The 3-step plan I’m using to become disgustingly articulate

Image from Fiveable.

Here’s a truth: I suck at articulating myself.

Growing up incredibly shy, I didn’t get much speaking practice in and barely read enough to learn how to form proper sentences using proper words. The result? Me: a grown adult who constantly trips over their own words, struggles to express what she actually means, and rambles like a dumbass in conversations.

And despite having a YouTube channel where all I do is talk in front of a camera, unless I’m following a script word-for-word, my articulation is downright shameful.

So, I set a goal to improve it.

How? By working on one simple skill:

Expanding my vocabulary.

As of right now, my vocabulary is pitiful. My lack of known-words leads me to constantly use filler words like “stuff” and “things” to express myself, and I often find myself over-explaining to get my points across.

So, my goal is to expand my vocabulary so I can explain things clearly and precisely, where I’m no longer dancing around ideas, and can communicate in a way that sounds smart and confident. It’s not necessarily just about using bigger words (although that is cool) but being able to say what I mean with precision.

With that, here’s the simple 3-step plan I’m following to improve my vocabulary and become disgustingly articulate:

1) Following a vocabulary building course

Being a good speaker is more than just having a huge amount of words memorized.

That’s important, but knowing when, and when not to, use those words is most important of all.

That’s where a vocabulary building course comes in.

There are many vocabulary courses out there, but the series I’m following is called Wordly Wise 3000.

This is a resource with 12 total books, getting you up to speed on vocabulary from primary grade to high school level.

Each book includes lessons with 15 total words and various exercises you can complete to not only memorize the words, but learn how to use them properly in context.

I’m starting with book 6 (which is grade 9) and have come across a shameful amount of words I don’t know. But learning these words is already helping me speak better and making me feel much more confident in my daily conversations.

2) Create and practice flashcards

As useful as a vocabulary building course is, my goal is to remember the words I’m learning for the rest of my life, and not only short-term.

Which is why I’m intentionally creating and practicing flashcards with websites that use a spaced repetition softwares, like Anki, Quizlet, and Smarterhumans.

This ensures that the vocabulary I’ve learned is continuously re-added to my practice sessions over long and longer periods of time, with the goal to relearn them just before I’m about to forget.

In terms of how I create them, there’s three main techniques I use:

• The word followed by the definition
• The reverse: the definition followed by the word (a separate a flashcard)
• A fill-in-the blank sentence for different words (which drills context recognition)

Since Wordly Wise’s lessons include 15 words each, I’ll create 15 flashcards at a time, and only move on once I’ve memorized them all. Once I have uploaded all the words into my brain, I’ll go on to the next lesson and rinse and repeat.

3) Learn the Latin/Greek roots of words

Learning the Latin/Greek roots of words is an underrated way to improve your vocabulary.

Not only can knowing common roots help you grasp the essence of a word you aren’t familiar with, but it can help you learn new words faster.

For example, learning the root umbra, which means “shade, shadow” can help you understand and learn the words “umbrage” and “adumbrate” much more quickly.

One resource you can use is called Vocabulary from Classical roots, which not only helps you learn roots, but can also help you prepare in reading classic literature, if that’s a thing you want to do.

Each lesson gives several Greek or Latin roots, lists unfamiliar words using those roots, and then gives you lists of unfamiliar words along with exercises in proper use.

There’s five total books in the series that are all the same difficulty level, but as you progress the roots go from most familiar to less frequently used.

I’m sure there’s a bazillion other resources for learning roots as well, but this is one simple option to get started.

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