Reading Improves Your Writing Vocabulary

Writing well means using your vocabulary to the fullest. To become an even better writer, you have to keep on expanding your vocabulary. Writing doesn't do that for you, but reading will. Vocabulary is your writing muscle. It's like a real muscle. Membership in the gym alone won't train it, you have to do the work to stay in shape.

An extensive vocabulary gives you the necessary options to write not only good, but really exciting articles on just about any subject you choose to write. Vocabulary is not something we are born with, we have to learn it. Reading something very difficult won't do the trick. Reading and not understanding leaves you as much out in the rain as not reading at all. You will notice when you are out of your depth; reading such texts just makes you very tired.

There is reading, and then there is reading. If I read the newspaper, I sort of slur over the articles. I take in the gist of what they say. If that unexpectedly turns up information worth my attention, I will reread that article properly. That happens about once a month. But newspaper articles don't do anything for vocabulary. Most journalists don't know that word. The challenge starts when tackling a complicated text or an unknown subject matter. 

To expand your vocabulary, it is essential to understand what the a text means from beginning to end. When hitting upon an unknown word, hunt it down to understand it. Or for an unclear sentence you have to find the proper meaning of the turn of phrase. That's where mere reading becomes learning. Finding the exact meaning of a word can be quite easy. It can be terribly hard if it is a word that is used for many different shades of meaning or one that has shifted in use over time. 

It always helps if you are aware of the history of a word. A word's origins can come from Old English, French, Latin, Greek, or any other language. Correctly spelled words give you a hint as to their language of origin. The constant dumbing down of spelling rules take that history away and make it that much harder to learn vocabulary. The government imposed easy solution becomes an effective block for any self improvement. Mask the short-comings of education by promoting stupidity is not the solution. Bad education is a poor substitute for equality.

English has always used other languages to upgrade its scope of expression. It has lent, adopted, or imported words from almost every language and then brutally mangled their pronunciation. The kindergarten is a German word for example. Normally you encounter German words in all matters military, while Latin and Greek will help you in all matters scientific. From the colonial past, many words have entered English daily life and enriched the language. 

If you are learning any foreign language, the same trick of hunting down words will help you to expand your vocabulary in the new language, and sometimes in your own as well. It all comes down to: Read, research, understand, use. You’ll find that the broader your vocabulary gets, the more fun you’ll get out of writing and reading.

Further reading:

The Google Translate Trap

Willhelm Lamszus: Teacher and Writer

Book Critics