Building up your vocabulary

[Eric]

Whether you are a reader or a writer, you need a large vocabulary in your mother-tongue to be salonfähig, to use a good English word. How do you build up your active and passive vocabulary?

Even if you don't write literature yourself, you must be able to understand words written sometimes over a century ago, and whose meaning may have subtly altered since then. How do you set about learning such words? And when you write essays, how do you build up a bank of vocabulary at the various levels of register that you need for writing essays or class papers?

To a certain extent, you absorb words if you read good literature. But do you think that active steps need to be taken to expand your vocabulary, beyond osmosis?

[Mirabell]

I don't. I think you learn most reading and re-reading.


But that's me, the old Europe kinda guy. In the American environment, the surfeit of tests makes learning vocabulary more important than reading.

[Loki]

I've never done anything in particular actually. I've prepared some exams, and in the textbooks they provide you with tips for learning vocabulary, but I've always ignored them (speaking of ignoring).
If I find a "new" word I look it up and write the meaning above the word. And then I try and remember it.

[Mirabell]