IELTS TOEFL TIPS: Build Usable Vocab Quickly

hi welcome to write the top I'm Adam in today's video I want to talk to you about building a usable vocabulary now I haven't been on in a little while I've moved her a new country recently I now live in South Korea in Busan on the southern coast and I am a complete beginner when it comes to the Korean language I'm now starting to learn I have a couple of books to teach myself Korean and the first thing I'm doing is I'm building my vocabulary base okay vocabulary is the most important part of learning a language grammar will come second and I'm learning vocabulary by using English I'm right I'm learning a Korean word with an English word why because I don't have enough of a base to use Korean words to learn other Korean words so got me thinking about those of you preparing for the IELTS or TOEFL or any English exam that you need to show your language ability and vocabulary is a key part of that okay and if you want to get a higher score on these exams especially in the writing section and the reading section actually you need to have a very wide range of vocabulary available to you okay so how are you going to do that well you have to immerse yourself in your target language okay now as a beginner it's okay that I'm using my English with my new language and that's also good for all of you to a certain point if you're aiming for a five and a half six even a six and a half on the IELTS for example then you can still use your native language to help you get there but once you want to get to the next step once you want to go to a seven or a seven and a half or an eight even you need to stop using your native language and immerse yourself only in English to immerse means to surround yourself completely okay so everything you do do it in English 100% English so read English only materials newspapers magazines books fiction is very good for learning vocabulary novels etc and nonfiction if you're interested in certain topics read about them in English read essays on the exam you're gonna be writing essays and you're gonna be reading a lot of essays get used to this structure and get comfortable reading it and getting a handle on it now a lot of you are gonna say that it's boring or that it makes you tired well yeah that may be true but when you go write your exam that's what you're going to deal with for three hours four hours maybe more and you have to be used to it okay you're gonna be bored you're gonna be tired you're gonna have to still get over that and get your score either way okay now one thing I want to mention also start moving away from textbooks English textbooks okay the ones that are trying to teach you English are actually limiting you and I'll show you what I mean in a couple of minutes for listening and also for vocabulary watch English TV and movies sitcoms news shows documentaries Hollywood make it a variety you will get different words from different materials different sources so it's good to have a whole variety of them and pick out the words that you think will help you or that will help you build your vocabulary base lots of English websites if you have internet internet is your most valuable resource when it comes to learning a language there's so much English everywhere that you really don't even need to go to a classroom you can study all the time surround yourself with it okay watch news programs read news articles go to the thing sites like Ted Ted calm you can listen to native English speakers giving speeches about all kinds of topics they have a transcript that you can follow you can rehearse saying it out loud record yourself listen to your intonation your pace your flow but more importantly pick out the new vocabulary watch youtube videos look for lessons but youtube be careful about there's a lot of bad english in there there's a lot of good english make sure you're getting the where you're watching the videos that actually help you for the things you need to do if you want to learn everyday slang and casual street english lots of videos for that for those of you taking the IELTS and TOEFL make sure you're watching good solid proper English to help you improve if you want to go to English Forbes where you can ask people questions about grammar or vocabulary kurz and they might make mistakes as well go there interact just be a little bit careful where you go now you're collecting all these new vocabulary a lot of you are just writing it down and you're writing your the meaning in your native language stop doing this do it all in English English to English but not just word and meaning here's what I want you to start doing make it a hundred percent English based so don't just learn a word with another word learn the word look up the definition in a dictionary okay make sure you get a synonym so don't learn one word learn two three four words that mean the same and it can be used in different contexts it's all about context okay knowing a word memorizing the meaning of it might not help you in certain contexts you might use it wrong or you might not understand it when it's used in a different way you know I'll show you examples of that as well try to write explanations not just a dictionary definition explain what this word is explaining the concept the situation where would I use this word where would I not use this word etc look for real-life examples from news articles from books from speeches where this word is being used and how it is being used take that sentence into your journal you have to be very active in your vocabulary building samples make sure that every time you learn a new word don't just memorize its meaning use it in a sentence to know that you can use it correctly okay ideally show it to somebody to check for you but again samples are very important I'm going to talk to you about the samples in a second and then again just use it in any context you can use it to give directions how to do something how to get somewhere how to compare things how to describe things all kinds of contexts that can use this particular word and write a sentence for that contest contexts okay then here's an example of what you're gonna do that I took the word abdicate I just took it from a list of vocabulary words everybody has these books of 400 words for the TOEFL or 500 words for the IELTS this is a word that all shows up quite often so I took it to abdicate means to give up a power or a position authority duty etc synonyms resign quit step down relinquish surrender forfeit these are all mean abdicate means to give up something to surrender something etc or to quit a position sample sentence the King abdicated his throne due to poor health so abdicated his throne so the king sits on a throne a throne is the chair that the king sits on so when he gives up the chair he's basically giving up his kingship okay why because he was feeling not well he's a little bit sick he can't continue with his duties so he gave it up to his son or whoever real world example from the news Buckingham Palace was clear in its messaging that despite her reduced public visibility the Queen had no intention of abdicating any time soon the Queen had no intention did not intend to give up her Queen ship anytime soon and more of an explanation to abdicate means to no longer serve in a position of power or authority so how do you look over something okay so these are all the ways you can explain the word and etc then you're going to also have to make sample sentences and I'll get to that this sample sentence is good I'll show you another one in a second but before that I just mentioned that I got this word from a list of the 400 or 500 words for these tests these are generally big words okay maybe they're multi syllabic or they're not very everyday words but they're meaningful words don't only study the big words in these lists you will get a better grade a greater will be more impressed by a common word that is used in its meaning okay so I'm gonna look at an example pen now everybody knows this word a pan is like a little container it has walls and a flat and you can put stuff in it like you can put water and give to your dog to drink or your cat you can also there's a frying pan you used to cook it with okay well it could be an amount so a pan of beans so this much beans as many as fit in the pan everybody knows this word short three letters one syllable everyday usage no problem but do you know the other meanings of the word and the other uses of the word pen do you know the verb so one meaning of the verb pen is to critique or to give a very bad review of something so people critics we go see a movie and they say all this they write up about I was terrible movie the acting was terrible the script was terrible the plot made no sense so they panicked they give a really bad review of this movie verb another verb think about your smartphone you have a camera on your phone and you want to capture a large scene so you move your camera to capture the whole scene you pen the camera that's why the picture itself is called a panorama okay it covers all the the whole scene so to pen to move the camera to pan out it means to move the camera out and capture the whole scene but pan out has a different meaning is a phrasal verb it also means to work out according to plan or to succeed so if something does not pan out it didn't happen it didn't succeed it didn't work out the way it was supposed to okay and pan can also be a suffix panamerican pantheistic it means all so panamerican means all the Americas North Central South America's the pan-american countries participated in the pan-american games okay including all these countries so this is the word pan not everyday meanings so now what do I mean by make your sample sentences instructive what I mean is imagine somebody is learning English and they come across this word make your sentences such that this person can read your sentence and from the context of the sentence we will understand the word now the King abdicated his throne due to poor health his poor health probably means he couldn't do his due couldn't fulfill his duties as a king so he had to step down he had to give up his kingdom kingship okay that's pretty clear here's another one people who litter and pollute their environment essentially abdicate the responsibilities as good citizens and do not deserve society's help so people who litter in pollute they're doing something bad which means they're not living up to their responsibilities means they're giving up or they're forfeiting or surrendering their responsibilities so it might not be exactly the meaning but it's a good guess of generally what this word abdicate means and so we shouldn't help them as a society let's look at the word pen okay although not all government proposals pan out whether for financial social or logistical reasons the fact that they made the effort in the first place is sometimes all that is necessary to raise awareness of the situation so although not pan out they made the effort so not the plans don't always work out all the proposals don't work out different reasons social financial logistical but the fact that they tried the effort is the most important part so you can understand more or less what pan out means not pan out because of the second part of the sentence and the word although there's a contrast the effort is good even though it didn't actually work out the proposals didn't work out they didn't pan out despite being universally panned by critics the movie broke box office records as moviegoers flocked to theaters to see it so again you have a contrast despite the critics panning it they made tons of money they broke box office records means they sold a lot of tickets so universally panned by critics what is a critic do he or she gives a review about a movie universally panned all the critics said this movie was really really bad despite that lots of people flocked so movie goers flock means they went in large numbers flocked is a good word to know as well they flocked to theaters they went in large numbers and the movie made a lot of money so you can still understand what pan means because critics that's what they do they pan or they rave give a very good review about it now let's look at the textbooks I mentioned before now I don't mean to pick on the Korean students but this is the book I could I had available here the thing you need to understand about textbooks is they're usually going to be very limited in what they give you in terms of vocabulary so spiral a snail's shell has a spiral shape now assuming you know what a snail is this is a good sentence you can understand this is a spiral it was big and it's smaller smaller smaller smaller no this is the adjective good meaning but spiral can also be a noun it can also be a verb to spiral like the verb means to increase or decrease very quickly the noun basically presents the process or a situation it's a process to somewhere right so let's look at a couple examples verb some economists believe these changes will cause inflation to spiral out of control the government wants to change some policy and some people are worried that the inflation where the prices we start to go up will spiral out of control it will go back to high to fast nobody will be able to control it choose spiral verb you won't get that from this textbook many as a noun many Beatles fans view John's relationship with Yoko as the beginning of the band's death spiral though others argue the end was coming regardless death spiral the process of going to debt basically right the band broke up and then the rest is all history noun-verb not mentioned here make sure that you know it go to the dictionary be active in your vocab building basically same with heap my clothes lie in a heap on the sofa now heap means like a pile like something you put on top of something else you have a little mountain of something this sentence doesn't actually help you my clothes lie in a bag or on the sofa lie in a basket on the sofa lie in a corner on the sofa write the word heap you don't actually understand it just from this sentence you have to actually read the Korean to understand what it means they do give you stack and pile and they do tell you that it's also a verb to heap means to put on top and create a little mountain but a better sentence would be the heap of laundry on my couch reached above my head so you have laundry on the couch or sofa whatever it reached above my head means there's an actual size to it so you know it's a it's a physical thing you have a better understanding of the word heap okay now what they don't tell you here is that heap can also just mean a lot British people like to use this word quite often we're in a heap of trouble means we are in a lot of trouble but we also use it in other ways parents who heap praise on their children every time they do something well will make them egotistical adults to heap praise praise means like say good things about compliments to heap praise it's like the idea of putting things on top of it of themselves and making a little mountain but praise is just words just ideas so it's not like a physical thing so you can heap phrase means you give a lot of praise so you heap attention on you give a lot of attention do you keep it to somebody right so heap means a lot not just a physical little mountain so you have to be careful with textbooks okay another example and again from the same book actually I want to focus on this third sentence now the thing you have to be very careful about sometimes these textbooks which are usually not necessarily written by native speakers sometimes they will make mistakes okay whereas if you're reading newspapers if you're reading other materials in English or they are written by English users for English users so they have less chance of making mistakes again especially if they have a good editor let's look at the number three here the customers would not want to entrust their their life to vehicles three problems here okay to grammatical one contextual first of all let's start with life you have customers you have their you have a plural it should be lives customers would not want to entrust their lives each customer has his or her own life lives two vehicles that's one two I wouldn't use them I have would not want to would tells you it's a hypothetical situation we're not talking about specific customers we're talking about general customers so take out the customers would not want to entrust their lives to vehicles so that's the grammar now in terms of the meaning of the word entrust to entrust means to give your trust to someone to put yourself in someone else's care nobody entrust their lives to vehicles when I get into a car if I'm the driver I'm in control of the vehicle the mechanic I my trust him that he fixed the vehicle properly the dealer who sold it to me to care that to sell me a good vehicle the vehicles are nothing they're just machines but I can change the sentence slightly to make this word make more sense customers would not want to entrust their lives to self-driving vehicles because in this case you are putting your life in the care of the machine so you're entrusting your life to the Machine right that makes more sense than this particular sentence be careful about what you see in textbooks okay go to natural real English materials as much as you possibly can in the last point be very active with your vocab building okay I get people asking me many times what's the difference between this word and this word what does this word mean and what are here I'd like four or five different words what's the difference between all of them first first of all I'm happy to answer your questions don't get me wrong but before you ask me do an active search yourself get on Google whatever your search engine is that is your friend okay all you have to do is go to the search engine in the search box put use abdicate in a sentence define abdicate synonyms for abdicate if you want to find differences which raise or versus rise raise or rise if you want to use wit know which preposition to use but the word and preposition or the word with another preposition and you will see lots of different websites that will give you answers then if you've done the search and you still are not satisfied with the answer please by all means ask me and I will do my best to give you a better explanation but first be active the more active you are the quicker your vocabulary will build and you the quicker you will have a usable vocabulary okay here's an example I put send abdicate this is what you get you get a definition you get the usages you get the synonyms you get websites that'll give you more information thesaurus calm very useful site same site as dictionary calm it also has an app you can put on your phone always have it available use it learn synonyms make sentences okay that's all I have to say it's very simple 100% English that's the only way you're going to improve it that's the only way you're going to build it that's the only way you're gonna get to the seven 7.58 95 100 110 on TOEFL any exam in the English exam you take you need vocabulary this is how you're going to do it okay I hope this was a little bit helpful if you have any questions please feel free to ask me in the YouTube section I'll be getting back to these now as well and come back for more videos about grammar vocab test tips writing etc if you liked the video please subscribe please give me a like see you again real soon bye bye

Channel: Write to the Top

Views: 43,885

Keywords: IELTS, English writing, English, writing, language test, English test, scoring, vocabulary word choice, TOEFL, how to write, essay writing, skills, test preparation, test tips, study tips, pass the IELTS, synonyms, IELTS high score, TOEFL high score, pass TOEFL, lexical range, language skills, how to write an essay, better writing, writing skills, how to write in English, IELTS high band, what not to do in IELTS, IELTS writing, TOEFL writing, vocab building

Id: pr8ivzA5lnw

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2017