General Vocabulary
Sometimes it is difficult to decide
what words to study for a general English vocabulary. Many people will go to the lists of the most
commonly used English words. This is a
mistake. Native English speakers use a
much different vocabulary than English learners.
So how do we find a general
vocabulary?
Let's take a look at the groups of
words to make it easier. The common
groups are nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, and grammatical
words.
Read below to see my recommendations for finding general words in each
group.
Nouns
In this group you will need words
that help you live daily life. Here are
some ideas:
1.
things you use around the house
2.
places you frequently visit (and infrequent but important
places ie; police station)
3.
basic foods you buy in the store
4.
clothing
5.
family words (relationships)
6.
numbers, time, weather
7.
body parts and other health related words
8.
work words (words depend on the type of work you do)
9.
transportation words
10. recreation
words
You will have to make your own list
considering your lifestyle. This will be easier to memorize and perfect for
you.
Verbs
This is a fun group of words to work
on. To begin with, use the categories
above (nouns) to start your list of verbs.
Then brainstorm in your own language... what actions do you do a lot and
tell others about? Find these words in
English (note: sometimes this is difficult, when it gets difficult, leave it
for later study).
Adjectives
and Adverbs
By now you can relax a little. You already have a good general English
vocabulary, and can say many things.
Find adjectives on some of the common lists of the 100 most common words
in English.
Sure, I said earlier that native
speakers use a different vocabulary than English learners. Now, however, you are starting to prepare
yourself for more difficult lists.
English speakers often think
differently than speakers of other languages.
Study the list of adjectives and start to see how English speakers
express themselves.
Adverbs can be studied the same
way.
Grammatical
Words
There are other sites on grammar
that can give you lists of these kinds of words. Here I will mention a few. Joining words like: then, and, but and so are great
to begin with. Prepositions are also
very important. You may like to visit this
site for more ideas.
If you have moer ideas for finding a
general English vocabulary, go
to my contact me page, here, tell
me about it. I will be sure to add good ideas to
this page.
Can
Unicef Change a Life?
Verb List
1. Fall behind to fail to remain level with a group of
people that is moving forwards; or to fail to do something fast enough or by a
particular time
2. Give away to give something to someone without
asking for payment
3. Hand in to give
something to someone in authority
4. Indulge in to allow yourself to do or have something
that you enjoy
5. Jump at to eagerly
accept a chance to do or have something
Example paragraph:
The future does not look good for
Aliyah. After the war in his country,
his parents were both dead, and his town handed
him over to an orphanage. They gave away all his things, and this made
Aliyah more sad than ever. He used to indulge in playing with his father's
radio for hours at a time, but now even that is gone. He used to jump at the chance to study and learn how to read but now he is so
sad that he is not even interested in that.
He is falling behind in his
studies at the orphanage. There is one
small hope for him. He might have foster
parents soon. Unicef is trying to find
foster parents for him, and he is starting to become excited about it. He really wants to hear good news from
Unicef.
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