MEPX
Chapter 1 of 11All chapters
  1. 1How to learn a word
  2. 2Roots and affixes
  3. 3Time and presence
  4. 4Attitude and stance
  5. 5Care and precision
  6. 6Honesty and openness
  7. 7Surplus and shortage
  8. 8Change and stability
  9. 9Importance and scale
  10. 10Pairs people mix up
  11. 11Register and tone

Chapter 1 of 11

How to learn a word

Meeting it beats memorising it.

In context, several times

A word sticks when you meet it in real sentences rather than on a list. Reading widely does more than any set of flashcards, because it teaches the shades a definition cannot.

  • Write your own sentence with it. If that is hard, you do not have it yet.
  • Use it once in conversation within a day of meeting it.

Precision over volume

Knowing fifty words exactly is worth more than knowing five hundred approximately. A word used slightly wrong is more noticeable than a plainer word used well.