Up Your Vocabulary Game And Sound Smarter With These Tips

If improving your vocabulary and sounding smarter is on your bucket list, Reader's Digest came up with a list of tips to help. They collaborated with a professor of Childhood and Literacy Education at Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University to come up with ways to improve "reading comprehension" and "communication skills."

Reader's Digest reported that the English language has one of the highest word counts in the world, with the Oxford English Dictionary estimating that there are some 170,000 words in use. But most of us know only a few thousand of them.

Kicking off their list is watching movies. More specifically, watching the movie adaptation of your favorite book. They said it's a vocabulary booster. "If you see the movie version of your favorite book, you’re likely to have a deeper understanding and knowledge of the words in it," said their expert.

Another way to improve your vocabulary is to listen to the radio. They pointed out that listening to different types of programs can expose you to topics and words you may not be familiar with.

The tips they offer seem fairly easy. They included the simple task of getting out of the house. "Go to a museum or take advantage of other opportunities where you live. When you open your eyes to new experiences and people, you also get new words," said their expert.

According to their tips, parents and children can benefit and improve their vocabulary by reading bedtime stories. They suggest that the words in many children's books are often "outside of the realm of adults' day-to-day."

The common theme of their list is to read more. Some of their other tips include joining a book club, reading magazines, and doing a quick search on words you may not know and get familiar with them.

Check out the complete breakdown on how to improve your vocabulary and ways to sound smarter here.