14 Ways to Learn Vocabulary and

Explore Language With The 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.

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.

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.comand 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 …
To keep track of the new words you’re learning, you might use our vocabulary log. To
go even further, create a “language field guide” like the ones these middle school
students have made.
3. Take an interactive vocabulary quiz
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.
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.

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

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 February 2022 Vocabulary Challenge. The winning word will be published as our
Word of the Day on April Fools’ Day.
11. Celebrate teenagers as innovators.

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.

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 articledescribes 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.

The list above, of course, is incomplete. What else can you discover in The Times
about language that is connected to a community or culture you are a part of?

13. Use data to uncover word patterns.

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?

When you’re done, ask yourself, Is there something interesting I’ve observed about
language and language patterns that could be useful to explore using data analysis,
perhaps via tools like Google Trends or the Google Books Ngram Viewer? What and
why? How could you present your findings visually?
14. Understand the relationship between language and culture — and have your say.
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?