Blog Name: VANTIKA
Blog URL: http://vantikagupta.wordpress.com/
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This blog has been active since: August,2008
Post: Expanding Vocabulary the Play Way / 10 November 2008
Expanding Vocabulary the Play Way
Lately my game fever is back. It is that phase carrying on in which I feel like getting hooked to playing word games – my favourite brain booster.
I think they are a brilliant change from the usual learning tips to improve our vocabulary. Word games such as crosswords, quizzes, puzzles, or text twist are interesting, different and enjoyable. Not only do these games provide entertainment, they help us apply what we have learnt thus far. And playing these games is not restricted to computer or Internet.
Reader’s Digest’s Word Power section is one of the best vocabulary builder exercises I have read so far. It is a monthly bite. For each answer they provide detailed meaning, origin, and explanation, and that’s their unique style. In fact now there are millions of books and ways in which you can access such games. On Internet, my favourite is East of the Web website’s Eight Letter word game. Wanna play? Visit: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/games/Eight1.html
The Eight Letter game helps you build as many words as you can out of a set of letters, precisely out of eight letters. The sets keep changing as you proceed through different levels. This is exciting! Scrabble just goes a little further by helping you form words by connecting them with each other. If you play it with ‘only dictionary words allowed’ rule, it is a great brain booster.
Another fascinating game is the Text Twister, which makes you race against time, play with a set of letters, shuffle them, and guess more, more, and more.
Some of my friends agree that word games are vocabulary builders. “Of course word games help, how could they not? Crossword puzzles are a favorite of mine. Try easy ones first,” advises Bob, a friend in an online forum of English language, adding, “Read a lot and you’ll eventually pick it up. More important are vocabulary, grammar, and idioms. Read, read, read. Listen, listen, listen. And talk to native speakers as much as you can.”
Another member of the forum says, “Scrabble would probably be most helpful when played with others with a similar command of the language (and skill level). In cryptic crosswords the answers are usually pretty commonplace, obscurity being confined to the clues, but a solver without large knowledge of idioms and phrases will be rather handicapped.”
That is right. But that’s what adds to your knowledge when you try and find out more about what you don’t know. Solving crosswords, puzzles and quizzes with people who have better vocabulary than yours is especially helpful because that is when you get to learn the most. Next time using the newly learnt words in their correct places helps in remembering them forever.
Considering this, social networking websites such as Facebook and Orkut are popular platforms for people from all over the globe to play word games together and learn together. And having played many such, I can say – it is really helpful and loads of fun.
Try some and gain score – in life and in game.
Expanding Vocabulary the Play Way
Blog Name: Classic Board Games
Blog URL: http://www.classicboardgames.netrazine.com/
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Blog Summary: Gather the Family Around for a Family Game Night
This blog has been active since: September 2008
Post: Winning at Scrabble / October 27th, 2008
Winning at Scrabble
Many people lose because they have the wrong idea about Scrabble. A word game it is NOT. If you want to win at Scrabble you’ll have to look at this popular board game in whole new way.
First - look at a Scrabble board. What do you see? Squares and colors. Double letter and word squares. Triple letter and word squares. Think about this: space is more important than words.
Next - consider the letters. You have high value letters and low value letters. If you use all seven letters and they are the lowest scoring letters, you can still score 15 points on a triple word square. (but you’ll get 50 points for a “Bingo” - using all 7 letters.
Two important tiles to pay special attention two are “S” and “Blank”. It’s still valuable and should be used with care. While it carries no value, you can use it to make very high scoring words.
Your goal then should be to play as many bonus squares as you can. Better to settle for a smaller word and grab the bonus square than play a large word while leaving the bonus square for someone else.
Know when to swap your letters. If you simply can’t do anything with your rack (the term for all the letters you’ve drawn), then you need to trade them in. Waiting won’t make things any better. Never trade your “s” tiles or your blank tiles.
Keep an eye out for prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes go on the the beginning of the word - un + known = unknown. Suffexes are tacked on to the end. “s” hobbit + s = hobbits
Better yet is the ings and ers - ring + ings = ringings and ring + ers = ringers.
Watch what you leave behind. While it’s great to score big on a turn, sometimes you need to look ahead to the next play before jumping in. If the word you want to make is going to leave you with a huge mess to clean up, you may want to settle for a lessor word so you have more to work with in the next round.
Also, sometimes you need to get rid of some letters. At times like this, don’t worry about a high score for once. Just make room to resupply. It’s sometimes just easier to
take a small hit and move on.
Next time we’ll take a look at some more ways two win at Scrabble. Meanwhile…
Wanna Play?
Andy
