From Passive to Active Vocabulary

Cami
Oct 30
5 min read

You know the words. Let’s make them yours. Turn your passive vocabulary into active, confident, natural English.

Hey there,

Welcome back, or welcome if you’re new here! I hope you’re feeling wonderful 😊. Before we dive into today’s topic, I want you to picture this: You’re listening to someone speak English and understand everything perfectly. But, when it’s your turn to speak, you struggle to find the words… Or, you read a text in English and actually recognise a word, but when you try to use it in conversation or writing, your mind goes completely blank…

The reason for this is that there is a difference between recognising and actually using vocabulary. You’ll often hear it as passive and active vocabulary. Think of it this way:

Understanding = passive

Speaking = active

Now, most learners feel ‘stuck’ right in the middle of that, and you might be one of them. Do you want to know the good news? Turning passive into active vocabulary is not really about studying harder… It’s about using them smarter 😉 And that’s exactly what I’ll be sharing with you today!

How to turn the words you know into the words you use

What passive vocabulary looks like

I already started explaining it a little bit with the above examples, but let’s make it even simpler. There are certain words in English (or any other language) that you’ll be able to recognise when hearing or reading them, but you rarely use them yourself actively. Let’s look at some examples:

You know exactly what ‘to take something for granted’ means, but never actually use it in a conversation.
You are completely aware of the fact that ‘meticulous’ means ‘very careful’, yet you seem to always use the word ‘careful’ instead.
You totally understand what people are referring to when they say ‘meanwhile’, but you still always say ‘while’.

Every one of us has a much larger bank of passive vocabulary than active. The key is not to learn more words, but to make that gap smaller and actually start using the words you already know.

Why words stay passive

You might be asking yourself now ‘How do I change that?’. But before we answer that question, we need to understand why passive vocabulary usually stays passive. There are many reasons for that, and they, obviously, change from person to person. However, here are some of the most common ones:

You learn words out of context. We’ve spoken many times about the importance of learning vocabulary, phrasal verbs, idioms, etc., in context. If you simply learn them from flashcards or a list, they don’t stick in your mind as easily.
You rarely need the word in familiar contexts. There are many words that you have learnt in the past and fully understand, but you might have never really made the connection to how you can use them in your life or conversations, and that’s completely normal!
You worry it could sound too formal or unnatural. There is a beautiful quote I read once: ‘Overthinking is the art of creating problems that weren't even there’. Sometimes we just need to talk without overthinking how it might sound, and if we say it incorrectly, we learn from it and (hopefully) don’t do it again.
This one might sound weird, but you understand them through reading/hearing, but not speaking… So your mouth never practises ‘saying’ them out loud.

Like with many things in life, you need to use vocabulary a few times in real situations until you are actually able to come up with them naturally, without thinking about it too much.

How to make passive vocabulary active

We have gotten to the part you’ve been waiting for. Yay! 🥳 Now, I promise I won’t be giving you the typical ‘use the words in a sentence’ advice, don’t worry! Maybe you could try one of these things:

Connect new words to personal experiences. As I mentioned above, learning words in context can make a huge difference, and even more if you’re able to connect them to a personal experience of yours. Let’s imagine you’re trying to learn the phrasal verb ‘to put off’, connect it to something about you, e.g. ‘I keep putting off cleaning my balcony floor’ (unfortunately, I can relate to that one a lot…). Link the words to your real life. Your brain remembers relevance, not lists… Use it to your advantage!
Change how you revise the vocabulary. When revising the words, try to remember the feeling you had when you first learnt them, not just the spelling. Try to remember the moments when the word appeared, for example, the film scene, the text you read it in or even the chat.
Shadow real English. We’ve spoken before about how shadowing can be an excellent tool when trying to improve your pronunciation. But it’s also very useful when learning and remembering new words. Copy whatever words or short phrases you might hear in a show or podcast that sound natural to you. Remember, your mouth needs to get used to ‘speaking the words’ 😉 So, say them out loud, repeat what you hear.
Use ‘word swaps’. Now, this one might require a bit more attention, but it’s a great one! Try replacing a (simple) word you notice you use often with a more precise one. Think of these: Replace ‘very big’ with ‘massive’, or ‘I think’ with ‘I suppose’ or ‘I reckon’. The more you do it, the easier it will get.

Common mistakes

Just like with anything else, it’s always good to know what mistakes people tend to make so you can avoid them (hopefully…). I’ve created a short list for you, but there are, of course, many, many more.

Using rare words just to sound advanced. Please make sure that the words you’re learning are actually used nowadays; otherwise, you might sound quite unnatural.
Focusing only on single words (e.g. nouns or adjectives) and ignoring idioms, collocations, phrasal verbs, and expressions.
Avoiding informal phrases because they feel too ‘risky’. Yes, if you try to use certain informal phrases in a business environment, you might be playing with fire… But there is a time and place for everything 😌
Thinking that you must use Every. Single. New. word you learn, rather than focusing on the ones that fit your ‘style’. The goal is for you to use all the words you know, not for you to sound like a different person.

Before we finish off, I want you to remember that you already know enough words to express yourself well. You just need to start using them more often. It’s not about sounding perfect, but about sounding like yourself (but in English).

If you feel like you need more guidance in your English learning journey, at The English Life Academy, we have a team of experienced, native English teachers who can do exactly that. PLUS, you are part of an incredible international community of English learners who are going through the exact same struggles as you. In our group classes, you’ll speak, make mistakes, and, most importantly, make progress. Let me know if you want more information on how to join!

Until next time!

Camila