Product Description

• Do you misuse and mispronounce some words?
• Do you sometimes find yourself at a loss to express exactly what you mean?
• Do you fail to comprehend complex words while reading?
• Are you tired of having people seemingly talk "above" you?

If you answered YES to any of these questions, then 30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary is the perfect solution. Millions of people have improved their academic performance, job skills, and self-esteem, just by spending fifteen minutes a day completing the simple exercises and self-tests within this bestselling guide!

You will learn, step-by-step, how to
• increase your language power with word "roots"
• find the words to sell your ideas
• learn new words daily
• check on your progress with 30 challenging tests

PLUS - Complete Index to New Words and Pronunciation Key
30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary
Nearly Four Million Copies In Print!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33578 in Books
• Published on: 1991-03-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Classic and Intuitive
I was assigned this book as a college freshman. The more I used it, the more I loved it. Now, I'm using it to teach vocabulary.
Chapters are have brain-friendly titles. Definitions are worded clearly and simply.
Visually, though, it needs updating. This book was first published before computerized typesetting and desperately needs visual modernization. If you're a confident reader, it's no big deal, but as a reluctant student of English, you might find the text-dense pages a bit mucky.

Helpful
My brother-in-law recommended this book--he used it before he took his GRE tests, and found it really helpful. I also found it to be a helpful vocabulary book.

Each `day' introduces 10-20 words based on a specific theme or idea-sometimes, it is a group of words with similar roots (monologue, monogamy, etc.), sometimes it has words with opposite meanings, words are grouped by parts of speech.

The chapters/days then spend a few pages reviewing those new words through various methods--the author's theory is that by forcing you to write down and select the words within a number of contexts, you will learn the words faster.

Reviewers are correct that some words are used less often than they were in 1942, and one individual did not like the old practice of referring to generically to a doctor as "he" (by the way, all generic occupations/identifications were referred to as "he," including negative connotations such as thief, prisoner, and used-car salesperson).

This book is not a miracle--cure--don't toss out your high school GED just yet. Although you will learn a few scores of new words know how one goes about incorporating more, there is a long way to go. Just think of this book as a good start.

How To Double Your Vocabulary, but not in 30 Days
Despite advertising hype - 30 Days To -, no ONE book will double your vocabulary, but reading several vocabulary-building books can double your vocabulary. Different vocabulary-building books have different words and different explanations. If you don't learn a word from one book, you can learn it from another book.

Any vocabulary-building book will have many words, a fourth to half the book, that you already understand. You can always skip or skim the easy-to-you words.

Varied, incomplete word selection is another reason for using several books. Some books just take words used on past-standardized tests, neglecting other words. Other books, limit their words to words based on word roots, neglecting others. Often authors have thrown in personal favorite words, even if others rarely use the words. If you see a word in two or three books, it's generally a need-to-know word.

The main weakness of 30 Days To A More Powerful Vocabulary, and no book is perfect, is the word selection. As one other reviwer noted: some of the definitions are dated. But the price is right and if you read several vocabulary-building books, you will not have a problem identifying the few dated words.

Other Books: Cartoon/Mnemonic vocabulary books have their fans who like the mnemonic memory aids, which are useful before tests. But with only one word and one cartoon per page, these books may only have a few hundred words and are expensive on a per word learned basis. Audio vocabulary books such as Elite Word Power, let you hearing each word pronounced correctly, helpful for improving speaking vocabulary.