Ultimate Vocabulary – Vocabulary Building Software

5 Confusing Word Pairs

June 26, 2013

Sometimes one letter makes all the difference, helping you clearly communicate a decision you’ve thought about, instead giving people the impression you’re still wondering what to think with the word though. At other times, confusion comes when you’ve made a mistake in pronunciation, leaving your listener bewildered by your statement that you’re going back to the BUFF-it (buffet, “hit, jostle”) when you’re actually heading to the buh-FAY (buffet, a table covered with food) for more smoked salmon. Learn how to correctly use, spell, and pronounce these five word pairs, and you’ll keep confusion to a minimum. Remember to write out your own sample sentences to practice the words later.

allusion / illusion
Pronunciation: uh-LOO-zhun / ih-LYU-zhun
Definition: reference, hint / false image
Example: Helen reminded her students not to believe the magician’s illusions were real, making allusion to the work they had recently studied on the life of Harry Houdini.

complacent / complaisant
Pronunciation: kuhm-PLAY-suhnt / kuhm-PLAY-zehnt
Definition: self-satisfied, smug / willing, obedient
Example: The lion tamer appears to be very complacent about how complaisant his animals are, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be alone in their cage like that!

corporal / corporeal
Pronunciation: KOR-por-ull / kor-POR-ee-ull
Definition: military officer / having or relating to a physical body
Example: “The sergeant doesn’t believe in poltergeists,” announced the corporal. “There’s a corporeal prankster behind all of these so-called ghostly disturbances in camp lately.”

later / latter
Pronunciation: LAY-tur / LAH-tur
Definition: after a certain period of time / coming at or near the end (of a list)
Example: If I had to choose between weeding the garden and washing the dishes, I would definitely pick the latter, but in either case, I can’t help you now – but I promise I’ll be back later to pitch in.

respectfully / respectively
Pronunciation: reh-SPEKT-full-ee / reh-SPEK-tihv-lee
Definition: showing honor and deference / taken one by one
Example: She respectfully pointed out the professor’s error, noting that the two paintings were from the 18th and 15th centuries, respectively.

Cross-posted at the Ultimate Spelling blog.

Monicka Gregory Helps Children (And Parents) Succeed At KidsGoals.com

June 22, 2013

Whether you’re a first-time parent or juggling the demands of several children in your life, you know how important it is to find the best ways to help kids learn what they need to be their best at home and at school. Sometimes what you need is a few tips from experts and other parents about how to approach issues and problems, or a place where your questions are answered. And sometimes all you need is a fresh idea for a new game that makes a task fun, whether that’s picking up toys or working on vocabulary and spelling. You’ll find all that and more at Monicka Gregory’s site, KidsGoals.com. Articles on parenting, suggestions for craft projects, and stories from other parents and caregivers are all designed to give you the information and the tools you need to support children and help them be their best. We asked Monicka Gregory about the site, and about some parenting “best practices” she’s discovered over the years.

UV: One of the categories on the site is “goal setting.” We’re used to seeing this as a strategy for success with adults, but not children. How do young children benefit from learning to set goals?

MG: I truly believe you can help guarantee your child’s future success by instilling success characteristics — namely goal setting, and self-confidence — into his daily life at as young an age as possible. This way he will learn to use them automatically throughout life. This will ultimately ensure his success in academic pursuits and later in whatever career or business he chooses.

The two characteristics which do ultimately affect our ability to succeed – in every sense of the word – are habitual goal setting and self-confidence so strong that it results in an absolute conviction that we will succeed.

Goal setting teaches a child how to be “success oriented” A success-oriented child is less likely to become involved in crime, or damage his body with drugs, because his self-esteem is healthy – he truly likes himself. A success-oriented child will also grow up respecting others and be a valued member of society.

Goal setting is not taught in most schools and according to statistics only 3% of the populations are systematic goal setters. The important fact is that these 3% are not just any old percentage of the population. The goal-setters amongst us are the elitist few who achieve spectacular successes – top Olympic athletes, self-made millionaires, great inventors and successful businesspersons.

Our ultimate goal as a parent or caregiver should be to instill in our children, the habit of setting goals — just as you teach them to brush their teeth!

UV: You say that “children learn in different ways, but every child learns better when they actually enjoy the process” – and we agree! What’s your favorite way of making study time fun for children?

MG: While studying is something most kids do not consider “fun” at the best of times, it can be made to be more enjoyable. When my son was younger we made studying into a game like Jeopardy. We would write out questions on index cards using coloured markers and then I would quiz him. We also made up silly songs which he really liked. To teach fractions we baked a cake.

I also made sure that he took regular study breaks, especially when he was younger. The break only needed to be a few minutes long – just long enough to give his brain a chance to absorb what it has just learned and get ready for more. It is a good idea to keep in mind that breaks should revitalize your child for his next study period, not sap his energy! Watching TV is an energy-sapping break and should be avoided. Good breaks might include: a light snack, a refreshing or soothing drink, or some breaths of fresh air.

UV: Your site encourages parents to be good role models for kids. If adults spend time reading books, does that inspire children to read more, too?

MG: I believe that children learn best by example and if they see their parents reading and enjoying books, they are more apt to want to read too.

I was read to as a child and have always enjoyed reading. When I became a parent I made it a nightly routine to read to my kids, who all developed my same love of reading. Growing up my kids would always see me with my nose in a book. My youngest son is sixteen and despite the lure of video games has become a voracious reader. His latest feat is reading “Game of Thrones” volumes 1-4!

UV: Helping children succeed at school takes time. How can parents best fit study and homework sessions with their kids into an already busy day?

MG: Study and homework must be a priority, but rather than having them work on their homework or studying at random times of the day, try to find a routine that works best for you and your child. Some kids, just like adults, are at their best in the morning, and for these kids, getting up a bit earlier and having a regular homework time in the morning before school can work well.

Many kids will find an afternoon or evening homework routine more comfortable, and in this case it’s important to make sure that they have an opportunity to have a bit of a rest before starting their homework, especially if they have been doing physical activity at school. If on the other hand they tend to be full of pent-up energy after school, then some physical exercise would be just the thing they need to wind down from school before they tackle their studies. In this case an early evening session might work best. In either case, a healthy, light snack is a good idea and the energy from food will help fuel your kids for their brain-work.

UV: If you had one piece of advice for new parents, what would it be?

MG: Follow your heart and trust your instincts. Parenting is all about trial and error and there is NO way to ever be perfect at it – so stop trying! Take a deep breath, learn to relax and just enjoy your kids.

Three (or More) Words You’re Probably Misusing

June 20, 2013

The right word, used at the right time, can make all the difference. And the wrong word can lead you into trouble, especially if the definition of the word changes the meaning of what you really wanted to say. That’s why it’s so important to practice new words and use them in sentences so that you’re sure of their meaning. Look up examples of how other people have used them, and write out a few short paragraphs or phrases to lock the proper definition in your head before you allow the words to come out of your mouth (or through your fingers, if you’re typing). The three word pair examples below show how similar-sounding words can lead to very different conclusions on the part of your listener or reader.

distinct and distinctive

Distinct means “easy to see, clear.” Distinctive means “special, unique.” If you’re trying to describe the individual characteristic of something that makes it stand out from a group, you’ll want to use the second word.

Example: The distinctive “swoosh” of the Nike logo can be seen on many professional athletes’ shoes, and some say that the design of those shoes gives them a distinct advantage in competition.

rave and raving

Here’s an example of the need to know how words are used, and not just what they mean. The verb “to rave” becomes the verb “he is raving,” and has a negative sense, often meaning “complaining about” or “talking angrily.” However, the adjective rave is always positive. While some people do say “raving about” to mean “praising” it’s more likely that they’re criticizing something rather than giving it high marks.

Example: One critic gave the play a rave review, but most of the other reviewers were raving on about the poor quality of the acting, and half of the audience walked out in the middle of the opening night performance.

repeatedly and repetitively

Our last word pair also highlights a negative-vs.-positive use of words that essentially mean the same thing otherwise. If you do something repeatedly you’re doing it over and over, but if you do it repetitively it implies that this is not a productive or useful action.

Example: You need to repeatedly practice new vocabulary words until you’re sure you know exactly how you use them, or you may find you are repetitively making the same mistakes again and again.

Owen Dwyer: Making Learning Fun At www.GamesToLearnEnglish.com

June 18, 2013

When it comes to getting tips on how to learn English vocabulary, one of the best resources is someone who actually teaches English for a living. Owen Dwyer has been teaching English in China, and his students benefit from his experience with vocabulary and grammar. Now anyone can participate in the vocabulary-building games he uses with his students, which combine entertainment and education to help English as a Second Language (ESL) learners become English experts. We asked him about his experiences as an English teacher in a recent interview.

UV: How did you get started teaching English in China?

OD: I think China is the place to be for teaching English these days, the market is constantly growing and more and more China people are moving to big cities. As people get richer I think more and more people will want to learn English.

UV: What do your students find easier to learn, vocabulary or grammar?

OD: Vocabulary is obviously easier as and it’s pretty clear cut. You learn a word and the meaning and then use it a few times. When learning vocabulary it’s quite clear that you’re improving and that you know something you didn’t know before.

UV: Chinese society has changed a lot in the last decade. Have your course materials changed to reflect your students’ interests?

OD: Yes definitely. These days so many children have devices of one kind of another so simply listening or reading from a textbook seems quite one dimensional to them.

UV: What’s the most interesting place you’ve visited or thing that you’ve done while in China?

OD: I definitely think Shanghai is the most interesting place as everything is so big and crowded. Coming from a small town in England it’s really crazy to see everything there.

UV: Which of your games do you recommend for students who are just starting to learn English?

OD: The first one on the site, you can choose any vocabulary you like to play with.

Bring Back These 11 Englishable Words!

June 13, 2013

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes” – and we’ll add “and the evolution of the English language” to that quote! The website Death And Taxes recently brought some words to our attention that have been lost in time, but we agree that they’re interesting, and maybe even useful enough to bring back into common use. Old words die off and new words are born, and English continues to grow …

zafty
Someone who is easy to take advantage of, or to be forced or persuaded into doing something.

resistentialism
The belief that inanimate objects are actively hostile to humans; for example that the kitchen table deliberately moved so that you would bang your hip into it while going to get coffee.

beef-witted
Dull, stupid. The ancient Greeks believed that eating too much red meat decreased your intelligence, and in Shakespeare’s play Troilus and Cressida (set in Greece) one of his characters shouts, “The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord!”

tyromancy
An old method of fortune-telling by looking at the way milk curdles. Other ways to see the future included cleromancy (throwing dice), spodomancy (looking at the pattern of ashes after burning wood), and haruspicy (examining the entrails of an animal).

spermologer
Someone who studies or works with trivia.

snoutfair
Having an attractive face (literally – at least in the 16th century – “pretty nose”).

lunting
Lighting and smoking a pipe.

groak
To stare at someone while they’re eating, trying to silently will them to share their food with you.

jirble
To pour liquid carelessly so that it splashes around the container.

elfmill
The sound a worm makes as it eats through the wood of your house.

love-lock
A curl of hair hanging in front of the ear.

A Simple Trick To Improve Your Child’s Reading And Vocabulary Skills

June 13, 2013

The results of an amazing study are only now getting the attention they deserve, and the technological tools researchers need to prove once and for all that there’s a simple trick to raising a child’s vocabulary skills, reading ability, and even intelligence: conversation. At first glance, it might seem to be too simple – after all, everyone talks to their children, don’t they? But as the study shows, it’s important to talk to children frequently, and it’s important that those talks aren’t just a series of “do this!” or “stop that!” orders. Instead, children get the most out of conversations where they’re exposed to new words and prompted to use those words in their answers.

One of the most striking statistics from the study states that “by age 3, a [child on welfare] would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family.” 30 million words – that’s a lot of vocabulary opportunity that’s missing for that child. And since vocabulary skill is directly connected to reading ability, that means a child in this situation will probably also have a harder time reading, and they’ll be reading at a slower speed. Once bad reading habits get started, they’re hard (though not impossible) to fix.

One significant finding from the study showed that once parents and caregivers started talking more with the children, it didn’t matter what the family situation was; children at all income levels showed immediate improvement in their vocabulary and reading. The city of Providence, Rhode Island is using this information to start a city-wide initiative to help families understand the importance of conversations at home, and to practice good conversational skills. As the study points out, substituting television for one-on-one conversations doesn’t help, and in fact makes things worse. If you live in Providence, you might be able to sign up through the Nurse-Family Partnership. This organization is a good resource for any family, and there are offices in most areas of the United States.

Have you hugged your kid today – and talked to them, too?

Read more about the study here.

Related research: C. Snow and Z. Weizman, “Lexical input as related to children’s vocabulary acquisition” Developmental Psychology (2001)

Cross-posted at the 7 Speed Reading blog.

Teaching Vocabulary: Strategies For Children’s Education

June 6, 2013

It has long been known that when parents read and talk to their children at home, using relatively advanced vocabulary, those children have larger vocabularies and better word skills, and enter school knowing more than twice as many words as children who rank in the lowest 25 percent of the class. While disadvantaged and low-income families often have more challenges in providing this support to children, the studies also show that when parents are actively involved in vocabulary and reading practice, those children quickly close the gap in word skills. It’s important to help children learn words and improve their reading abilities, because poor skills in these areas lead to poor performance in all areas of education – and this in turn leads to fewer opportunities in the workplace when the children grow up.

If you’re concerned about your child’s vocabulary, reading skills, and education, here are 15 ways you can help children learn vocabulary:

1. Provide a variety of reading materials to keep children interested in new things.

2. Explain the meaning of a word and give definitions and examples of how it’s used.

3. Ask the child to invent sentences using the word, so that they will remember it.

4. Use flash cards to review words and help memorization.

5. Use new words in daily conversations with children.

6. Play games focused on words, spelling, and pronunciation.

7. Teach groups of related words at one time, such as the names for each part of a flower.

8. Create or buy a word of the day calendar, and practice using that word during the day.

9. Have children read out loud to give them practice with pronunciation.

10. Give the child a vocabulary journal to write down new words.

11. Read books together and talk about the books afterwards.

12. Encourage children to make up stories using new vocabulary words.

13. Use technology and media to give children different tools for vocabulary building.

14. Teach children how to use a dictionary to look up words and meanings.

15. Buy books as gifts and spend time at your local library.

Reference: A. Biemiller, “Vocabulary: needed if more children are to read well.” Reading
Psychology (2003)

The Top 20 Misspelled Business Terms

May 30, 2013

When you’re a young student, your English teacher will give you spelling tests to make sure you know how to write out and pronounce the words you’re learning to read. You’ll also need to be a good speller if you want to get top grades in university, or score well on your GRE in your pursuit of an advanced degree. But once you’re in the workforce, a proud holder of an MBA or a business owner supervising your own staff, you don’t need to worry so much about spelling, right? Wrong. As studies have shown, poor spelling has been proven to cause lost earnings, and that’s something that you should be concerned about whether you’re working for yourself or for someone else. It’s especially important if you’re just starting out in the job market; poor spelling skills might keep you from getting the job you want, or from advancing in your career. Pay close attention to your spelling from start to finish – and you can start with this list of 20 essential business terms you need to know how to spell correctly.

acknowledgment
waive
bankruptcy
unanimous
collateral
statistics
discrepancy
receipt
forfeit
illegible
lucrative
personnel
mortgage
affidavit
courteous
eligible
voucher
pamphlet
reimburse
schedule

Even if you employ a secretary to do your correspondence, it’s important that you know how to spell. Anyone can make a mistake, even with computer-assisted spell-checking, and it’s your responsibility to look over the text of a letter before you sign it. Not only will you be able to spot any errors in spelling, but you’ll also have one more opportunity to review your thoughts and the way you expressed them. Remember, written documents and advertisements are often the first thing that potential customers see. Sometimes they’re the only things that make someone decide to buy your product, or avoid your business. With well-written and correctly-spelled communication, you and your company are sure to succeed.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Spelling blog.

How To Use Vocabulary In Memory Practice

May 29, 2013

A well-known top memory technique is to associate information with mental “markers” that help recall. For example, you could build an image in your head of a herd of cows wearing party hats and carrying candles to remind yourself that you need to pick up ice cream and a birthday cake for your child’s party this Saturday. Linking a memorable image to information activates your brain in several areas involved in visual processing and memory storage. The more information you can link to one image, the more efficient this memory storage and recall process is.

If you think about it, words are really “images” in this sense. When you read a word, you’re really visualizing all of the information that this word represents, including any memories you have associated with the word. Reading the word telephone prompts your brain to produce an image of a telephone, or to think about where your cell phone is at the moment, or the last time you talked to your mother, or the fact that you have to call the dentist before the end of the week. All of this information is packed into the single word telephone.

What this means is that when you learn more vocabulary words, you’re also learning more chunks of information that those words have attached to them. It’s an efficient way to store things in your memory, as well. Just like reading the word telephone called up a variety of related thoughts and concepts out of your long-term memory, using vocabulary allows you to remember more things by using fewer markers. By attaching information to words, you’ll be able to use those words to easily remember the associated information.

It’s important to learn as much as you can about each new vocabulary word so that you’re better able to remember and use the word correctly. However, you can combine vocabulary building and memory practice by also adding related information with each new word. If the word pasteurization is on your vocabulary list, why not take a few minutes to learn about the inventor of the process, Louis Pasteur? This 19th-century French scientist made many important discoveries related to microorganisms and bacteria, and invented the pasteurization process for milk, as well as new methods related to sanitation, immunization, and vaccination. Reading a brief summary of important people, inventions, places, or ideas related to one vocabulary word will give you a wide range of information that you’ll find useful to know in the future. You’ll be improving your vocabulary and getting a better memory for facts at the same time.

Cross-posted on the Ultimate Memory blog.

English Shapes The World – And Is Shaped By It

May 22, 2013

Global culture needs a global language, and for a variety of reasons it appears that this language is English. If you’re in Britain and you’re going to communicate with someone in Benin or Beijing or Brazil, whether it’s for business or socializing, you’re probably going to do it in English. Automatic translators help, but having a common language makes communication faster and simpler. If you’re a native speaker of English, we encourage you to learn a second language because of the many advantages to being bilingual. Learning English as a second language provides the same benefits, along with the ability to work easily with people around the world. A video-based instruction program like the one provided by Learn English 232 is an excellent place to look for help in getting your English skills to native-speaker level.

Like any language, English is continuing to grow, and as more people use English there are more words added to the language. These new words often reflect the cultures and countries the speakers come from, or are a combination of English and other languages. When two languages meet and combine, they create a pidgin language, one that has elements of both languages. If that new language becomes a standard way of communication for later generations, it’s called a creole language. English is in a state of constant evolution as it absorbs words from other languages, and because of the speed of communication in the internet age, children are learning these new words as quickly as they evolve. In a sense, English is a “continual creole,” and more and more people are participating in its development.

New words are being added to the language from all areas. The word skinship is used by Japanese and Korean English speakers to describe nonsexual but affectionate physical contact. Indian children grow up speaking “Hinglish” in which words from Hindi and English are used in the same sentence, and words like prepone (“bring or do something ahead of schedule,” the opposite of postpone) appear in daily vocabulary. As the internet and easier global travel bring us closer together, this new and evolving English language will strengthen the ties that help us interact with other people – and when we can communicate clearly, we can change the world.

What new words in English are being used in your country?