Improving your vocabulary becomes easy when we start observing how language behaves since language is a system which is undergoing a process of continuous evolution.
A small example towards this evolutionary nature of language (English in this case) becomes evident when we look at these sentences from Shakespeare, “Bring me to Octavius” in the manner of take me to Octavius where as bring as a verb today means fetching “This thou shall suddenly” in the manner of quickly whereas suddenly today would mean, ‘without notice’. “Let us remove” in the sense, let us leave this place.
The examples illustrate how language undergoes a change as new words get added and existing words undergo a semantic change. Coming back to the strategies, an interesting way to understand words is to arrange them in a cline or a sequence. As an example, it is easy to look at the following expressions; say, tell, utter, mutter, stutter, titter, whisper, murmur, shout, yell. Although all the words have something to do with conveying a message each of them is unique and has a nuance or shade which distinguishes it from the others. Clines can be applied to many words and the expressions can vary depending on the need of the situation.
Another way of comprehending the way words behave is to look at the various meanings a word can have for example – apprehend (V) is to catch and apprehension (N) is fear. A simple technique which will benefit a learner is to examine a word by subjecting it to the (parts of speech) test. Take for example the word, Patient which can function as a noun as well as an adjective. Patience and patiently make it a noun and an adverb. Active (adj.), activity (N), activeness (N), activate (V), actively (A.V.), Massive (adj.), Massiveness (N), amass (V), massively (A.V.). The word transformation leads to a Part of speech transformation whereby the syntactical patterns also vary.
Patience is a good virtue.
He waited for me patiently.
She was patient and heard me out fully.
The test of conversion of a word from one part of speech to another has to be ingrained and addition of suffixes like ly, er, ness, tion, etc enable a new user to coin new words to suit the occasion. So we can add ‘er’ to eat, run, crack, bake, copy, ‘or’ to terminate, infiltrate – (verb to noun), ‘ness’ to busy, manly, humane – (Adj. to N), ‘ly’ to quick, slow, brave, deliberate to make adverbs from adjectives.
Modern usage of English has provided an extraordinary opportunity to coin new verbs in the form of phrasal verbs. Adding a preposition to a verb makes the verb acquire a new orientation.
Ex: Switch – (change) – switch off (stop)
Make (prepare) – make up (make amends)
Put (keep in one place) – Put off (cancel-postpone)
Looking at etymology to discover the origin of a word and how it matches with regard to other original roots in combinations is an exciting way to look at words and can open a wide, uncharted terrain for a new user; Theology is the study of the Nature of God and Biology is the study of living organisms. Theosophy is the love of religion or God. Zoology is the study of the animal kingdom. From these examples we can deduce that the roots logy, sophy and theo mean study, love and God respectively. Idioms and phrases are an inalienable part of language. What cannot be expressed in an elaborate description is usually summed up in a succinct idiom and a good speaker of English should be able to use idioms and phrases. Pull the strings, Kick the bucket, Jump the gun, Spill the beans are all idioms which have a figurative sense other than what they mean literally. One way in which I tried to learn words was to write out as many synonyms as possible for a particular word: (Ostracization, Banishment) ( Violation, Infringement, contravention, infraction, transgression.) Another game that I had created for exploring the lexicon was to hunt for root words; Starting with Ex, Extenuation, Excoriation, Exacerbation, Extirpation, Exculpation, Extermination , Exoneration.
Words are the property of an individual. Appropriate use is what matters. Just as disuse blunts it , overuse makes it a stilt. Our Correspondent from my school days had this habit of using the expression last but not the least in her assembly speeches. On one occasion when we started to count she used it more than 15 times.
( Friends are welcome to suggest more strategies.)