Interesting Ways to Use the Dictionary for Vocabulary Building
First of all, there are different kinds of dictionaries other than the ones you might be familiar with from your early school years. While traditional dictionaries will always be a big help to building your vocabulary, they are not the only ones that can give your vocabulary a boost.
Other Types of Dictionaries for Vocabulary Building
Here are a number of tips on ways to use other kinds of dictionaries to expand your vocabulary.
Subject or Single-Field or Sub-Field Dictionaries
Consider, for instance, a dictionary about poisons and antidotes. Even if you do not plan to kill anybody off with poison, a lot of terms from this type of dictionary often find their way into daily conversation. Thanks to the Crime Investigation channel, for instance, most people now know that cyanide is not a type of cocktail drink – well, not unless you want a drink that can literally kill you.
Professional Dictionaries
This is the type of dictionary that's targeted on improving your vocabulary with regard to your line of work or profession. Even though you are not studying to be a doctor, browsing through a medical or nursing dictionary can still give you a number of useful terms from time to time.
Your mother-in-law may, for instance, be what physicians refer to as a hypochondriac. Go ahead and look it up to see if it fits.
Bilingual Dictionaries
Even if you are not fluent in any foreign language, choose another language that interests you the most, just for fun. When you have some free time, try to look up a word that you would like to say in another language. Consider, for instance, the word smart. How do you say this in Japanese? What are the definitions the Japanese-English dictionary provides? Use those definitions, and the insight and perspective of another culture, to think of other ways you can describe someone as smart.
Etymological Dictionaries
This type of dictionary is designed to give readers a better idea on how words are formed throughout history. If there's a particular term that you have a hard time remembering, learning about its etymology may make it easier to memorize.
Other Interesting Ways to Use the Dictionary for Vocabulary Building
If you have a traditional type of dictionary on hand, you can find other ways of using it aside from looking up terms and reading it from cover to cover to improve your vocabulary.
Impress everyone with your status update on Facebook.
If you tend to let people know what your mood for the moment is on Facebook, try doing so while impressing them at the same time with your vocabulary. If today you feel a little bit moody, how about using the word mercurial instead?
Write a Word-for-the-Day post on your blog.
Stuck for a topic for your blog? You can always come up with a word for the day. You can simply open your dictionary to a random page then point your finger to any part of the page. The closest unfamiliar term to it should serve as your daily vocabulary fix.
Contribute to vocabulary or dictionary trends in Twitter.
Participating in discussions for the hottest trending topics in languages on Twitter will not only get you to meet new friends online, but it can also be another way of improving your vocabulary. View the latest tweets on such trends and see if you can come up with a new term to add.
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