Why does my vocabulary suck?

How do adults learn new words? How do adults remember to use words they know, but aren't part of their daily conversations?

Remember learning to read and feeling overwhelmed by all the words you had to master? Picking up a book and sounding out words letter by letter? No? Don’t worry—I don’t remember learning to read either. But I can imagine little me being simply annoyed, rolling my eyes at the teacher.

Now that I do know how to read and navigate the world with words, I feel like I just use the same old boring words throughout my days. I think having a wide vocabulary is hot and makes you more interesting. Which brings me to my question: How the heck do adults learn new words or incorporate more variety into their everyday speech?

I bet $5 that your answer in your head was ‘reading’. But here’s thing thing — I do read. In fact, I love reading. Maybe I’m not reading challenging enough books? You’ll find me deep in a fantasy book where the fae needs to train to defeat an enemy, or a romcom book where the she moves to a new town, knowing no one. And perhaps that’s the problem. If you have any book recommendations that teach you new words, i’m all ears!

I believe there are always people smarter than me, so I started looking into ways other people (1) learned new words and (2) not necessarily learned new words, but actually use elevated words in everyday conversations.

A few recommendations I found online:

1. The Well-Spoken Thesaurus by Tom Heehler. I saw this recommendation on TikTok from veganhippiesol.

   1. My thoughts: I like that it gives alternatives to words you already use in your daily life, like instead of using ‘so’ you would use ‘consequently’ or ‘hence’. It doesn’t necessarily teach new words, but suggests elevated alternatives for words you already use. While it’s not about memorizing complex vocabulary, it helps refine everyday speech.

2. Read more challenging books.

   1. My thoughts: Honestly, reading an 1850s classic lit book sounds like prison to me. I know the writing is beautiful (and I have read a lot of Charles Dickens and, more modernly, Joan Didion), but for right now when I’m reading for fun, I’d rather be reading about how Violet needs to save the world with her two dragon (aka Fourth Wing). So, as much as I do want to expand my vocab, that just isn’t happening. Instead, I’ll look to shorter news articles or maybe even short stories, like the ones by O Henry.

3. Using an app, but incorporating the word into my day.

   1. My thoughts: Apps like Word of the Day or Vocabulary, are amazing for learning new words, but they only work if you actively use these words. I fall off apps like those because I don’t use the word or just forget it. A tip I kept seeing is to connect new words to something in your life. For example, a word on Vocabulary is Buoyantly, which means “in a happy and energetic way”. The example is: “She danced buoyantly at the party.” I promise you, I will forget the word by tomorrow. So, instead, I’m going to associate it with a movie scene in 13 Going on 30, when Jenna wakes up being 30 years old, she feels buoyantly excited about her new life.

At the end of the day, what I’ve come to realize, is building a better vocabulary isn’t about memorizing fancy words—it’s about finding ways to make them stick. The only way it’s sticking for me if it feels fun and natural to include the word in a sentence, so I’m going to give these 3 ideas a shot. I’m feeling quite buoyant about it.