14 WAYS TO LEARN VOCABULARYAND EXPLORE LANGUAGE WITHTHE NEW YORK TIMES
Eight practical ideas for understanding new words in context — plus six ideas for thinking more deeply about the relationships between language and culture.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Katherine Schulten and Callie Holtermann
August 23, 2021
Our vocabulary offerings aim to convince students that learning a word’s definition opens the door to the real fun: spotting patterns in a word’s usage, interrogating its shades of meaning and incorporating it into one’s own vocabulary.
These 14 ideas will show you how to do it, with The New York Times as a resource both for understanding new words in context and for thinking about how language shapes — and is shaped by — our world.
We’re taking an energetic approach to vocabulary this school year, and kicking it off with a full week of posts. You can find them all here, in our updated vocabulary spotlight. Let us know what you think!
EIGHT PRACTICAL WAYS TO LEARN WORDS IN CONTEXT
If you want a better vocabulary, you’ve come to the right place. Below are eight easy ways to start learning new words in engaging contexts, understanding their nuances and trying them out for yourself.
1. Read just one Times article of your choice.
Related Article: “The Abandoned Houses of Instagram”
Illustration by Bryan Sansivero
Before you read any further, take a moment to look at the photo above. What words come to mind to describe it? Make a list. For fun, you might even do the exercise alongside someone else, then compare lists to see how many words you have in common.
Why are we doing this? We want to show you that reading just one article of your choice in The New York Times can introduce you to all kinds of new words in an engaging context.
For instance, if you chose the piece about the abandoned houses of Instagram from which we took the image above, you could find words like creepy, decrepit, musty, agape, forlornly, rickety, faux, dilapidated, patina, limbo, succumb and askew. Were any of those words on your list? Are any of them new to you?
To find your own articles, think about what sections of the paper are most likely to publish stories you care about: Sports, Style, Food, Politics, Music? Click around: Nearly any Times piece will introduce you to at least a few new words — or show you interesting ways to use words you may be familiar with but haven’t yet incorporated into your own vocabulary.
Once you find a word you’d like to explore, consider participating in our September 2021 challenge by learning more about it and telling us what you’ve discovered.
2. Focus on a single Word of the Day.
Visit The Learning Network’s free Word of the Day feature to find a new word each weekday, plus a definition from Vocabulary.com and an example sentence from The Times. Then, test your understanding by writing a sentence of your own.
If you have time to write several sentences, try out “because, but, so” — sentence stems from “The Writing Revolution”, by Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler. These will help you examine a word from different angles. Here’s an example of these stems for the word elated:
- The hot air balloon pilot was elated because …
- The hot air balloon pilot was elated, but …
- The hot air balloon pilot was elated, so …
3. Take an interactive vocabulary quiz.
Related “Vocabulary in Context” Quiz
Timothy O'Connell for The New York Times
Here is how a recent quiz about young TikTok food stars begins. What word might you put in the blank? Visit the quiz to find four choices and see if you can pick the best one.
Eitan Bernath, a 19-year-old TikTok star with more than 1.6 million followers, began posting cooking content to the platform in 2019. Like many Generation Z TikTok chefs, he taught himself to cook by watching YouTube and the Food Network. He would share the things he made to Instagram, but never gained much ___.
We hope to create new quizzes all school year long. Let us know if there is a Times article you’d especially like to see us use!
4. Turn to TikTok to learn commonly confused words.
Accessed on August 27, 2021
Differentiate between similar-sounding words with the help of Claudine James, an English teacher and member of our first Teaching Project cohort, and her popular TikTok account. This piece pairs five of her videos explaining commonly confused words, like farther and further or affect and effect, with usage examples from The New York Times.
5. Get familiar with “high utility” words in multiple contexts.
Whether preparing for a standardized test like the SAT or just reading for fun, you have no doubt come across words like assume, consist, potential, component and ultimate — words that appear in many contexts and with shifting meanings. Sometimes words in this category are called “high utility” or “tier two” words.
To practice these words, you can start with Vocabulary.com’s lists of vocabulary for standardized tests and essential vocabulary for middle school and high school students.
Then, turn to The Times to find those words in the wild. Type any word you’re learning into the Times search field to explore the nuances of its meaning in different contexts.
Take the word “cordial”. As an adjective meaning “friendly but not overly close,” it is used in this article to describe a meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders. In its noun form, however, it means a sweet syrup used in cocktails: “An uncooked cordial requires a lot of time,” this recipe warns.
For teachers, we have even more advice. Check out this Reader Idea from Larry Ferlazzo on ways to work with “tier two” words in the English Language Learner classroom. Or, play the List/Group/Label game with your students before you read an article together. Here, for example, is how we once used the activity in a lesson plan on Edgar Allan Poe.
6. Direct your own 15-second vocabulary video.
To practice these words, you can start with Vocabulary.com’s lists of vocabulary for standardized tests and essential vocabulary for middle school and high school students.
Then, turn to The Times to find those words in the wild. Type any word you’re learning into the Times search field to explore the nuances of its meaning in different contexts.
Take the word “cordial”. As an adjective meaning “friendly but not overly close,” it is used in this article to describe a meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders. In its noun form, however, it means a sweet syrup used in cocktails: “An uncooked cordial requires a lot of time,” this recipe warns.
For teachers, we have even more advice. Check out this Reader Idea from Larry Ferlazzo on ways to work with “tier two” words in the English Language Learner classroom. Or, play the List/Group/Label game with your students before you read an article together. Here, for example, is how we once used the activity in a lesson plan on Edgar Allan Poe.
6. Direct your own 15-second vocabulary video.
Armed with our library of Words of the Day, you can explain what thousands of vocabulary words mean. But can you pick one to define in video format, in 15 seconds or less? This is the charge of our annual Vocabulary Video Contest. This year, the contest will run from Dec. 1, 2021 to Jan. 12, 2022 — but you can make your own vocabulary video anytime.
You may draw inspiration from this roundup of 60 winning videos.
7. Revel in the language of a favorite Times columnist or critic.
Reading the work of critics and Opinion columnists at The Times can give you a good example of how writers with distinctive voices use language to express their particular points of view.
For example, in his review of Leon Bridges’ recent album, The Times’s chief pop music critic, Jon Pareles, uses words like grooves, languid, coiling, ache, plinking, undulating and brooding to communicate how the album sounds to a reader who may not have listened to it.
Choose a favorite Times columnist from the Opinion section or critic from Arts, Books, Style or Food. Read three different pieces by one writer and make a list of the words that jump out at you. Are there certain words, types of words or phrases that this writer chooses often? Why do you think that is? How does the writer’s word choice help advance his or her argument? You might even try writing your own piece in the style of the writer you chose.
If you’re not sure where to start, look into columnists like Jamelle Bouie, Elizabeth Bruenig, Charles M. Blow, Michelle Goldberg, David Leonhardt, Gail Collins and Paul Krugman, and critics like Maya Phillips, Wesley Morris, Jon Caramanica, Pete Wells, Jennifer Szalai, Roberta Smith, Jason Farago, and A.O. Scott.
And don’t forget that we run both an annual Student Review Contest and an annual Student Editorial Contest, which invite you to experiment with finding your own distinctive voice and point of view.
8. Make vocabulary practice routine with our monthly challenges.
We received such an enthusiastic response to our Vocabulary Challenges last year that we created a yearlong schedule of monthly activities to help students get creative with vocabulary — and have the opportunity for their work to be published on The Learning Network.
These challenges use our Words of the Day as prompts for writing, art and even the invention of new words. New challenges open on the first of each month all year long, but you can use these activities in your classroom anytime. The January challenge is a special opportunity open only to English language learners.
SIX WAYS TO THINK MORE DEEPLY ABOUT LANGUAGE
Related Article: “The Sacred Spell of Words”
Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times
Learning words and exploring language isn’t something you do just to pass tests, of course. As the poet and playwright N. Scott Momaday writes in this essay, words are powerful and personal. Words are “what separates our species from all others.” They can “wound as well as elate, promote war as well as peace, express hate as well as love.” And it may be children who understand this best:
Words are sacred. I believe they are more sacred to children than they are to most of us. When I was first able to make my way in language, my Native American father, a member of the Kiowa tribe, told me stories from the Kiowa oral tradition. They transported me. They fascinated and thrilled me. They nourished my imagination. They nourished my soul. Indeed, nothing has meant more to me in fashioning my view of the world. I came to understand that story is the engine of language, and that words are the marrow of language.
Here are some ways to explore the power of words, and look at how and why language changes over time and in different cultural, personal and political contexts.
9. Track the culture through “Words of the Year.”
Quick Quiz: When did The Times publish an article with the headline “‘Selfie’ Trumps ‘Twerk’ as Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year”
a. 2020
b. 2017
c. 2013
d. 2002
To answer, you have to think about when it might have been necessary to explain to the world that “selfie” means “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.” By 2017 the word was already ubiquitous, so that eliminates the first two choices; 2002 was too early for the broad use of either smartphones or social media, so that leaves choice c., 2013. Take a look at the article to see what other words were in the running that year. How many of them do we still use?
If you search The Times for the phrase “word of the year”, you can see we report annually on what is chosen — and on The Learning Network we often ask students to weigh in. Have a look at how teenagers answered the question, “What is your choice for Word of the Year?” in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Then came 2020, a year that gave us scores of new words, phrases, expressions and metaphors. Here is how Tim Herrera begins an article headlined “The 20 Phrases That Defined 2020”:
Happy Blursday! Now quit doomscrolling, grab a quarantini and please keep social distancing.
Imagine explaining that sentence to yourself in December 2019.
Before you read further, brainstorm a list of all the new words and phrases you can think of from the pandemic that have become part of our everyday language. Then read Mr. Herrera’s article, or two related pieces — one from May 2020 and one from December 2020 — to add to your list. What conclusions can you draw about how the pandemic has affected everyday language? Which of the words on your list do you think will stay in our vocabularies after this global crisis is finally over? Why? Finally, what word or phrase would you choose to define 2020? You can see a related lesson plan, and other students’ votes, here.
10. Watch language evolve via @NYT_first_said.
On Aug. 12, 2021, the word “memeifying” appeared in The New York Times for the very first time. How do we know? Because the Twitter bot @NYT_first_said logs new words as they appear on The Times’s website.
To learn more, start with this Times Insider article about how the account was created. Then scroll through the account yourself. What words jump out at you? What can they tell you about the ways language is evolving? For example, you may notice words like neopronouns, detransitioning and misgenderings that expand the way we talk about gender. You may see tech-related words like cyberhack, cryptouniverse and bookstagrammers that show language hustling to catch up with technological advances.
Finally, try it yourself. What word does not currently exist in the English language, but should? What would it mean? Why do we need it? Save your invention to submit to our March 2022 Vocabulary Challenge. The winning word will be published as our Word of the Day on April Fools’ Day.
11. Celebrate teenagers as innovators.
Accessed on August 27, 2021.
Are you and your friends “lexical innovators?” According to a 2015 analysis of almost one billion tweets, those in the vanguard of word usage are “overwhelmingly young.”
That conclusion isn’t surprising to us. The Times has been reporting on the word-wizardry of teenagers since at least 1943, when young people were introducing the world to “hep” and “jam session.” Over 75 years later, our reporters are still regularly documenting the origins and meanings of youth-driven expressions, only now it’s “cheugy”, “OK boomer”, and “that’s so cringe”.
Take this 2015 language quiz, “Are You on Fleek?” to observe just how quickly slang comes — and sometimes goes. Then create your own version of the quiz by mining your daily spoken and written language and analyzing your social media feeds. How many of your questions can your friends get right? What about your parents or grandparents? Of the words or expressions that are viral right now, which do you predict will stand the test of time? Why?
For teachers who want to help students look at how slang can both shape and reflect culture — and how new words move from the Urban Dictionary to the Oxford Dictionaries — check out our classic lesson plan, OMG!!! Exploring Slang. Though created on our old blog back in the days when “OMG” was a new phrase, the activities and questions are evergreen.
12. Explore the relationship between language and identity.
Related Article: Hip-Hop and Comics Speak the Same Language
Jason Jägel
What does the way you express yourself say about who you are? How does it connect you to specific communities, cultures and histories? The Times can help you go deeper into how you think about the many intersections between language and identity. Here are just a few ways to start:
- If you were raised in the United States, you might begin with a fun Times quiz, “How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk”. How accurately does it capture your background?
- Read “What We Believe About Identity”, by the novelist Julia Alvarez. As she writes about first coming to the United States from the Dominican Republic, “There was no vocabulary to light up the margins where my outlier selves were camped.” Who are your “outlier selves” and how does your language include them — or leave them out?
- What is your gender identity? What are your pronouns? How do you, or others you know, express gender identity through language? “A Guide to Neopronouns”, published in 2021, is just one starting point for thinking through these questions. “P.C. Language Saved My Life”, from 2018, is another.
- If you are a fan of hip-hop or comics (or both!), read a personal essay by a young man who discovered that “Hip-Hop and Comics Speak the Same Language”. How have words — in the form of stories, comics, lyrics, poems or anything else — helped you “inhabit a new skin”?
- What labels do others put on the communities you belong to? How do you feel about them? Read an essay by a 16-year-old winner of our 2021 Student Editorial Contest, “For Most Latinos, Latinx Does Not Mark the Spot”, to consider the nuances of naming.
- How do young people “find a language suitable for our current state of disaster, which is almost biblical in its force and Shakespearean in its unfolding?” asks the Times critic Maya Phillips in her introduction to this multimedia feature about 10 teenage Black poets. Their work, and our related lesson plan, can help you think about the deep connection between personal voice and word choice.
- Whether or not you are a native English speaker, reading “We All Speak a Language That Will Go Extinct” can show you that “no two people really speak the same” language. What misunderstandings around words — humorous or otherwise — have you experienced?
- Language isn’t conveyed just in speech and writing. This article describes how today’s Deaf creatives are celebrating, sharing and protecting American Sign Language, and this piece — “Black, Deaf and Extremely Online” — explores how young Black signers are celebrating the language on social media. Our related lesson plan invites you to learn more.
13. Use data to uncover word patterns.
Related Article: “The Words Men and Women Use When They Write About Love”
Another lens through which to look at language? The Times’s Upshot team used data analysis to create the interactive “The Words Men and Women Use When They Write About Love”, pictured above. It mines the language of four years of Modern Love essays. What questions does it raise for you?
You can see graphs the team has done on topics as varied as “The Rise of ‘Middle Class’ as an Ordinary American Term”, “The Word Choices That Explain Why Jane Austen Endures”, and the language The Times has used since 1860 to describe newcomers to America. You can also read data analysis of topics related to language and culture, including the words used in job listings and how we described our mental health on social media in 2020.
As you explore these analyses, you might borrow the protocol we use in our weekly What’s Going On in This Graph? feature. Ask yourself:
- What do I notice?
- What do I wonder?
- What impact does this information have on me and my community?
14. Understand the relationship between language and culture — and have your say.
Related Article: “How ‘Woke’ Became an Insult”
June Park
Language changes all the time, and, in turn, changes us. Word choice matters. It could be as relatively small as scientists calling for less sensational ways of describing human encounters with sharks. It could be as big as a deep rethinking of the language we use to talk about gender, sexuality or race. From the various examples we’ve given above, you can see that significant social, cultural and political changes in our society can’t help but affect the language we use. And thanks to the internet, those changes are happening faster than ever before.
If you are a regular reader of The Times, you can track these conversations in real time. For example, in 2020 the paper announced that, after conversations that began in earnest after the death of George Floyd and subsequent protests, The Times would begin capitalizing “Black” when describing people and cultures of African origin. Nearly 800 readers commented on the change, some supporting it, others rejecting it and many offering nuanced reasons for their opinions.
You can find pieces that touch on language and its relationship to culture in sections across the paper, including Politics, Sports, Style and Food. If you want just one recent example, however, we recommend the Aug., 2021 piece by the linguist John McWhorter exploring “How ‘Woke’ Became an Insult”. After tracing how and why its meaning has morphed, he writes:
A mature societal take on language will understand that words are not simply what they mean in something called the dictionary and that words referring to issues societal or controversial — i.e., the interesting ones — will often need replacement about once a generation.
Finally, and most important, we invite you to become a part of the conversation, too. The Learning Network’s daily Student Opinion question often focuses on issues of language, culture and politics, and gives young people a dedicated place to have their say.
Here are just a few of the questions we’ve asked recently. Post your thoughts in the comments section for each — and read and respond to what other teenagers have contributed:
- Should There Be More Gender Options on Identification Documents?
- What Is the Best Way to Stop Abusive Language Online?
- How Should Racial Slurs in Literature Be Handled in the Classroom?
- How Important Is Knowing a Foreign Language?
- Should White Writers Translate a Black Author’s Work?
- Do Laws That Ban Offensive Words Make the World a Better Place?
- Is It Offensive for Sports Teams and Their Fans to Use Native American Names, Imagery and Gestures?
- What’s Your Favorite Word?
- What Does Your Accent Say About Who You Are?
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