Building a Better Vocabulary

By: Kevin Flanigan, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Kevin Flanigan

What is the difference between specious and spurious? What does the word bombast have to do with cushion stuffing? Would you want to be called a snollygoster?

The hallmark of a powerful vocabulary is not simply knowing many words; rather, it's knowing the exact word to use in a specific context or situation. A great vocabulary can enhance your speaking, writing, and even thinking skills. This course will boost your vocabulary, whether you want to enhance your personal lexicon, write or speak more articulately in professional settings, or advance your knowledge of the English language. For anyone who has ever grasped for the perfect word at a particular moment, this course provides a research-based and enjoyable method for improving your vocabulary.

Building a Better Vocabulary offers an intriguing look at the nuts and bolts of English, teaches you the etymology and morphology - or the history and structure - of words, and delves into the cognitive science behind committing new words to long-term memory. By the end of the 36 enjoyable lectures, you will have a practical framework for continuing to build your vocabulary by discovering new words and fully mastering the nuances of familiar ones.

If you are an avid reader, you may have previously encountered some of the words in this course. But even the most voracious reader will be surprised and delighted by these eye-opening lectures, which delve into the building blocks of the English language and reveal intriguing new nuances to words you thought you knew well. These lectures will kindle a passion for the process by which words are created and for the beauty of the words you read, speak, and hear every day.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2015 The Great Courses (P)2015 The Teaching Company, LLC

Can't say enough good things about this one...

This is a great title to have in your audible library because it is so versatile in terms of how it can be enjoyed...allow me to explain...

Some books tell a story or survey a topic in such a way that you really need to be paying attention from start to finish because if you don't, you'll struggle to keep up and that'll have a negative impact on your ability to enjoy it. Those are the kinds of titles I save for long car trips when I'm by myself. This course could easily be enjoyed if given that level of attention, but it's not at all necessary.

This is my favorite kind of background noise (for lack of a better term). you can have it playing...come in-and-out of different stages of paying attention and still occasionally pick up a thing or two for your vocabulary. Because of that, you could play the course over and over again without feeling like its getting old or repetitive.

I love playing this title when I'm winding down for the night. If I fall asleep, no big deal. It's way better than watching tv in bed.

But it's also perfect for the person who wants to make a deliberate study of the course. The instructor starts off by discussing how to set up a study notebook for the course and he stops along the way to point out things to write in your notebook and he even assigns homework. If you want to get a real course out of this title you won't be disappointed.

It's the best vocabulary book I've ever read. It's way better than the ones that go in alphabetical order or use SAT prep lists. This instructor groups the vocabulary words by concept and uses techniques that help you actually remember/retain the information.

I highly recommend.

This is the vocabulary builder you want.

I purchased this course as preparation for taking the Miller Analogies Test, Not only was it helpful, but Professor Flanigan made the course absolutely delightful. Great personal stories and excellent neumonic devices. I am looking forward to listening to it several more times.

Siduation?

While I am very much overall enjoying this course, it honestly bothers me on some of the pronunciations of his words. The one that keeps coming up is "situations" that he speaks as "siduations". There are several others, but that really stands out for me. I in no way wish to go all philippic on him (see, I have been listening).
Also, I would really prefer him to spell out some of the words that are new to many of us (like philippic).
Other than that, it is very well done.

Good book, bad Audible.

Book is good, but the new version of the Audible app, my god does it suck! Not just the book-size thing, but that was definately the worst. Samsung S9+ and I'm barely able to see the writing on the cover anymore. All the previous years the artwork of the cover would fill up most of the screen. Now it's a smal icon almost, and if you should be so unfortunate to want one of the "Audible Only" titles, they cover up the nice artwork/book cover with a yellow banner, censoring even the title of the book. That advertise-shit is there even after you've purchased the damn thing.
Sigh, I'm not happy with Audible anymore.

Kevin es un gran narrador

Descubrí este libro por casualidad, el título me llamó la atención y la versión de Audible te ofrece una muestra en donde se me hizo muy llamativa la manera y el gusto que transmitía el narrador. Me lo terminé aventando por esto mismo.

If you love words, this is the lecture for you

This lecture was informative and entertaining, I enjoyed every minute. Prof. Flanigan is very knowledgeable and can share his knowledge in ways that are entertaining and interesting.

Great and impressive course

Where does Building a Better Vocabulary rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

number 1 , but have few more number 1 books as well

What did you like best about this story?

I am not an English native speaker, and I am considerable age with not-so-good memory. Amazingly I was able to memorize a lot of words , more amazing that I am still able to repeat them with all definitions after a month or so. This is a miracle for me. Very greatfull to Kevin Flanagan for his impressive work.

Which scene was your favorite?

Almost all of them.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me to like English language and also I've got a hope that one day I will be able to conquer it!

Any additional comments?

I'd recommend this book to every students as a mandatory one. Plus it gives you a technique to approach a problem not necessarily in language.

Interesting

This book conceptualizes a method of building your vocabulary in an interesting way. But a lot of the words used as examples aren't particularly enticing. The stories and backgrounds of words were intriguing, but a lot of the words themselves were lackluster.

Overall it was good and had interesting tips and stories. But the target words shared were 30% fairly common, 50% will never use, 20% kinda cool. Either way, there are ideas and concepts that make this worthwhile, but I wouldn't bump it up to the top of your list unless you're a writer.

Vocabulary

I think that the best part of this Lecture Series is the PDF that accompanies it. The professor is great and does a good job teaching techniques for building vocab by audio, but the PDF includes all of the words that are covered in each lecture, along with definitions and use examples. Being able to refer back to this information on paper was just as valuable to me as listening to the lectures in the first place.

Great...

...if you have always longed for a Blue's Clues-style program that could teach you to speak like 19th century noblemen.

Hornswoggle, mollycoddle, donnybrook, snollygoster... I'm sure the instructor would disagree, but some words rightfully sound goofy these days. It's okay if we let them go.

To be fair, there are plenty of useful words in here. My main complaint is with the delivery style. The level of vocabulary does not match the level of delivery. It feels like an elementary school instructor teaching you college-level words. This is fine... for a while. Then it gets tiresome.