How to expand your Russian vocabulary. Russian language: how to increase your vocabulary? Felix Kirsanov

How much do you think Total words in Russian? I guess no one knows the exact answer. Even experts can only name the order, but not the exact number.

According to some of them, about five hundred thousand words (three exclamation marks suggest themselves here).

Some foreigners - philosophers and writers who were fluent in our language - argued that the Russian language is one of the most expressive among European languages. “The Russian language, as far as I can judge about it, is the richest of all European dialects and seems deliberately created to express the subtlest shades. Gifted with wonderful conciseness, combined with clarity, it is content with one word to convey a thought, when another language would require whole phrases,” noted Prosper Merimee. If the Russian language is the most expressive in Europe, then it is quite possible that it is the same throughout the world.

We can say that we were lucky in that from birth we had at our disposal such a powerful means of expression as the Russian language. We can be pleased that we are able to describe our thoughts more accurately than other foreigners.

However, friends, even if you and I had in our vocabulary all half a million words of our great and powerful language, and even if we could manipulate them with extraordinary ease, then even in this case we would not be able to adequately reflect our thoughts in his speech. Why? Because thought is primary, and language is secondary. A thought can have millions of shades, but only a few of them can be conveyed through language. In one second you can think about something that requires many minutes of presentation. Therefore, no matter how rich the language is, it is not able to fully reflect all the subtleties of human thinking.

And if you consider that the average citizen has not five hundred thousand words, but, according to some accountants, about three thousand words, then you can see the limitations of his expressive capabilities. The more words we have in stock, the more accurately and easily we will be able to express our thoughts in speech. As you understand, lexicon each of us is divided into passive (words we know but don’t use) and(words we use in colloquial speech). Moreover, the passive vocabulary is an order of magnitude greater than the active one.

Our active words The reserve stock is very flexible - on the one hand it is growing, and on the other hand it is slowly melting. If a person sat in solitary confinement for a long time and did not communicate with anyone, then after his release he will find that during a conversation he began to move his hands more actively, because. the developed tongue-tiedness forces him to insert additional gestures instead of forgotten words. If you have studied a foreign language, you may have noticed that if the language is not practiced, it is quickly forgotten. Therefore, to increase your vocabulary, it is necessary not only to speed up the arrival of new ones, but also to slow down the process of forgetting words already in your vocabulary (by forgetting we do not mean the disappearance of words from memory forever, but the transition from active to passive).

The growth of our vocabulary occurs throughout our lives. average speed- one word per week. Not very fast. How to speed up this slow process?

Communication(during a conversation, each participant replenishes his vocabulary from the arsenal of his interlocutor - word exchange occurs between them);

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« Lexicon William Shakespeare, according to researchers, is 12,000 words. The vocabulary of a black man from the cannibal tribe “Mumbo-Yumbo” is 300 words. Ellochka Shchukina easily and freely made do with thirty...”

Do you lack words to properly express your thoughts? If you are faced with the question “?”, this article will be useful to you.

IN modern world, beautiful and rich speech speaks of culture and good education. Rich Russian vocabulary indicates the level intellectual development person. Society perceives a person with a rich vocabulary as an intelligent and creative person. People with a rich vocabulary get jobs faster, move up the career ladder more successfully, and are generally listened to more often and more attentively. The more human vocabulary, the higher the likelihood that he will succeed in life.

The following recommendations will help you expand your Russian vocabulary:

Methods, methods and techniques for increasing vocabulary

1. Think about which of the banal, hackneyed, hackneyed words and expressions you are used to using every day in standard communication situations. Write them down on a piece of paper. Have you recorded it? Now take an explanatory dictionary or a dictionary of synonyms from the shelf. Find these words that already hurt your ears and that you are tired of hearing every day. Explore the long list alternative options and say each of these words out loud. Which one reflects your personality? Which one is right for you personally? Try each one out as you try on a suit and see which ones you find comfortable and cozy. Pick a few of these words and practice saying them out loud until they become a natural part of your vocabulary;
2. Communication is the main thing source of replenishment of a person's vocabulary. During a conversation, each participant replenishes his vocabulary from the arsenal of his interlocutor, and word exchange occurs between them. Talk to friends, acquaintances, and family as much as possible. Use new words in your vocabulary; knowledge of a word is nothing without its use;
3. Read. Start with those authors who are more understandable and close to your interests. Gradually add literature that is more complex. Text where they meet interesting words and expressions that you want to remember and use in the future, reread them out loud (by reading to ourselves, we also replenish our vocabulary, but not so quickly, because in this way we only see the words, but when reading aloud, we also see them we hear and, most importantly, we pronounce it, so we remember better);
4. When you notice a new word, don't just look at its definition in the dictionary. Pay attention to the turn of speech in which this word is used, try to replace it with the appropriate synonym for yourself. Try to rhyme, come up with as many suitable phrases as possible. The more you know about a word, the faster you will learn to use it without complicating your memory. This will immediately affect the beauty and personality of your speech;
5. Write. Rewrite other people's articles and your favorite ones literary works following the example of Demosthenes, who rewrote Thucydides' History eight times in a row.
6. Crosswords are not just entertainment, but also a way vocabulary development. Use this opportunity on the road, on vacation. Choose crosswords from well-known publications or those that have a good reputation;
7. For those who spend a lot of time on the road, driving, or have absolutely no free time to use books and dictionaries, there is unique opportunity develop your speech and increase your vocabulary using audiobooks. This method will also be acceptable for an audience that perceives better by ear. In any case, while away the time in traffic jams reading good literature is much more useful and effective for your development.

Ways to remember new words

Certainly, this article does not contain all methods and techniques increasing and developing vocabulary. But they are also quite sufficient for the appearance of new words in your vocabulary and enrichment of your vocabulary.

There are three types of vocabulary: active, passive and external.

An active vocabulary is a set of words that you use regularly, every day. You communicate with colleagues, friends, relatives and everyone else. These are words that are chosen on their own in the situation, and you don’t really strain yourself. These words are simple, you hear and use them quite often.

Passive vocabulary is the totality of all the words that you know and, having heard, can interpret the meaning. There are a lot of these words, many times more than those that you use every day. But in order to remember one of these words you need to strain your brain a little.

And the third is external vocabulary - words that you do not understand. Terms whose meaning is difficult for you to explain. Perhaps these are words from a certain area, industry. Words that are known by a small circle of people, narrow specializations, etc.

As we grow older, our vocabulary increases. We study at school, then at college and learn more and more new words. Therefore, it is impossible to draw clear boundaries between the three vocabularies. Most often, words move from one to another. From passive to active, from external to passive, etc.

Development of active vocabulary

The first way is communication. Every day we communicate with people, both orally and in writing, thereby expanding our vocabulary. Of course, if your social circle is limited to a certain number of people, then you are unlikely to learn many new words. Therefore, you should not miss any chance to communicate with a new person. You need to meet and communicate with people from different fields and industries. For example, in a store you can talk with the seller, in the gym with a trainer, if you ride public transport you can start a dialogue with a fellow traveler you like. Also, communication on forums, in in social networks helps increase vocabulary. Naturally, the quality of words depends on the topics on which you communicate and on the people with whom you communicate.

The second way, of course, is reading books. In addition to books, it is useful to read newspapers, advertisements, and magazines. Depending on what industry or field you would like to increase your vocabulary in, choose the genre of books. Read every day, devoting at least an hour to it. It is useful to read aloud and pronounce the words, so you will remember them better. Also, various kinds of dictionaries will always come to the rescue.

The third way is memorization. Learn poems and songs - this method has been used since school. He is very helpful. Read the texts and retell them, trying to convey the meaning as accurately as possible and maintain the manner of presentation.

The fifth way is to start keeping a diary. Write down the events that happened during the day. This is an ineffective method, but you still have to think, choose words that more accurately describe the events, taking into account your feelings and emotions at that moment. Thus, you will most likely need some words from your passive vocabulary.

To all of the above, you can add learning various languages, solving puzzles, solving crosswords, charades and everything else. Read manuals on public speaking and complete the tasks given there.

If you decide to develop your speech, you must train it regularly; if you give it up, you will return to the previous state of affairs. It's the same as training your body; if you stop training, it will gradually begin to lose its shape. Don’t skip unfamiliar words, find out their meaning, remember, write down, ask again. Regular efforts will certainly give results and no one will be able to say that you have a poor vocabulary.

The ability to express oneself beautifully and correctly has always been held in high esteem. After all, it’s wonderful when words flow like a river (no matter in writing or orally), attracting attention and causing genuine interest and even admiration in the reader or listener. But quite often this river rather resembles a small rivulet or a small stream - this happens when a person’s existing vocabulary does not allow him to clearly and adequately express his thoughts, opinion or attitude towards something, explain a point of view, convey the meaning of something. what he wants to convey. But it’s good that a person can quickly correct this state of affairs by regularly replenishing his “storehouse” of words. Our resource even has one dedicated to this topic.

But, as you know, topics related to self-development are always relevant, and learning in more detail about ways to expand your vocabulary will certainly be interesting to every developing person, and even more so to those whose activities are closely related to writing or oratory. Below we present 10 effective methods increasing vocabulary.

Read more books

This method is perhaps the most important and most effective. Books are not only a source of new knowledge and interesting information, but also a collection of all kinds of words that were previously unfamiliar. As you read a book, you will always come across new words. This especially applies to specialized and thematic literature. But simple reading may not be enough - new words are also needed. If a new word is used several times in the text, then memorization can occur automatically. But if it occurs once, but interests you, do not write it down in a notebook or on on a separate sheet paper. In general, having a notebook of new words is very useful, because you can regularly add to it and re-read it from time to time. When reading books, try to always have this notebook with you. As for the books themselves, get good habit buy at least once every two weeks new book and read at least an hour a day. Well, if you, for example, are often on the road or travel actively, then an excellent alternative for you would be an electronic “reader”, into which you can download an incredible amount of all kinds of literature from the Internet.

Various video materials have enormous potential in terms of vocabulary. This includes all kinds of educational television programs, quizzes, useful talk shows, Mind games, video seminars, training courses, documentaries and, of course, feature films, etc. In addition to the fact that while watching you will learn a lot of new words, you will also have a wonderful time. And what could be better than a combination of pleasant and useful in one action? But remember that it is important to be able to distinguish worthwhile materials from unworthy ones, especially on TV, because the airwaves are full of “garbage”. Those. if, for example, you see on the program that there will soon be a program “Clever Men and Clever Girls” or “Your Own Game,” then you can allocate time to watch TV, but if the epic “Dom-2” or another “soap opera” with Jose is planned Ignacio in the title role, it's better to do something else. and meaningless TV shows not only does not improve vocabulary, but also significantly dulls a person. And one more thing: don’t forget about the notepad that you use while reading books. Watch a TV show and hear new words - write them down.

Listen to audio

Audio materials are no less valuable than videos, although they are an order of magnitude smaller. The greatest demand is for audio trainings, audio seminars, audio lessons and audio books. You just need to find what interests you and download it to your player, tablet or phone. Some electronic readers also support the function of playing audio files. The benefits of such a source of information are obvious: you listen to what you like and at the same time learn new words. It is very convenient to use audiobooks or educational materials while traveling, on the way to work, etc. It turns out that every free minute is spent usefully. This is where your notepad will come in handy again. But, of course, it’s worth using it depending on the situation.

Use encyclopedias and dictionaries

Encyclopedias and dictionaries are a real treasure trove of new words. But studying them just like a book can be quite boring. Therefore, it is best to simply have some of this in constant access, for example, on your desktop or on a bookshelf. Have you heard a new word, but don't know what it exactly means? Open the dictionary and look up the meaning. Did you learn about some interesting fact or phenomenon? The encyclopedia will answer your questions. By the way, there are a great many encyclopedias today. There are even special series of encyclopedias, each of which is devoted to a separate topic: space, animal world, plants, people, physics, travel, etc. Excellent online encyclopedia is Wikipedia - there you can find an interpretation of almost any word, an explanation of many phenomena and phenomena, biographies of all famous people world and other interesting information.

Communicate with people

An excellent source of new information is communication. Chatting with different people, you can, firstly, learn something you didn’t know before, and secondly, hear new words and terms. In particular, this applies to communication with intellectual people. It has already been noted more than once that a person’s communication with those who are at a level higher than him in some way (financial, intellectual, spiritual) raises the level of the person himself. Therefore, you need to strive to interact with those who are superior to you: they know more, can do what you can’t, have a more flexible mind and developed intelligence. Over time, you will begin to notice that your communication and the level of your knowledge, including vocabulary, have noticeably improved.

Use new words

This method is not focused on increasing vocabulary as such, but on its active use. Many words that you didn’t know before often fly out of your head, and in order to remember them, you need to “dig” quite a bit into your “warehouse” of words. Regular use of new terms (are they written down in your notebook?!) contributes to the fact that they become, so to speak, part of your "" - you begin to operate with new words and terms in the same way as you operate with those to which you have long been accustomed. In daily communication, try to use words that are common to you less, replacing them with synonyms and words that you have recently learned. Such communication, among other things, will significantly increase the level of your communication in general, and will give your interlocutors real pleasure: those who are one level below you will strive to communicate with you, and those who are higher will see you as a worthy “rival.” "in verbal battles.

Write more

The competent construction of speech and the effective use of new words is greatly facilitated by it. Moreover, being a writer is not at all necessary. You can simply indulge yourself in a small but very interesting hobby: set aside some time every day (at least 20-30 minutes) to write small texts. This could be simply expressing your thoughts, explaining your point of view, or justifying your position on a particular issue. You can write a short article of one or two pages on a topic that interests you. While writing any text, you will have enough time to think about your thoughts, you will learn not only to use new words, but also to correctly and concisely insert them into the text - as they say, “on topic”. Moreover, writing is creative activity, which means your creative potential is activated and mental resources are used to the maximum. And this, in turn, allows you to remember even those words that you quite possibly didn’t even know you knew.

Use sticky notes

The presented method is more like entertainment than self-development work. Take a pack of stickers and write on each one 1 to 3 words that you like, but which you have not yet “got used to” and which you often have to use. Post these stickers around your apartment - stick them on the mirrors, household appliances, computer desk, walls, windows. There can be as many stickers as you like - everything depends on your needs and imagination. In addition to words, you can also short form write down their meaning or some interesting data about something. For example, you know about Mount Everest and that it has other names, but you don’t remember them. Write on the sticker “Everest – Chomolungma (Tibet.) – Sagarmatha (Nepal.) – 8848 m” and stick the note on the computer monitor. At any time you can refresh your memory of what you have forgotten. And regularly looking at the piece of paper will cement in your memory for a long time what you want to know and remember.

Solve crosswords, scanwords, etc.

Another way to have fun and benefit your mind is by solving crosswords, scanwords and similar puzzles. Whole collections of similar problems are sold on newsstands. Try to solve one, for example, crossword puzzle per day. It will take you no more than 30-40 minutes. But you are unlikely to be able to guess all the words, because... it is simply impossible to know everything. But what you didn’t know can reveal itself (this is the specificity of scanwords), and you can also find it on the Internet by typing the corresponding query in a search engine. In addition, such a pastime will allow you to while away your leisure time or long way on the train, even if it is a “classic of the genre”.

Be interested!

And the last piece of advice is to be interested in everything, always and everywhere. Strive to gain new knowledge, learn new information about everything you can. Interesting Facts, phenomena and occurrences, historical events and personalities, incredible discoveries and achievements of science - all this should certainly arouse your interest. The more interested you are, the more you will know. And in direct proportion to the increase in the volume of your knowledge, your vocabulary will also increase, and you will also be a diversified person and will be able to support any conversation. Remember that you can be an expert and professional in any field, but knowing a little about everything is always useful.

Start applying the tips above right now and your vocabulary will start growing today! Good luck and good luck to you! Develop yourself and know a lot of things!

You will probably be interested in testing your vocabulary - read a few words below and vote for one of the options proposed below.

Many articles have been written about how to increase your vocabulary. However, most of them have a noticeable drawback: they talk about enriching the lexicon as a whole, without dividing into active and passive vocabulary. Meanwhile, if we want to make our speech expressive and convincing, we should focus on expanding only the active vocabulary and on transferring a certain layer of vocabulary from passive reserve to active use. T&Ps talk about how to cope with a given task.

Sign of education

The problem of expanding active vocabulary arises more often when learning a foreign language than when using a native one. Conducting a conversation in English, Italian or Chinese, we periodically find ourselves in a situation where we don’t know a specific word, we can’t find a synonym for it, and even in a roundabout way, through descriptions, comparisons and associations, we’re unable to express a thought - which means we have to grasp for the dictionary. It’s easier with our native language: if the required lexical unit doesn’t come to mind, we will always find a way to get out by finding a more or less exact equivalent for it.

We think about increasing vocabulary within our native language if we need to impress the audience or want to impress our interlocutor with eloquence - that is, when emotions come into play. An extensive vocabulary is an indicator of education and helps to raise self-esteem, and for journalists, copywriters and translators it is also a tool for earning money. Strategically, mastery of words helps us express our thoughts, emotions and attitudes as accurately as possible. life situations and build effective communication.

The traditional list of recommendations for expanding your vocabulary is two or three clicks away from us and wanders from blog to blog, from year to year with minimal changes. This list has its own truth, but some advice already poorly correlates with the realities of today's life and with in a modern way thinking, communication and knowledge acquisition. And others seemed suspicious from the very beginning, but nevertheless continue to be presented as effective recipes. We will criticize typical advice later, but right now we’ll talk about something relevant.

Clear the area

Remember synonyms

Make it a rule to write posts on social networks, spending 10 minutes on it three times a day. In the morning, at lunch and in the evening, give out a miniature sketch for any interesting topic, carefully thinking through each phrase and trying to screw in as many strange words as possible. The goal is for your friends to suspect that your account has been hacked and that it is not you who is writing this, because the style and style are completely unrecognizable. Regularly re-read your previous posts and try to avoid repetitions of both lexical units and grammatical structures. If you're annoyed by moral exhibitionists who post their breakfasts and mood swings for everyone to see, change your privacy settings and make these posts visible only to yourself. As an alternative, of course, you can keep a paper notebook or a Word file and write sketches there - but we are still on social networks, and the file still needs to be found in the folder and opened, for which we will never have enough time.

Keeping a notebook of synonyms or writing words on cards is one of the most popular classic tips for expanding your vocabulary. The big disadvantage of this method is that it is most effective to learn words not individually, but in context and in connection with a specific topic - it’s not for nothing that they are in textbooks foreign languages Each lesson is built around a specific topic. If you like to use notepads and flashcards (whether paper or electronic), it will be more useful not just to memorize words one by one, but to come up with phrases with them and visualize different dialogue situations.

The widespread advice to always keep a dictionary at hand and look at it more often seems a little dubious. This in itself is a wonderful idea, but it is aimed at expanding passive rather than active vocabulary. Having opened any page of the explanatory dictionary, we will be convinced that we have long known most of the words listed there, and those whose meanings are not familiar to us, we probably simply do not need. So we keep the dictionary nearby, but we don’t place much hope on it.

How to read books

It is quite obvious that to enrich your vocabulary it is useful to read a lot - just what and how exactly should you read? For our generation, the reference speech will most likely be the speech of the mid-twentieth century, which, on the one hand, is close to modern in many ways, and on the other, has not yet had time to absorb the barbarisms and jargon that came with the perestroika era. Picking it up piece of art, we, as a rule, quickly get carried away by the plot, stop paying attention to the vocabulary, and the linguistic richness of the novel happily passes all our radars. To avoid this, you can use a psychological trick and read memoirs, autobiographies, or any other books written in the first person. If you read them slowly and thoughtfully, and ideally also out loud, ready-made phrases will settle in your memory that we can use when talking about ourselves. True, these phrases must be retrieved from memory as quickly as possible so that they do not disappear into the muck of a passive dictionary.

Reading and memorizing poetry is doubly useful - you learn not only vocabulary, but also syntax. Despite the fact that in Russian the order of words in a sentence is quite free, we do not like to take full advantage of this freedom (which is quite rational from the point of view of saving mental effort). Each of us has favorite syntactic constructions that limit our lexical range - accordingly, if we dream of expanding this range, we need to take a creative approach to constructing phrases. For example, if we are accustomed to using impersonal sentences in the spirit of “I want,” the synonymous series will turn out to be predictably narrow: “I dream / I want / I need / I need.” But as soon as you express the same thought with the help of subject and predicate, “I want,” the room for maneuver will expand: “I demand / I desire / I insist / I need” and so on. When you write sketches, feel free to juggle the order of words, rearrange the syntax, insert participial and participial phrases more often - this is a good incentive to activate passive vocabulary.

Finally, the most important thing. Don’t treat vocabulary acquisition as a responsible, multi-step task for which you need to set aside time and gather your courage. This is not rhythmic gymnastics or neurosurgery, where you need to spend many years and efforts to achieve results. The inclusion of new words in speech is an extremely natural process that starts in the very early age, lasting until the end of life and, frankly, not at all difficult.

Icons: 1) Berkay Sargın, 2) Thomas Le Bas, 3) Kelig Le Luron, 4) Iris Vidal.