{"id":8441,"date":"2023-09-05T02:00:21","date_gmt":"2023-09-05T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/?p=8441"},"modified":"2025-05-27T10:13:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T14:13:33","slug":"active-vocabulary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fluentu.com\/blog\/learn\/active-vocabulary\/","title":{"rendered":"8 Ways to Increase Your Active Vocabulary in a Foreign Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

There’s tons of research and discussion<\/a> about how to expand your vocabulary in a foreign language.\u00a0The kicker is, most polyglots talk about expanding vocabulary in general\u2014they don’t divide it into active and passive. But active vocabulary is what you need to be able to communicate since it’s the words you can actively recall during real-life situations.<\/p>\n

In this post, you’ll learn the difference between active and passive vocabulary, plus eight ways to grow your active vocabulary quick.<\/p>\n

[fluentu-toc skip=4]<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Active Vocabulary vs. Passive Vocabulary<\/h2>\n

Active vocabulary is the words you can think of and use right away when communicating<\/strong> in a language.<\/p>\n

Passive vocabulary includes all the words you recognize and understand. <\/strong>But not all of them occur to you when speaking or writing.<\/p>\n

When learning a language, your active and passive vocabularies change constantly. You use words, forget words, try out new words and review previously learned words.\u00a0But your passive vocabulary is always much bigger\u2014even in your native language.<\/p>\n

How to Improve Your Active Vocabulary<\/h2>\n

1. Describe words you don’t know instead of looking them up<\/h3>\n

What do you do when you’ve forgotten the words you need to express your thoughts in Chinese, Spanish or whatever language you’re learning?<\/p>\n

You clutch at straws\u2014AKA, dictionaries<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And what do you do when forgetting a word in your native language?<\/p>\n

You’ll describe its meaning or use a synonym. You don’t stop to open up a dictionary.<\/p>\n

Do this in your foreign language rather than running for the dictionary<\/strong> every time you’re missing a word, and your brain will get more adept at searching for the vocabulary you need.<\/p>\n

And in the worst cases, you’ll get better at describing things and maintaining the flow of conversation.<\/p>\n

2. Identify gaps in your vocabulary by reviewing your conversations<\/h3>\n

You’ve likely already adopted plague words<\/strong> to fill the gaps when you struggle to verbalize your thoughts.<\/p>\n

For example, let’s take plague words such as very<\/em>\u00a0and really.<\/em><\/p>\n

Instead of learning more specific synonyms, we attach these to other words.<\/p>\n

We can say “very big” instead of “huge,”\u00a0<\/em>or “very big” instead of “enormous” or “gigantic.”<\/p>\n

We can say “thing”\u00a0<\/em>and use it as a substitute for tons of other words rather than having to think of more specific, descriptive word.<\/p>\n

Now, think of which plague words you might be leaning on too much<\/strong> in your foreign language. Then, try to stop using your favorite word replacements.<\/p>\n

Here are a few ways you can identify these words:<\/p>\n