Different people expand their vocabulary in many different ways. Some people read books, some people read the dictionary, so people just sort of wait until they hear a new word they like. How do you go about expanding your vocabulary and making sure you retain that word?
Interesting topic, I have never actually thought about that. I guess I would have to say that reading books does expand my vocabulary more than most things. But even better than that, reading through forums I seem to obtain more vocabulary from others. I think a lot of it is the region of the world that a person is in. As a child you learn words first that are commonly used around you. So when you bring a number of people around from a number of regions of the world together in conversation, the same explanation or statement could be made using any number of different terms and a lot of time you can really see that.
In order to expand my vocabulary I usually read books or when I go through a word in a dictionary I look for extra words I do not know along the way. You could also expand your vocabulary in school, which is a good time to get all of your knowledge before adulthood. But these days I have seen a lot of my classmates struggling with Vocabulary in Secondary School. I am not sure that is because more people are lazy when learning a word (No offense), or that getting a word through your head permanently is hard for some others.
Edited: Felipe on 17th Dec, 2014 - 10:37pm
When I come across a word I don't know its so easy to search dictionary.com for it so I do it right away rather than wait. I always prefer to know exactly what the writer meant rather than guess it and at the same time I'm one word smarter for it too.