Moving to the next level of skill in a foreign language is challenging. Even when you have read, written, listened to and spoken a second language for years, it always seems difficult to be at home. At the least, that's how it is for me when it comes to English. Consider how you can tell the other person that you are extremely tired and need some kneading of your feet!. If you don't know the meaning of kneading, do take a look at what this word means, and then rethink how you would have communicate the meaning without knowing this word. Would you have said, "Please press my feet?" Or does "Please massage my feet" sound better?
There are many situations which somehow are not catered for in academic text and as soon as you come under a peculiar situation, you realize that you are out of vocabulary or you can't freely express what you want to say.
One site that can be of help when you are an intermediate level of English user and want to move forward is ESL Podcasts. Consider this podcast on "Being Generous and Stingy." I like the format and the various situations this guy comes up with.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Five Dollar Words for Programmers
...and for the rest of us as well:
Eric Lippert posted a few entries titled "Five-Dollar Words for Programmers." So far, he has covered the following:Just in case you are wondering why should one know these words, I would like to reiterate that to know is to be able to "identify" and "associate". A word has everything in it!
Eric Lippert posted a few entries titled "Five-Dollar Words for Programmers." So far, he has covered the following:Just in case you are wondering why should one know these words, I would like to reiterate that to know is to be able to "identify" and "associate". A word has everything in it!
Improve Your Vocabulary
Amongst many non-exciting but important things that need to be done in life is "improving your vocabulary." No matter how much you run away from it, you can't deny its importance. Follow some of the software that I have been using:
SAT GRE Crash Course: A shareware version can be downloaded from here. You can run it 30 times before it gets expired. The application organizes Word Lists according to the level of difficulty. After a round of study, you get a chance to test yourself in many ways (fill-in the blanks; multiple-choice questions, etc.). Also, you can maintain a list of "difficult" words for reviewing purpose...a must have, in short.
WordWeb: This is a general purpose English Dictionary. To get meanings (plus synonyms, antonym, etc.) just select a word on your screen and press the hot-key. The best part is that it has a very small footprint (if we can use the word for such small apps) and it's freeware.
The above should be sufficient but in case you are looking for more, get hold of "Vocabulary Wizard 6.3" by Prosigner (search on Download.com if you can't find the latest version anywhere else). This one is Adware but a very organized way of learning that gives you score to each word that you have studied, depending on how many times you got it wrong (or right).
SAT GRE Crash Course: A shareware version can be downloaded from here. You can run it 30 times before it gets expired. The application organizes Word Lists according to the level of difficulty. After a round of study, you get a chance to test yourself in many ways (fill-in the blanks; multiple-choice questions, etc.). Also, you can maintain a list of "difficult" words for reviewing purpose...a must have, in short.
WordWeb: This is a general purpose English Dictionary. To get meanings (plus synonyms, antonym, etc.) just select a word on your screen and press the hot-key. The best part is that it has a very small footprint (if we can use the word for such small apps) and it's freeware.
The above should be sufficient but in case you are looking for more, get hold of "Vocabulary Wizard 6.3" by Prosigner (search on Download.com if you can't find the latest version anywhere else). This one is Adware but a very organized way of learning that gives you score to each word that you have studied, depending on how many times you got it wrong (or right).
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