Little Known Advantages of Expanding Your Vocabulary
From the moment we learn to speak we are using vocabulary. We use it daily, but how many of us continue to learn about it? Vocabulary is the unknown gift that keeps on giving if we are willing recipients. Knowing a wide range of vocabulary can help us to appropriately express ourselves in any number of situations.
How many times have you read something that takes hold of your imagination? It is vocabulary that enables you to do this. Intrigued? Let’s look at some of the advantages of expanding your vocabulary.
Greater Brain Power
Improving your knowledge of words is no easy feat. Learning anything new and regularly doing so greatly helps our brain by exercising it and keeping it sharp. The same applies to learning new vocabulary. Not only does it help with our memory retrieval process, but it can also help us develop our brain in other ways.
Quicker Processing
By learning new words, we become quicker at absorbing and understanding the information presented to us. This is because when we become familiar with a word, phrase, or expression, we dedicate less time to understand them because we already do, this enables us to focus more on the overall information instead.
Abstract thinking
The larger our range of vocabulary, the more we forge new pathways of thought and reasoning. Words provide us with this opportunity. Therefore, the more new words we know, the more pathways are developed and the more ideas and imagination we develop.
Improved Understanding
Knowing more words helps us to understand more because we are able to apply different words to better suit different situations or contexts we encounter. We are able to explain things in a more concise way because our understanding is enhanced due to our widened vocabulary.
Greater Communication
By knowing a wider vocabulary, you will naturally learn to adapt both your written and spoken communication skills to suit your audience. For instance, the way you would speak to your boss would more than likely differ from the way you speak to a friend. Playing word games can be particularly useful, just as unscrambling tools can be, as the wordsmiths at UnscrambleWords.net know only too well. Possessing a wide range of vocabulary would help you adapt to different situations accordingly.
Fluency
Knowing a wide range of vocabulary will allow you to widen your knowledge to understand the different structures, phrases, and expressions that feature in a language or possibly have different meanings. It is typically thought that learning three new words a day is the best way to retain new knowledge in this regard. This practice will help you improve your vocabulary skills at a fast rate.
Expression
Understanding vocabulary will help you express yourself properly, without pomp or inaccurate lexis, because you know the meanings behind the vocabulary used. Many hear a word in a given context and feel they understand how to use it thereafter, without knowing its meaning. Knowing what you want to express will help you select the appropriate lexis in which to express yourself succinctly.
Eloquence
Possessing a wide vocabulary means nothing if you’re not going to use it well. This requires you to understand what you are saying or writing so that you use the word, phrase, or expression in the right context. You can write a powerful text or prepare a powerful speech if you use the appropriate vocabulary and have your views taken more seriously.
Persuasiveness
Being a great communicator can also make you a persuasive one, especially when using the correct vocabulary, in the presence of the right audience to eloquently get your point across, both fluently and expressively. This makes you all the more appealing to hear. How many times have you heard or seen someone speak, for example when being interviewed on television or the internet, and were entranced by the way they spoke? If you have experienced this, it was more than likely because of the points raised in this article. You can get to this level of communication too, by observing and learning from others, whilst also doing things to expand your vocabulary.
Greater Opportunities
Previous research has discovered that an individual will have a better opportunity for career progression with a wider vocabulary than one who doesn’t. Nearly 75% of companies prefer hiring someone with strong writing skills, whereas 93% want a potential employee to have critical thinking skills as well as good communication skills, all of which consistent development of your vocabulary can provide.
More importantly, a wide vocabulary helps with career progression, as opposed to being a result of it. This means that the more words, phrases, or expressions you know, understand, and correctly use, the better chance of employment progression you will have.
With all these advantages to learning and using new vocabulary, coupled with the different ways it can be done, why not make a conscious effort to develop both your written and spoken repertoire today?
