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  • - Hello, everyone.

  • And welcome back to English With Lucy.

  • Don't worry, guys.

  • It is me this time.

  • Not my weird Lucy replica in the form of Allie

  • for a proper teach me.

  • That was a lot of fun.

  • I'm glad you liked it.

  • The response was honestly hilarious.

  • I had a blast.

  • So who has been with me since the very beginning

  • of English With Lucy?

  • Not that many people.

  • I had, well, I had very few.

  • It took me a couple of months to get to 1000 subscribers.

  • But my second ever video was a video called

  • How to Learn and Remember Vocabulary.

  • The video's a little bit disorganised.

  • It was my second video ever.

  • I was 21 years old,

  • and I was eager to get onto You Tube

  • and share this knowledge that I had.

  • But the video's done really, really well,

  • but looking back at the video,

  • there are some updates that I would like to add on

  • because that teaches you how

  • to learn and remember vocabulary.

  • It's a great method.

  • But it doesn't teach you how to expand

  • and widen your vocabulary,

  • which is something that could benefit

  • basically everyone.

  • I want to expand my vocabulary in my mother tongue,

  • my native language, which is English.

  • And I also want to expand my vocabulary in my

  • second and third languages, Spanish and Italian.

  • And maybe even Portuguese.

  • If you haven't seen my video about Portuguese yet,

  • check up there.

  • Yeah, so this is a video that will be useful

  • for both native speakers and non-native speakers.

  • I want to share with you some tips that I've picked up,

  • some pieces of advice,

  • but it's not going to be your typical

  • How to Improve Your Vocabulary video.

  • Oh, read books.

  • Oh, watch films.

  • I want to give you some tips that are really, really

  • gonna help that you might not have thought of before.

  • So bear with me.

  • Before we get started,

  • I'd just like to thank the sponsor of today's video.

  • It is lingoda.

  • Lingoda is an on-line language academy

  • where you can learn English, Spanish, French, and German.

  • They only used real native teachers.

  • You sign up on a monthly basis

  • through subscription packages,

  • and you get a mixture of group and private video

  • sort of Skype lessons.

  • They've given me a special discount for you.

  • You can get 50 dollars or 50 euros off

  • your first month at lingoda.

  • All you have to do is click on the link

  • in the description box

  • and use the code that's in the description box as well.

  • Right.

  • Let's get started with the video.

  • So my first tip is don't get overwhelmed.

  • When I think I want to expand my vocabulary,

  • I feel overwhelmed.

  • I just think, oh my god.

  • There are so many words.

  • And there are so many words that I'm lacking

  • in my vocabulary.

  • How on earth am I going to learn them all?

  • You need to realise that it's not humanly possible

  • to swallow and regurgitate the full Oxford Dictionary

  • unless you have a fabulous gag reflex.

  • Joke.

  • I've seen a couple of comments on some of my videos

  • from people saying,

  • "I like to read the dictionary before I go to bed,"

  • which if your mind is capable of doing that

  • and you can read a little bit of the dictionary

  • each day and take in, wow!

  • I take my hat off to you because that's

  • really, really impressive amount of dedication

  • you have there.

  • I personally cannot do that.

  • So I recommend that you chunk your vocabulary learning

  • into three sections,

  • and you focus your time and energy and effort into

  • learning the vocabulary from these three sections.

  • It's not as complicated as it sounds.

  • Section one, topics you are interested in.

  • I am interested in gardening,

  • so I like to watch gardening videos,

  • and I have picked up loads and loads and loads

  • of vocabulary, especially Latin terms actually for plants,

  • just through watching videos and doing research

  • and reading books.

  • So yes, reading books, watching films, watching videos

  • is a great technique.

  • Make sure you're focusing,

  • so you're choosing a video that will help you

  • expand your vocabulary and you're absorbing it,

  • and then you're applying what you learned

  • in my previous video,

  • How to Learn and Remember Vocabulary.

  • Basically, you're keeping a vocabulary diary,

  • and you're being really, really aware and meticulous

  • about words that you don't know already.

  • Don't let anything slide.

  • If you don't know that word,

  • you find out what it means,

  • and you write it down in your phone or in a book.

  • It doesn't matter.

  • Just make sure you are meticulous.

  • Section number two, vocabulary that you use

  • and come across on a daily basis.

  • Now why do I say use and come across?

  • There's two different parts of vocabulary expansion.

  • There's seeing a word that you don't know,

  • and learning what it means.

  • But there's also taking words you already know,

  • and finding alternative ways of saying them.

  • Synonyms, for example.

  • So it's really, really useful to look into synonyms.

  • There may be words that you're using every single day.

  • For me, a bit of a problem is the word like.

  • So you're your using some words every day all day.

  • Like the word like, for example.

  • Like the word like.

  • And you will sound much more eloquent

  • if you find alternatives,

  • and you switch between the alternatives.

  • Words that you come across on a daily basis,

  • things in the news,

  • political terms.

  • If it's, you know, for example when the Brexit

  • was going on, I learnt loads of political vocabulary

  • because I was coming across the terms on a daily basis.

  • I was reading the newspaper.

  • I was watching the news.

  • I was very conscious of the fact that

  • I didn't totally understand what was going on,

  • so I made myself understand,

  • both on a political level and a vocabulary level.

  • And section number three, my favourite section,

  • random spontaneous randomness is, you know,

  • where you sit down and you think,

  • "I wonder what that extra toe on the back

  • "of a dog's leg that doesn't work is called."

  • Your brain wanders.

  • Use it to your advantage.

  • Use it to improve your vocabulary

  • and find out what it means.

  • Now, the next one,

  • the next point that I want to talk about.

  • I know I've already said that I don't want to say

  • read books, watch films.

  • But what I'm going to say is read books and watch films,

  • but not in the normal way.

  • Everyone knows that if you read a book,

  • your vocabulary will improve.

  • If you watch a film,

  • your vocabulary will improve.

  • I want you to think first,

  • about in your language,

  • what is a good vocabulary.

  • What makes one person sound eloquent

  • and another person sound uneducated.

  • So I want you to really pick and choose carefully

  • which authors you read

  • and which people you listen to.

  • Now I don't mean cut out people that you find uneducated.

  • I mean dedicate a couple of minutes every day,