Do You Forget The Meaning of A Word?

 

Do you often forget the meaning of a word? Does it often happen to you that even if some words look familiar, you are unable to recall the meaning of those words, and you keep consulting a dictionary to search those words? 

Yes, it is common for most of you to forget the meaning of the words that you have learnt. Building vocabulary is difficult, but retaining vocabulary is even more difficult for most of you. But isn't forgetting a natural thing? Don't you think it will be unnatural if you remember everything that you read or learn?

All of us forget, and it is common and natural. This implies that we should not complain much about lack of retention or forgetfulness. But yes, we can surely try to retain most of the things that we learn or we have learnt. Let us be very specific about our topic: it is vocabulary. So, what all suggestions have you got from your seniors about how to retain words that you learn? Could be, make a sentence with every word that you learn. Or, use the word in day-to-day conversation? Or, identify the root word for the word. Or, know the story related to the word, if the word is from mythology. The list goes on.

When you are preparing for an exam, and you have less time, moreover you have to give your time for the preparation of other subjects too, you will find it difficult to make sentences with every word. Next, when you use every learnt word in day-to-day communication, your friends will either laugh at you (as there are some words that look nice in formal/ written English) or avoid talking to you considering you over-smart. Identifying root words for every word or reading a story about a word is an impracticable idea especially when you have to learn several words in a short span of time. So, what should you do?

So, first of all, it is necessary for you to understand your task. Let me help you do task analysis. Sometimes, it is important for you to understand the usage of the word. This is when you solve questions of text completion or fill in the blanks. So, here, you need to know the part of speech (the role that a word plays in a sentence), the connotation (the tone of the word), the phrasal use (whether the word takes a preposition after it or which preposition will be appropriate after this word), the collocation (the word bonding with the next word), and so on.

But, sometimes, or most of the time, knowing the meaning of the word is enough. When you solve questions of synonyms or antonyms, you just have to recall the meaning.

Now that, you understood your tasks, let us learn how to deal with the easy task. I have two more questions, and then I won't ask anymore.

Is it possible to know and remember the meaning of every word? And the next: Is it possible to know every person in the world. I know that your answer is obviously 'NO'. 

Yes, we know that we can not know all the people of the world. But, do we give in? Or, do we still try? (Sorry for more questions..)  The answer is: We still try. But how? WE CLASSIFY THEM INTO TWELVE ZODIAC SIGNS.

Similarly, the best method to learn and recall the meaning of a word is by clustering them with other similar words. So, from today, whenever you learn a new word, ask yourself what are the words similar to this. Write down the word cluster. Jot down all the words of the same word group together. When you learn a word in isolation, you will forget it soon. Believe me. When you learn a word and know its cluster or word group, you will find it easy to recall.

You will read about the other task in Buddham's next post.

Wish You a Happy Leaning!!