A powerful Vocabulary is a deep desire with almost everyone who I meet; wherever I go.

It is an irony that people in China & Russia speak in Chinese & Russian; but we in India feel gladder speaking in English. This serves a few advantages too. We Indians; despite our Indlish get accepted more well- globally. In fact, it becomes increasingly difficult to make any kind of progress be it a career progress or a progress even in the relationship with the opposite gender; if you do not bring with you- the charisma of hygienic English. Vocabulary is like the make up of the bride (very few genuinely understand it, but it looks good). Vocabulary gives one the confidence of a notorious kind. Women with good vocabularies, feel all the more beautiful carrying themselves. Men, on the other hand- feel more powerful when they speak Vocab intensive English, which is unlikely to get understood by the person listening. MACHO MEN!! Add to that the slang- words like waana, gonaa, etc.. one begins to feel COOL. It is unfortunate, that we have changed the original meaning of the word COOL so much. People, with good vocabularies- who I have met have 1) Either been good readers in their school/ college days or 2) Have had a great public schooling background. The lesser mortals thus shall need to work it out- else very soon a strange feeling shall start creeping in their minds; a feeling of diffidence- which only grows with time. This shall be an unfortunate situation then. First things first- I recommend you to take a Vocabulary Test at www.akashgautam.com . This will test your present Vocabulary Status. Further, I recommend the following for having a powerful vocabulary: HUNGER: How voracious you are is going to decide- where youll be at the end of next one year (after youve finished reading this article). It comes down to two things ultimately: 1) hunger & 2) tenacity to carry on. I have met 1000s who I saw starting; but failed to carry on. The choice is yours. People fail to carry on here because they feel I am doing so much, still results are not coming fast. Please understand Ye 20-22 saal ke paap hain; itni jaldi kaisey dhulengay( Your sins in English are pretty old; theyll take time to get purged). MAINTAIN A REGISTER: A lot of us start- do note down words here & there & then somewhere loose those notes. The trick is to snowball your effort by doing it at one place only. I recommend a big, fat, thick register- something you think is going to stay with you for a lot of time. It shall be your repository of words; your- one point of contact for all your efforts in Vocabulary. A register has a left hand page & a right hand page. On a single side do not make notes of more than 2 or 3 words. I mean give due respect to the words you are choosing to remember. When you write a particular word e.g. SAGACIOUS dedicate 6/7 lines of the register page for that word. It is very important to maintain this register. You will never be able to remember it fine if you do not write. In a way, you are making your own little dictionary in that register. On any day do not try to write/ learn more than 10 words (If you are doing 5-6; it is perfectly fine).

FROM WHERE DO YOU TAKE WORDS? I strongly recommend that you take words only from the days newspapers. I would not recommend novels because they shall not provide fresh & contemporary associations for remembering. A newspaper would; on the contrary give a fresh example with the sentence- which is likely to get remembered e.g. <sachin is="" the="" pinnacle="" of="" his="" form="">.</sachin>

WHAT NEXT? Start picking up words from the newspapers & start filling the registers. Next- when you choose a particular word- go to a good dictionary & transcribe / write all the meaningful stuff from the dictionary to the register. Connect the word to people, places, events & things around you. Think this word can get associated with whom? It is a patience game. Go slow. Enjoy your slowness. E.g. if you are doing a word say, CORPULENT it means fat, link it up with a very fat person that you know e.g. Chadha aunty. The trick is to connect the new information with an old information that already exists in your mind; the same reason- why we ask for landmarks. Then leave 4-5 lines blank. This has a purpose. Whenever you will revise this word- write a sentence / use that word in a sentence in that space. If you have used that word in 3-4 sentences after 3-4 revisionsit is likely that the particular word becomes a part of your active vocabulary.

REVISE / FREQUENT: Remember the first day of your college. Were you acquainted with all the people in your class? No- I guess. How is it that you know, most of them now? This is because- you frequented them met them again & again, noticed peculiarities about them. The same is the case with words- the more you meet them, the more they will be yours.

BACK IT UP WITH: Back it up with one hour plus of daily Good English News Channels & loads of good reading. Remember- there is no substitute for a good reading habit. Other ways which will come handy are: Remembering word roots / prefixes / suffixes. These have a multiplying effect on your memory e.g. if you know the root- somno. It means sleep. You certainly should end up guessing the wordsSomnambulism or Somniloquism or Somnolent. But do not worry there are so many roots/ prefixes / suffixes to remember & they are also difficult to memorize. So, do that much only which easily gets remembered.

THE MOST IMPORTANT POINTS: 1) Enjoy doing all of this 2) Feel energetic while doing all this 3) Do it religiously for 6 months & then see the difference. English se ghabraao mat. Wo kehte hain kee Ghabraa kar mar jayyengayMain kehtaa hoon- kee agar mar ke bhee chain naa milaa to phir kahaan jaaogay