Building Your English Vocabulary
Stop memorizing isolated word lists and learn how English words actually connect and work. Master everyday word-building patterns, choose the exact right shade of meaning, and pick up natural word pairings with confidence.
Like Duolingo, but for Building Your English Vocabulary. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Cracking Words Open and Using Words in the Wild. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Building Your English Vocabulary
- A prefix is a word part added to the beginning of a base word
- Prefixes change meaning by reversing, negating, or indicating time/direction (e.g., 'un-' undoes, 're-' repeats)
- The base word retains its identity while the prefix directs how to interpret it
- Suffixes attach to the end of a word to change its part of speech or role in a sentence
- Adding '-ful' turns a noun representing a quality into an adjective meaning full of that quality
- The core concept of 'care' remains the center of the meaning
- Complex words are often built by stacking prefixes at the front and suffixes at the end
- Removing 'un-' (prefix) and '-able' (suffix) leaves the core root 'predict'
- Recognizing the core root unlocks the core meaning of an intimidating word
- A word family is a group of words created from the same base root using different prefixes and suffixes
- 'Action', 'reactor', 'actively', and 'actualize' all derive directly from 'act'
- Words that look or sound vaguely similar (like 'acute') are not part of the family if they do not share the base root
- Number prefixes like 'uni-' and 'mono-' consistently signal 'one' or 'single'
- Prefixes like 'bi-' mean two, 'tri-' means three, and 'micro-' or 'mega-' signal scale
- Spotting these prefixes gives an immediate clue to the count or size implied by an unfamiliar term
- Peeling away affixes to identify the core root inside a complex word
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Building Your English Vocabulary the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What happens when you add a prefix like 'un-' or 're-' to a word?
Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.
Where Building Your English Vocabulary takes you
- 1
Cracking Words Open
- Building Words with Everyday Blocks
- Picking the Right Shade of Meaning
- 2
Using Words in the Wild
- Spotting Words That Travel Together
- Guessing Meaning from Context Clues
2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Building Your English Vocabulary is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
More Language on Tomo
Building Your Working Vocabulary
Stop memorizing endless word lists that slip away by tomorrow. Learn how to spot, decode, and permanently adopt expressive words into your everyday speech and writing.
How Words Work and Evolve
Discover the hidden machinery behind everyday speech, from how ancient sound shifts shaped modern spelling to how word meanings drift over centuries. Learn to read words like archaeological fossils and understand how human minds assemble language.
Unlock the Magic of Reading
Stop struggling with symbols and start seeing stories. This course turns reading from a chore into a superpower by focusing on how words paint pictures in your mind.
Everyday English Sentences
Build confidence in basic English by mastering the foundational sentence structures used in daily conversation. Learn how to state ideas clearly, ask questions, sound polite, and link your thoughts smoothly.
The Senior English Toolkit
Bridge the gap between reading for class and writing with real authority. Learn to decode complex texts and build arguments that actually change minds.
How English and Arabic Work
Discover how two of the world's most influential languages build meaning, sounds, and sentences. Compare English and Arabic side by side to unlock a whole new way of understanding human speech.
Start Building Your English Vocabulary today.
Download Tomo, search Building Your English Vocabulary, and play your first lesson in under a minute.