I hardly am – with nothing to say about this word I didn’t know. And that’s when the realisation kicked in: what’s the use of knowing a billion synonyms if I only know a small bunch of words related to sea life?

I learnt from that experience that we should focus mostly on words that represent new ideas to us: sea food, sea animals, music instruments, or the like —- and we’ll be able to talk of more things, rather than synonyms that describe the same ideas in a different fashion. For example, I had just learnt what mist means, and now my friends will know what I meant when I said “thin snow.” Nonetheless, I hold no grudges against Synonym, or his sibling, Antonym; I just believe they should come second after my girl, Mrs. New Ideas.

But that’s not where it all ends: we still have a burden of remembering the words from wherever they live in our minds. How do we go about doing that? Unfortunately, there’s no holy grail. But there is a grail I use myself that feels holy enough to me based entirely on common sense.

Through common sense, we can all agree that it is way easy to remember things we’re familiar with. So my second advice is to learn the definition of all the words you know, but somehow don’t know the meanings of. Mainly readers are the ones with such words lingering in their minds, but not all such words should come from books. As an example, I rap along quite well to my favourite songs by Jay z. But there are times when he says words I’ve never heard of in conversation — or anywhere else. And I rap those words clueless-ly with him, as though I knew what they meant. Therefore, I knew those words by pronounciation, yet meaning was the missing piece to my possessing of the word. Just a visit to my dictionary then I own the word! And I’m more likely to remember the word because I will be rapping it again and again with my friend Jay Z. So do this: make sure you know the definition of all the brand names (ones you know of) that happen to be common nouns, because you’re more likely to remember them as you always say them yourself. As long as there’s repetition and association, then there shall be remembering.

Here’s the list where you can find branding names that might be common nouns:

– Celebrity names

– Album names

– Song tittles

– Movie tittles

– Company names

– Company products

– Street names

– Book tittles.

There list goes on and on. As long as you’re familiar with the branding name, then you will find it easy to recall it.

This exercise won’t make you the most eloquent kid in the block, or ready to compete with your English teacher in a vocabulary battle. But it will put you are at a level where if a lost English speaker found himself in your house, you’ll be able to assist him in some way without embarrassing your parents. But if your interested in learning words to speak as fluent as though you were involved in the writing of English itself(or any other language), then your only cave is to adopt a daily habit of reading challenging books. And once your more prolific in your reading, I promise you that you won’t just be able to talk to an English traveler, but will also be also capable enough to ask the person something of his life, which will please your parents as they watch their kid make friends with an English speaker.