English words are fun! Don’t you think so? Even if English is not your native tongue. When I was in elementary school as a method of enriching our vocabulary and improving our word skills, the teacher would send us home with a list of about 10 words. The homework assignment was to look up the definition of the words in the dictionary, write down the word and the definition, and write a sentence we made up using the word. Thinking back on it, I realize that it was a very good exercise.
What I Learned Watching Korean Drama
Several years back I watched a historical period Korean drama about a king who had a dream. He dreamed of a nation where everyone could read and write. Even poor people! It was a radical move! The nobles and scholars vehemently opposed him. They were willing to kill people over this! Can you imagine? To say that others disagreed with his ambitious endeavor would be the understatement of the century. Nevertheless, because he was fiercely determined, he accomplished his goal. He devised a system of 28 alphabets and from those letters, all words could be created. Sounds marvelous, doesn’t it? Watching that series really made me appreciate the ability to speak, read, and write in my native tongue, i.e. English.
Tree With Deep Roots (2011 K-Drama TV series) https://t.co/trTbFKYlyC #kdrama #historicalperioddramas #tvseries #readingandwritingliteracy #koreandrama #entertainment pic.twitter.com/b9H7Ytmrpu
— Joie de Vivre Magazine (formerly My Fox Nooze) (@FoxMarks_ATX) December 24, 2019
What I Learned When I Had No Internet Access
What do you do when you don’t have the Internet? Oh! I don’t know! Clean your house? Read a book or a magazine? How about … learn some new words? Where’s my dictionary? (Actually I don’t have a dictionary. I have a lexicon.)
Unlike the Korean alphabet, our American English alphabet is 26 letters. Our words are derived from the languages of various civilizations: French, Latin, Greek, languages of the Native Americans, etc. The creation of most of the words we speak rest on 5 of the 26 letters, which we call vowels. A – E – I – O – U. Sometimes the letter Y is considered a vowel. But for purposes of this discussion, we will count it as a consonant.
Entertainment and Education
I started out entertaining myself by scanning pages of my old lexicon and honing in on words I didn’t know. Then I thought to myself, many members of online social communities where I am an active member, are non-English speaking. Why not share my treasure finds with them? There are also some members who speak “the real English”. Per my late husband, there’s real English and then there is the English that Americans speak. Those community members who speak “the real English” might enjoy my findings as well.
So I’ve published this series of short posts. Why isn’t the series longer? Well because I got my Internet back. LOL. I looked up the meanings of “5 English words” for each vowel. The pattern if you can’t detect it is the first vowel in the alphabet paired with the first consonant in the alphabet; second vowel with the second consonant; third vowel with the third consonant, etc. Similar to my homework assignment from elementary school, wrote down the word and the definition. I did not, however, use the words in a sentence. Why? Like I said, I got my Internet back! LOL.
Anyway … as I only wrote down the word and the definition in the posts, maybe the reader can go the extra step and use it in a sentence.
One last note. Keep in mind that some of the words I found, you probably won’t use in casual everyday conversation. But if you love to play word games like Scrabble, they might come in really handy!
