Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Intermingle]

I would like to learn more vocabularies with the aim of writing formal letter, assignment and proposal.

for example,
live >> reside
tell>>inform

I'm looking for a dictionary or vocabulary book that help in transferring a simple and normal word to a formal one. With clear index that easier for words searching. Does anyone know if there's this kind of book or dictionary? Or any website that has the resources fro formal verbs tranferring? Thanks.

[Intermingle]

It's a disaster everytime I need to write up a formal document and I can't search for a formal word or expression in my mind to replace the general word and expression.

[Lorikeet]

You can try a thesaurus, but it really requires that you already know how the word is used. Otherwise you could make some mistakes because you might use an informal usage in the wrong place. Here's an on-line example: http://thesaurus.reference.com/ You can put a word in the box and search, and you will see how it's done.

[Intermingle]

Thank you, Lorikeet.
It's a good suggestion.
However, the thesaurus doesn't indicate which word is formal and which one is informal. Sometimes I can't distinguish which one is more
appropriate in official expression.

Are there any resources already listed out the most commonly used formal words/verbs for writing formal letter or assignment?
I'm looking for the list because I want to memorize the words in advance, so that I can apply the formal words/verbs immediately whenever I need to write up the documents.

[asterix]

It is a mistake to think that you must use obscure words to replace everyday terms, just because you want to sound erudite, or formal.
Live and tell are perfectly good words to use in formal writing.

[Intermingle]