Why Is Vocabulary So Important?

Why would we want to enhance it? Vocabulary is important because it is the primary way in which you communicate. The more eloquent your words are, the better you will be at putting your point across. Words are powerful, more powerful than swords. They might not be able to draw blood but therein lies their beauty. They are swift, and they kill without drawing blood. Words can do more though, they can heal without medication, they can make you feel warm without sitting in front of the fire, and they can make you fed cold even when you are sitting in the middle of the desert. So words are a very powerful medium and vocabulary enhancers give you leverage.

As kids, we effortlessly pick up vocabulary. Infants hear words and mimic them without understanding them. It is when they begin to associate the words with actions or objects that they really begin to start understanding them. This is called ‘listening vocabulary’. With being able to associate the actions and objects with words, the child quickly stops gesticulating and making sounds to communicate; ‘speaking vocabulary’ just slips in naturally without any effort. Listening and speaking vocabulary is followed by reading and writing vocabulary which we learn through education at school. Kids learn approximately 3000 words every year. After school, however, there is a lull in vocabulary growth.

Learning a new word is not the difficult part. Being able to remember its correct meaning and being able to use it in the appropriate manner is the tougher part. Most of us have very good passive vocabulary. ‘Passive vocabulary’ is our ability to understand words when they are in a group. You may not recall the meaning of a particular word but if it’s in a group of words, said in connection to something, you understand its gist. ‘Active vocabulary’ on the other hand is what truly defines the extent of your vocabulary. ‘Active vocabulary’ is made up of the words that come to our mind when we have to use them in a sentence, as we speak or as we write. ‘Active vocabulary’ calls for instant recall of words often in the time frame of milliseconds, so one has to have them on the tip of one’s tongue, often in combinations with other words and phrases. ‘Active vocabulary’ is the true measure of one’s mastery over a language.