How to Increase your vocabulary

Knowing what the noun form of a verb is, or how to turn a noun into an adjective is a very important skill in English. Firstly, it gives you flexibility. You don't have to perform the equivalent of linguistic gymnastics and change the word order of a sentence – you can just use the appropriate form. Secondly, it means you can avoid lots of long, clumsy sentence structure. For example, instead of saying "it's important to have flexibility" you can say "it's important to be flexible"; or "Be organised" instead of "Develop your organisation skills".

Hint: English speakers try to use the smallest words and shortest sentences possible! Learn to avoid complex sentences by using the right form of the word.

Learning tips

1. Learn all the forms of a word. Take a piece of paper and write headings across the page:
Person Noun Verb Adjective Adjective Adverb

Then underneath, write the form of the word. For example:
photographer / photograph, photography / photographic

Remember: not every word will have every form.

2. Recognise typical patterns
This page on prefixes gives you typical
endings for nouns, verbs and adjectives.

There are a few exceptions, but you can guess that if the word has a -ful, -ic, – ive type ending, it's going to be an adjective!

3. Learn the stress
The stress will often change as the word type changes.
'op-ti-mi-sm, op-ti-'mis-tic, op-ti-'mis-ti-cally

Exercise 1
Here are some examples of adjective and noun forms.

adjective – noun

efficient – efficiency
organised – organisation
flexible – flexibility
resourceful – resourcefulness
optimistic – optimism

Turn these nouns into adjectives

preparation
loyalty
ability
helpfulness
effectiveness
creativity
determination
tenacity
enthusiasm
humility

Make nouns from these verbs

to reduce
to assist
to deliver
to maintain
to adjust

(Answers next week)

Answers to Twitter questions

Exercise 1

What do these abbreviations stand for?

RT (= retweet)

Tx (thanks)
C (see)
u (you)
w (with)
w/ (without)
pls (please)
btw (by the way)

Exercise 2

Shorten these tweets to as few characters as possible.

For example:

I'm going to the Book Fair in Cairo next Tuesday. Is there anyone else going? (77 characters)
= Going 2 book fair Cairo Tues. Anyone else going? (48 characters)

1. I need some help in learning English. What's your favourite site? (65 characters)

Need some help learning English. What's your fave site? (55 characters)

2. I've got an English exam today. Wish me luck! (45 characters)

Got English exam 2day. Wish me luck! (36 characters)

3. I'm thinking about going to London next summer to study English. Has anyone got any recommendations for language schools? (121 characters)

Thinking abt London nxt summer to study English. Any recommendations 4 lang schools? (84 characters)