Hey, here’s the 10 tips on how to learn vocabulary effectively based on my recent experiences.
Stop memorizing the translation
A common mistake would be just rote memorizing the translations in your native language. In some cases maybe okay, but generally you shouldn’t.
The translation may not be accurate. This happened to me. And it is not easy to correct the memorization as it already took root. It happened when he Chinese words used in translation have multiple meanings. I carelessly took the meaning which is not correct.
And translating in mind is too slow in real life conversations. If you do that inside your head, you need to process two languages simultaneously, which takes more time for you to think. You can never be fluent.
Understand it
The fastest way to remember a word is to understand it. Not memorizing its translation nor its English explanations. It is a little tricky. But it actually happens in all languages.
There are lots of borrowed words in Chinese like coffee, sofa, pizza, party, etc. Every Chinese People can use these words without hesitation even if they have never learnt English. We don’t translate these words inside our heads. Because we already created a link between “word -> true meaning”, not “word -> translation / explanation -> true meaning”. Translation is only helpful to let you understand the word itself and make this linkage.
For adjectives, nouns and verbs, a good way is to google a picture or video about it. For example, the word “huddle” took me a while to remember because the translation is vague and English explanation is too long. But once I googled it and saw this picture, I understood this word immediately and remembered it.
Use it
Another common mistake is to practice reading and listening too much, and not enough writing and speaking. I made this mistake all along until this year. Then I watched a video said outputs are far more important than inputs. And that’s the reason I set up this blog.
It is much harder to learn English in China than really be in foreign countries. There aren’t enough motivations. For introvert people like me, it is even harder. So instead of making face-to-face conversations, I would like to choose other ways I am more comfortable with. Like writing a blog. When I feel that I am well prepared and don’t have to do a lot of lookups in dictionary, I may downloaded a chat app and try to talk to strangers.
Anyway, remember to put equivalent efforts into writing & speaking.
Ignore spelling
Spelling is really not that important in daily life. We already have spell checking and auto correction tools in all kinds of apps. There is no need to spend much time to remember the correct spelling for long words.
What’s more important is the pronunciation. You cannot spell a word right if you cannot pronounce it right. And you cannot use it in a conversation if you cannot pronounce it. In the English-learning App I used there is a step that the app only play the pronunciation without showing the word itself and ask you to recall the meaning. This sort of training is helpful. Some people recognize the word in reading, but not in listening. And it is the wrong way to study. I believe that even native English speakers cannot always spell words right.
Ignore this if you are learning for an exam.
Memorize it in sentences
Learning a word in context makes you harder to forget. Or you can do it the other way round - Remembering sentences you like from movies, tv shows, songs, books or whatever. And add unfamiliar words to your learning list. You can start pick from those you are already familiar with. Like the Batman Trilogy movies for me.
Another technique is for those words easier to forget, you wrote them down first. And for every 10 words, use them to make sentences, write a short paragraph, make a story. Reinforce memorization by using them.
Group words together
This is the technique I used the most. Remember the words in groups, and when you saw one of them, try to recall the rest. There are several ways to group words:
- By same affixes. Like: topography, topology.
- By similar spellings. Like: mediate, meditate.
- From same word but different meanings. Like: deviance, deviation
- By synonyms / antonyms. Like: adversary, antagonist
- By similar functions. Like: cumin, aniseed, peppercorn
It happens spontaneously when your vocabulary reaches a certain size, and your mind try to keep your memory organized.
Think in English
Like the cornerstone of being a photographer is the training of eyes, to be a good English speaker requires training of mind. I mentioned to stop translating in the former part. I want to reiterate that it is the game changer to be a fluent English speaker. I myself benefits from it a lot. Try to use English all the way through in your head, rather than think in your mother tongue and translate into English.
At the beginning you should set aside some time and do it on purpose. For example, take 10 minutes to recall your day before sleep. If you encountered words you don’t know, use Chinese first and check it later. Sooner you will be able to do this exercise anywhere anytime. Like on the way to office, you can describe what you see in the street.
What I like to do is to ask myself random questions. Or you can use an online question generator, image generator to start with.
Do a review every month
No matter how hard you study today, you tends to forget some words on the other day / week. So I took a day every month to review every words in the “completed” list, and put those forgettable ones back to the study list.
As your vocabulary size increases, time for revising old words should also increases. Don’t take over an hour everyday to study vocabulary. It becomes tedious. In that case you can slow down by learning less new words.
Take it slowly
Language learning is the second hardest thing I have ever tried. (The first one is drawing.) It may takes years of efforts to see significant improvements. Let’s not rush it.
I took 30 mins last year every day and now increased to 1 hour for vocabulary learning. It has became a routine. It doesn’t make much difference for a long time. But in retrospect I think I am indeed improved. I made a long term plan for the next 3 years. I am sure I can be better and better by keeping this pace.
Enjoy it
Finally, if learning English inflicts pain on you, there is something seriously wrong. Try to adjust your learning schedule and make fun with it. For example, you can play a game in English. Choose those with larger amount of dialogues, like “To the moon”. Or if you are playing a card game, try to remember all the card names. Language learning could be a tedious process, it is impossible to persist without relish.
These are all my tips for now from the first year of study. Hope you find this post helpful.