Vocabulary Masters: The World Scrabble Championship

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The 2011 World Scrabble Championship was held last week in Warsaw, Poland, and New Zealand native and two-time WSC winner Nigel Richards came out on top after playing words like insular, omnified, zenaidas, parodies, and angriest. This tournament, which has been held every other year since 1991, brings the top players from around the world to compete during five intense days of increasingly nerve-wracking challenges. While the top prize is only about $20,000 (US) some competitors spend the entire two years between events memorizing words, practicing placement strategies, and playing word-scramble and anagram games to help them quickly see the words hidden in a rack of tiles. They also compete in local and regional tournaments, and get a ranking assigned to them based on their scores and results.

The 2004 documentary “Word Wars” (inspired by the book “Word Freak” by Stefan Fatsis) follows four of the dedicated Scrabble players as they prepare for the 2002 US National Championship. These four men have essentially memorized dictionaries; they carry vocabulary flash cards with them, work crossword puzzles daily, and take “brain-enhancing” supplements to power them through the pre-tournament schedule. It’s a fascinating movie about talent, obsession, and vocabulary.

You’ll get an extra dose of vocabulary improvements when you watch the movie, because words and definitions used in the games pop up on the screen at regular intervals. If you can’t find a copy of the film, look for Fatsis’ book in the library, or look for a local Scrabble club. You can observe these “word warriors” in person, and might even be inspired to join the game yourself.

You might also be interested in the World Memory Championship – click here to find out more.

How to Improve Vocabulary by Reading

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A simple technique, but one that’s often overlooked, is to increase vocabulary by reading. If you make an effort to pick up one new piece of reading material each day, you’ll find that the words you come across in this reading stay in your vocabulary, and the more you read the more words you’ll come across. Studies have shown that children who don’t spend time reading have a much smaller vocabulary than those who do, and the gap between the readers and the non-readers only increases over time.1 This lack of reading skill and vocabulary is a problem in elementary school, but gets worse as the effects begin to impact a person’s ability to get into a good university, to qualify for well-paying jobs, and to advance in their career. A good vocabulary is the basis for future success; if you have children, we urge you to encourage them to develop a habit of reading. When this habit is learned in childhood, it will stay with them as adults.

Pay attention to both the quality and the quantity of things you read. Look for a variety of reading sources, whether newspapers, magazines, on-line articles, or print novels. The introduction of portable reading devices like the Kindle means that it’s easy to carry around an entire library in your bag, available whenever you have a free moment. Of course, you can also go to the library, where there are thousands of titles to choose from, or visit a used book store to find things that might be out of print.

When you’re traveling, look for lending libraries at airports, hotels, and hostels. Often you’ll be able to take a book from one location and drop it off at another, ready for the next traveler. If you’ve accumulated a lot of books that you’ve read several times and probably won’t read again, consider donating them to a women’s shelter (if they’re paperbacks) or a community library (if they’re hardbound) to share the wealth of words with people who don’t have the same resources. You might even get a tax deduction for this.

So turn off the television and pick up a book – you’ll read your way to an excellent English vocabulary.

1 A. Biemiller. Language and reading success. Brookline: Cambridge, Massachussets (1999)

The Secrets of English Vocabulary Study

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We’re sure you’ve seen the self-help books and websites that promise to “reveal to you the secret method to …” reduce your belly fat, or increase your muscle strength, or any of a hundred different quick-fix solutions. Perhaps you’ve even paid for them, and been disappointed to find out that the so-called secrets really aren’t all that secret, but instead just some common-sense advice (and an advertisement for an expensive product or supplement you need to buy). That’s why this blog is devoted to helping you in a straightforward way, with useful tips and easy exercises that will help increase your vocabulary skills. We’re not hiding behind cryptic promises or promising any magic solutions – just showing you how to get the most out of your study program.

One of the not-so-secret “secrets” to a good vocabulary study program, and one of the best ways that you can expand your vocabulary quickly and steadily, is to devote at least 15 minutes a day to learning new words. There are many ways that you can structure this study time. We’ll use cryptic as the vocabulary word of the day to illustrate some of these methods.

Look up the word’s definitions. Yes, that was definitions, plural. While you might think that you know what a word means, many words have multiple definitions and uses. Make sure you know the best way to use each word, and you’ll get the most benefit out of it. For example, cryptic can mean “having a hidden meaning” or “deliberately confusing” or “written in code.”

Look for synonyms and antonyms. By learning the synonyms and antonyms for one word, in general you’ll increase your vocabulary by anywhere from three to over a dozen words. In addition, because the words are all linked together by related meanings, you’ll find them much easier to remember and use.
synonyms for “cryptic” – enigmatic, convoluted, obscure, abstruse
antonyms for “cryptic” – straightforward, evident, manifest, obvious

Find ways to have fun with vocabulary. When you’re enjoying yourself, time will go faster, and you’ll be more involved in what you’re doing. If you’re afraid that vocabulary study means sitting down at a desk with a long list of weird words to memorize, trying looking at things from a different angle. In fact, try looking at them from both vertical and horizontal angles, and do a crossword puzzle. You’ll learn many new words from the clues and from the answers. If you do a cryptic crossword puzzle you’ll stimulate your brain to come up with creative solutions, which will entertain and educate you at the same time.

What’s the secret to your vocabulary success?

Vocabulary Study Tip #15: Little Things Add Up to Big Successes

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Next time you’re found with your chin on the ground
There a lot to be learned, so look around

Just what makes that little old ant
Think he’ll move that rubber tree plant?
Anyone knows an ant can’t
Move a rubber tree plant

But he’s got high hopes, he’s got high hopes
He’s got high apple pie in the sky hopes

We know that sometimes vocabulary study can be a daunting process. There’s so much to learn, and often so little time to fit a study routine into your already-busy daily life. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, remember that you don’t have to do it all at once. Even 15 minutes a day will add up over time, and you’ll discover that all of your small daily efforts have resulted in a large increase in your vocabulary skills. Take your inspiration from the ant in the song, and learn these four words today. If you don’t have time for all four, concentrate on learning one well. Remember, even a little progress is still progress.

antonym (AN-toh-nihm) noun
From the Greek roots anti (“opposite”) and onoma (“name”), this is the term for a word that is the opposite in meaning to another word. Antonym is the antonym of “synonym” (defined as a word with the same meaning). A quick way to increase your vocabulary is to study the antonyms of each word you’re learning. This will help improve your understanding of the meaning of the word and how it’s used, and will double or triple the number of words you know.

antecedent (an-teh-SEE-dent) noun
Some people confuse words with the prefix anti- (“opposite”) and ante- (“before”) but if you remember to study a word’s etymology – that is, the history of the word and what came before its present meaning and use – you won’t be one of them. The word antecedent means something that has “gone before” or “preceded” something else.

anthropology (an-throw-PAH-loh-gee) noun
This refers not to the study (note the suffix -logy) of ants, but rather of human beings.

antipathy (an-TIH-pah-thee) noun
Note: The ‘th’ sound is soft, as in the word ‘thing.’
If you’re feeling antipathy towards your study of vocabulary, it’s time to find ways to make it fun and enjoyable. This word means “intense dislike” (from the Greek roots anti- and pathos, “feeling”). To fall in love with vocabulary again, play some word games, read a good book, or even take a day off your study routine – but don’t forget to start it again the next day.

So any time you’re gettin’ low
‘stead of lettin’ go
Just remember that ant -
Oops! there goes another rubber tree plant!

from the 1959 song “High Hopes” written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn

Effective Vocabulary Study Sets You Apart From the Crowd

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Improving your vocabulary will bring you many benefits: first, you’ll be more confident speaking in public and more comfortable talking with people in social and professional settings. Second, you’ll be able to progress faster in your educational goals due to your ability to understand advanced texts and materials, and discuss them intelligently. Third (but definitely not last), your increased verbal skills will bring you to the attention of management as well as your peers, and you’ll be able to take your place at the head of the line when promotions are due. However, you’ll need to spend some time working on vocabulary improvement to realize these results, and that may mean changing the way you study. It’s especially important to reserve some time and space for yourself, in a quiet space without distractions. In other words, you need to sequester yourself away from interruption to get the most out of your vocabulary practice.

The verb sequester hasn’t changed much from the original Latin sequestrare (“to keep safe”). To sequester someone (or something) means to isolate them so that they are not affected by any outside influence. For example, juries get sequestered during a trial so that they aren’t swayed by media coverage or other people’s opinions, or just random things they hear about a case that may or may not be accurate. To be truly impartial, a jury must be focused only on what they hear in the courtroom, so they are set apart from everyone else.

In the last few decades, the noun sequestration has gained more attention, because of the increasing worries over global warming. The process of carbon sequestration is sometimes proposed as a possible method of reducing the amount of climate-changing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A certain amount of sequestration happens happens naturally, such as when trees capture carbon dioxide, or the earth or the oceans absorb it, and this natural process can be helped along by planting cover crops or plowing under fields instead of burning them after harvest (the burning puts the carbon back into the atmosphere). Mechanical methods for doing the same thing are being discussed, but the technology has not advanced far enough to make such storage safe, since leaks of pure carbon dioxide can be fatal, suffocating people and animals.

When you’re studying vocabulary, you’ll want to sequester yourself in a quiet space so that you can concentrate. Noise and distraction will slow your ability to learn new words and remember them, and you’ll probably find yourself going over the same material extra times because you can’t remember what you’ve been studying after an interruption. If roommates or family members are around, try to find a time when no one is home, or ask their cooperation in helping you study. If you really can’t control the noise around you, try using noise-canceling headphones, or play low-key instrumental music in the background to help cover up outside noises. By setting aside time to study, and setting yourself apart so you can focus on your studies, you’ll get the most out of your vocabulary study.

Vocabulary in the News: What New Words Did You ‘C’?

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Every now and then, we check in with the editors at the online dictionary site for Merriam Webster to see what words are making their “most searched” list. In general, these words get more hits when an unfamiliar term hits the major media outlets and gains wide exposure. People who read the story or hear it on the news become curious about the word, and look up its definition. In the past few months, several words were of interest to the dictionary’s users:

champion (CHAM-pyuhn) noun or verb
A hockey player in the United States got more attention from his new tattoo than he really wanted when it was revealed that his skin bore the proud motto “Stanley Cup Champians.” Although the athlete has since altered the tattoo (and presumably fired his tattoo artist), this word was one of the most searched in September. Remember, knowing how to spell a word is just as important as knowing how to define it!

clemency (KLEH-mehn-see) noun
This word comes from the Latin root clemens (“mild”) and means “pardon” or “mercy.” When the news that a long-time death row inmate in the southern United States had been denied clemency – that is, his appeal for pardon had not succeeded – people both protested the death sentence and looked up the meaning of this word.

culture (KUHL-chur or KUHL-tyuhr) noun or verb
According to the editors, this word gets a lot of hits every time a new school year starts and students are confronted with titles of books and classes containing the word in one of its many definitions. Depending on the context, this word can be:

- a noun meaning “the customs, attitudes, and social rules of a society”
- a verb meaning “to cultivate or promote growth”
- a noun meaning “artistic and intellectual pursuits and creations”

Other definitions are specific to the scientific and medical field, or among sociologists. When you’re using a word, it’s important to know exactly which meaning you need so that you’re using the word correctly in context.

chutzpah (HUTZ-puh) noun
Note: The U in HUTZ rhymes with the word “book.”)
As an illustration of the reason proper pronunciation is just as important as the correct spelling and definition of a word, we present American presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann, who mispronounced this Yiddish word meaning “audacity, nerve” earlier this year. Take advantage of the audio links available on most online dictionaries or vocabulary software programs like Ultimate Vocabulary, and you won’t run the risk of embarrassing yourself on national television.

Quick Ways to Increase Your Vocabulary

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As linguists and language teachers know, there are two main types of vocabulary in daily use: the first is vocabulary we know in a “receptive” way, where we understand the general sense of a word when we read it or hear it; the second is vocabulary we know in a “productive” way, where we are able to use the word in conversation or written communication. 1 In general, a person with a university education has a minimum receptive vocabulary of about 20,000 words. Studies have shown that many of these words – up to 80 percent – belong to the most common “word families” in English. A “word family” is a group of words that are related through their root words. For example, the words help, helping, helpful, helpless, and unhelpful are all part of the same family. By focusing on word families, you can quickly and easily increase your vocabulary.

There are 4,000 word families in standard English. Research has shown than if you learn only the 2,000 most frequent word families, you will be able to understand at least 80% of any text (other than highly technical literature). If you combine these word lists with the Academic Word List (AWL), you will understand up to 90% of the words you read.2, 3

In addition to this key selection of words to learn, you have two ways you can choose to add other new words to your vocabulary. One is faster, but at the expense of long-term memorization. With this first strategy, you read a text using your word family and AWL knowledge, and use the context of the sentences to give you the definitions for the words you don’t understand, with the occasional use of a dictionary to double-check anything that’s particularly confusing. You’ll remember these new words, but may not retain them for long, or be able to use them in the future. However, it will increase your reading speed in the short term.

In a more focused approach, you take the time to look up and thoroughly understand each new word. In addition, to help firm up your knowledge of the word and how it is used, you make sure that you read more than one text containing that word, and you practice using it yourself. This is a slower approach in the short term, but gives you the long-term benefit of knowing and being able to use the word correctly in the future.4

Unless you are following a targeted vocabulary study program, most of the words you learn come from the text you read, and you learn the basic meaning by figuring it out from the context of the phrase. It’s estimated that we learn 7 or 8 new words each day by this method – though, as mentioned above, not all of them will stay in our long-term memory without further study.5

Whatever method you choose, we encourage you to read as much as possible, to maximize your acquisition of useful English vocabulary.

References:

1 Nation, P. & Waring, R. (1997). Vocabulary size, text coverage, and word lists. In Schmitt N, & McCarthy, M. (Eds). Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition, Pedagogy. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 6-19.

2 The Internet TESL Journal/. ESL Vocabulary Acquisition: Target and Approach. Andrea Cervatiuc, University of Calgary.

3 Wakely, R. Good Practice in Teaching and Learning Vocabulary. Centre for Languages, Linguistics, and Area Studies. University of Southampton.

4 Nagy, W., & Anderson, R. (1984). How Many Words Are There in Printed School English?. Reading Research Quarterly. 19: 304– 330.

5 What Is the “Context” for Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition? William J. Rapaport. Center for Cognitive Science State University of New York at Buffalo.

How a Good Vocabulary Makes You a Better Speaker

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The presenter at the conference whom everyone talks about the next day, whose sessions are always “standing room only” and whose speech is quoted and referenced for weeks afterwards.

The employee at the departmental meeting who always manages to hold the bosses’ attention and make exactly the points you were thinking about, but couldn’t find the right words to say.

The guest at the party who’s constantly surrounded by people eager to hear her entertaining stories and witty conversation.

Do you see yourself in these descriptions? Or do you see the person you’d like to be? You probably noticed that the one thing common to all of these situations is that each person described obviously has a way with words. They have an excellent vocabulary, and the ability to use their words in the right way, at the right time. They’re masters of the bon mot and the epigram. In order to emulate them, you need to be as well.

The first thing you need to do is concentrate on expanding your vocabulary by studying and learning new words. Vocabulary words are quite literally the building blocks you need to create your literary constructions. Plan on spending at least 15 minutes a day learning one or more new words. For today’s word, focus on the word epigram. This noun is defined as “a concise and witty phrase” and frequently refers to a remark that someone makes to conclude a speech or conversation that sums everything up in one brief sentence, in an intelligent and humorous way. An aphorism is similar in that it is also a brief, witty, and insightful phrase, but an aphorism generally expresses a statement of belief or universal truth. Here are some examples of epigrams and aphorisms:

You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
- Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Ars longa, vita brevis. (“Life is short, but art endures.”)
- Hippocrates, 4th century CE

I can resist everything except temptation.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

Swans sing before they die – ‘twere no bad thing
Should certain people die before they sing!
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

Don’t let your lack of vocabulary keep you silent!

How to Get Help With Pronunciation

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There are several important aspects of vocabulary study. When you learn a new word, you need to know its definition (or definitions) and how to use the word correctly in context. You need to know how to spell the word, so that you can recognize the correct spelling when you are reading or editing text, and avoid making any spelling errors yourself when you use the word in written communication. To use the word correctly when speaking, you need to be able to pronounce the word correctly.

If you’re using the Ultimate Vocabulary system, you’ll be able to take advantage of the built-in pronunciation audio guides for the vocabulary words you learn. Most good online dictionaries also offer icons you can click to hear how a word is pronounced when you look it up. If you’re using a print dictionary, the pronunciation of the word will be written out in IPA, the International Phonetic Alphabet. This collection of symbols represents all of the identified sounds made by human languages around the world; while it takes a bit of time to get accustomed to what the symbols represent, once you learn the IPA notation you’ll be able to instantly pronounce any word in English – and in any other language as well.

There are other ways to get help with your pronunciation, all easy to find and often free of charge. If you have a television, there’s probably a “closed captioning” function that you can switch on which will display most of the words being said by news announcers, actors, and commercial voiceovers. This is not an ideal method, because not all words are included in the captioning process, and if the broadcast is in real time (that is, it’s not a pre-recorded and pre-captioned program) there is a delay between the words and the appearance of the caption.

A better form of captioning is found on videos and DVDs. You might be used to seeing subtitles in foreign films, but did you know that you can almost always get English subtitles to movies in English, too? Look for that option in the menu and turn it on to see the subtitles while you’re listening to the dialog. The advantage here is that the captioning has been done in advance, so it’s much closer to the real-time speed of dialog on the screen.

Books on tape are an excellent way to practice pronunciation, because they are read word for word, and the readers are specifically chosen for their skill in the English language. Check out both the print book and the book on tape from your local library, and read along to the recording. You’ll be able to see and hear the difficult words that might have given you problems on your own.

Get a Head Start on College Vocabulary Skills

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Parents often wonder what they can do to help their children get ahead and prepare for college, especially if the students are not being challenged in their classes to improve their English or math skills. For students in their last year of high school, there are often opportunities to partner with local universities and community colleges, and take classes there for college credit. You can check with the advisers at your local high school to find out about the resources available in your area. If that is not possible, or if you want to provide your child with even more college preparation, the College Board’s online AP (Advanced Placement) classes will provide them an excellent head start, and possibly some college credit as well.

To improve a student’s ability to understand and use advanced English vocabulary, we recommend the AP English Literature and Composition course. This online course provides a wide range of reading materials and helps students learn how to read and analyze texts of various kinds. The courses are designed to prompt students to consider the history of the period in which the text was written and the role of society and its impact on the author, as well as the stylistic techniques and prose forms used.

Once students have read the texts, they are challenged to write about them in a thoughtful and critical manner. Students will be required to look both at the language the author uses and the manner in which he or she uses it, and to discuss how this use of language affects the content and its impact on the reader. Students are given tests to see how much they understand and comprehend about the content of the work, as well as the author’s motivations and goals.

By reading excerpts from a broad spectrum of English literature past and present, and by learning how to discuss what they’ve read, students are given the opportunity to learn new vocabulary words and then to use them in context. While having a large and expressive vocabulary is important, it’s equally as important that a student can use their vocabulary in clear and effective communication, so any vocabulary study needs to include many opportunities to use the vocabulary in writing.

Whether you help your child find a classroom or an online course, you know you’ll be helping them prepare their way for a prosperous and word-rich future!

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