Finding the right word

Hello everyone!

So, with English not being my native language, I often struggle to find the exact word that I want to use for a specific action, situation, thing etc. Often it's a really simple word which I can find via simple translations and synonyms, but sometimes I find myself searching for a word that I know exists, but it's something rarely used and hard to find.

Is there a reliable way or technique to reverse-dictionary your way into finding the specific word you're searching for?

And while I'm here, let me just ask one more related question: Besides reading a lot of books, what's the best way to improve your vocabulary?

Thank you everyone for your suggestions and helpful tips. They're very appreciated.

That seems very interesting! Thanks for the suggestion!

Is there something similar to it, but more recent? Would be great to have it on a digital format (well, I found it and got it on a *cough* digital *cough* format.) A simple search for a word yield so many results!

wweisser said:

Sorry if this suggestion isn't helpful, but try not spending any time thinking of alternate words in a first draft. If you can't think of the right word in 3-5 seconds, add a highlight so you'll see it later and move on. You'll save a lot of time not worrying about sentences or scenes which will be deleted later, and when you do go back and look up those words you can do it all in the same session, which will make you more focused on the task.

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Thank you. It's actually something I'm doing right now. Alternate words are not something that I put in my stories just to polish it up, I like to keep it as simple as possible, but I guess you meant the right word there too.

But as I've said, English is not my native language, and the problem persists even at the end of sessions. Sometimes I genuinely don't know the word I'm looking for, i just know it exists and I've read it before somewhere.

benbenberi said:

If you have a trusted beta who's a native English speaker, maybe you can enlist them to help you with word-selection. (E.g. if you flag a word you're not satisfied with in a draft, they can maybe discuss it with you and/or suggest alternatives.)

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I guess that's possible. The few times native English speakers tried editing chapters of my stories, they found quite a few subtle mistakes that I missed and would have always missed on re-reads because of English not being my native.

But finding a native English beta-reader for a whole novel would be a bit problematic. I don't think I'll be able to find one other than paying for a thorough editing job.

And I need a way to find the right word while I'm writing the paragraphs. If I didn't have this problem, I would write so much faster...

wweisser said:

I must commend you for having the guts to write in a non-native language. I dabble in languages but the idea of trying to write fiction in a language other than English scares the crap out of me.

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It's probably weird and pretty rare to see someone whose native is English to write fiction in another language, but is the opposite equally so? English is quite the global language now, a lot of people speak it, the market is huge for an English book compared to my native one (Albanian).

I just want as many people as possible to read my stories. Writing them in English makes sense I think.

wweisser said:

When I do need to write in another language, though, one of the resources I use is http://lang-8.com/. It's a site where native speakers will correct your text for you, and you can pay them back by correcting people who are trying to learn your language. I do see people posting snippets there that are fiction, but I don't know if it would suit your purposes or not. Figured it was worth mentioning, though.

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Thanks, every suggestion is helpful.

Yeah, thesaurus is an important part of my current way. I can't do without it.

Orianna2000 said:

Why would it be hard to find an English-speaking beta-reader? I've used at least a dozen of them for my novels! And I never paid a dime for their work. Most beta-readers expect a story exchange, where you critique each other's novels. Occasionally, you'll find one willing to do it for nothing, since it's good experience. Just credit them in your novel's acknowledgements and they'll be happy.

There is a sub-forum here at AW where you can ask for beta-readers. When you're ready, go there and post a blurb describing your story, and specify exactly what kind of help you need. You'll probably get a few nibbles.

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Ah, thanks for the suggestion. I haven't actually gotten to write a full blown novel yet, just short stories, so that's probably why I'm still not thinking too much about those things.

I'll probably do that. Thanks.