Essential Words in English
Studying vocabulary is really important. Vocabularies are used in four skills including listening, speaking, reading and writing. Having vast range of vocabulary helps to communicate easily and naturally. But, there are 988,968 words in English language according to an estimate by Global Language Monitor. It is really impossible to study all of them. Some words are old-fashioned and even native speakers do not use in everyday life .Some are used less and we hear them more or less. Students should learn high frequent words. High frequent words are used very often in speaking, reading and writing. My question is how we can recognize which words we should study.
First of all, there are some dictionaries which identifies high frequent words but in my opinion this way is not practical because it needs much more time and money. You should spend a lot of money to buy this book which is not easy for everyone. When you buy the book, you should spend a lot of time to know if a word is often used in English or not and after that, you have to study the meaning of the word. So, in my opinion, this way is good for those who have money and free time.
Some students also learn vocabulary by listening. When they listen to English conversations, lectures, News and so on, they hear some words over and over. This is another way to learn words, which some English experts believe that learning vocabularies by this way is slower than studying single words.
Another way is to buy or borrow some vocabulary books. There are some books for learning vocabulary like “504 absolutely Essential Words” from Barron’s or “Essential Words For TOEFL” or any books that some organizations like ETS or English teachers suggest.
I prefer to buy or borrow some vocabulary books and study them. I have learned some words from TV, radio or music but I think I have to study words with much more attention, knowing word stress, finding synonyms and antonyms, using in sentences and so on.
What do you think? How do you know which word is really essential to learn?How do you learn them? Please share your experience.
For more information you can read this article too.
http://www.fltr.ucl.ac.be/fltr/germ/etan/bibs/vocab/cup.html