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Vocabulary

Build your vocabulary, improve your knowledge of words that often go together, learn more academic words and find online dictionaries.

Quick tips for vocabulary practice

  • Create your own gap-fill exercises
  • Create your own flashcards instead of using ones created by others
  • Apply, review, and re-use new vocabulary items, always in context eg create sentences

Read more vocabulary tips

Academic Phrasebank

Find phrases you can use in your own written assignments and presentations to ensure an academic style.

Intermediate Advanced

Flax Collocations

An easy-to-use collocation search engine for words that are used together, developed by the University of Waikato.

Intermediate NZ content

Skell Collocations

Search for any word to generate example sentences from authentic sources, check collocations, or study words with a similar meaning.

Intermediate Advanced

Lextutor Concordancer

Search through a huge body of authentic English writing to see what words go together and how they are used in context.

Intermediate Advanced

AWL Exercises

Self-checking matching and multiple choice exercises for each sublist within the Academic Word List.

Intermediate

Test your vocabulary

A tool developed at Victoria University for measuring your vocabulary size—useful for students and teachers alike as a diagnostic tool.

Intermediate Advanced NZ content

Quizlet

Create an account and make your own online flashcards and exercises, or use a set made by others.

Beginner

AWL highlighter and gap-maker

Cambridge Dictionary

Definitions, examples in context, idioms, grammar notes, and different varieties of English

Oxford Learners' Dictionary

Audio for British and American pronunciation. 'Topic dictionaries' of words related to different areas of life such as business, education and technology.

Macmillan Dictionary and Thesaurus

Definitions, synonyms, related words and phrases, examples of usage and a built-in thesaurus.

Longman Dictionary of English

Includes collocations and audio of standard British and American pronunciation.

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