How To Memorise Vocabulary When Learning A Language

When you look at a language you will see that grammar is the frame work that holds the language together, but the building blocks are made up from the vocabulary.

You need vocabulary otherwise you can’t talk about anything;
it gives context to your conversations and helps you discuss everything in your life. It’s extremely important to have a good vocabulary.

However, learning vocabulary is hard. It’s also boring and not very interesting so I will go through some of the ways you can learn vocabulary and memorise it more effectively.

Remembering Vocabulary Lists Doesn’t Work

If you think back to school you will have probably been given a list of words to learn. usually something like “Here are all the words for the rooms of the house” This is never a good idea as you just learn them in order, rather than in context.

I would be able to memorise these lists easily, but I had no idea what they meant and I could only remember them in the order I learned them. If they were out of sync I would be lost.

Learning lists like this is only good for one thing, which is reciting them for a test. Learning a language is a not a test and being able to recite words like this is totally useless for you.

(You can read more about – Why You Can’t Learn A Language In School)

Using Repetition Methods To Learn Vocabulary

Repetition methods are not perfect either, but they are the best way to get things done. They can be quite similar to just learning a list of words, but usually there is a bit more logic to what you are doing and it’s not just a single list.

You do run the risk of just parroting what you have learned, without really understanding it, but I have found that you sometimes need to do this initially, then follow it up further learning to make sense of what you have learned.

Your brain needs repeated exposure to things to get comfortable with them, so really to learn anything in a language you are going to have to encounter it multiple times.

Spaced Repetition – Flash Cards

Flash cards and apps like Anki are probably the most well known way to learn vocabulary and they use spaced repetition.

This basically means you will see the word now, and then the app will show to you it in a certain amount of time. Maybe one minute, maybe 10, maybe in a few days. The idea is that you should be able to remember it when you see it again.

Each time you remember the word, the amount of time until you see it again will get spaced out. This sounds strange, but there has been research done around this and basically apps like Anki know how long you should be able to remember something for. The idea is that the more you see something, the longer you can go before forgetting it. The app will also show you the word, just before you forget it, meaning you will not forget it.

Flash cards can be pretty useful, but the problem is that the words are not in context. It is a better process than just learning a list of words, but it’s still not ideal.

It is a very popular system used in the language learning community and I do use it myself. I think it has its place and I know I have learned and more importantly remembered a lot of new words through this system.

Writing It Out

This is the part where I am probably going to anger you, or I will get a lot of messages saying this isn’t the best way. Well, for me, it works and it works very well.

I believe if you want to memorise new vocabulary you have to write it out a few times and try and recall it.

This process is easy. You just have to look at the word, take it in, cover it up and try and write down what you just read. You then need to check if you have got it correct. If you did, Good! If not, look at the word again, cover it up and write it again. Keep doing this until you have are able to write it correctly from memory.

Then you just need to test yourself every now and again to check if you can still remember it. Test yourself 10 minutes later, an hour later, before you go to bed and even again the next morning. Any time you get it wrong; just keep writing it until you can get it down correctly.

This is sort of like how people study with flash cards; but instead of just quickly looking at the target word you are writing it down and testing yourself.

This approach is extremely time consuming and not really that efficient, but its works. I think flash cards do a good job, but writing it out just engraves the words into my memory extremely quickly.

I have used this to learn all sorts of things that I need to memorise outside of language learning. This technique has never failed me. It’s just annoying that it very slow and labour intensive so probably not going to be viable option to learn a whole language.

Natural Repetition – Immersion

Probably the best way to get repetition of words naturally is to do it through immersion. Every time you read or listen to the language you are going to be exposed to the same words over and over again and the best part is that everything is actually in context. You are just enjoying the language as intended, but also getting plenty of repetition.

This is slow going and you often feel like you are getting nowhere, but your subconscious will be loving it. It does actually help even if it doesn’t feel like you are actually working on remembering things.

(You can read more about – Learning A Language By Immersion)

Vocabulary By Association

This method can be helpful at times, but I feel its range is limited. To learn vocabulary by association you need to basically have the object pointed out while hearing the word.

This is exactly how most babies learn things. You point at a cat and say cat. If you do this enough times the baby will work out that the cat is a cat.

You can do this an adult, but like I said, it’s not great. You can basically say the word everytime you either do something, or see something. So for example, every time you see a cat yourself, you should say cat in your target language.

It can be a good way to get some practice and it is always helpful to link a word with some something physical, but really it only works if you have that thing there to see and you remember the word. It’s not very helpful if you are out on a walk and see a cat …only to forget what the word is.

Using Mnemonics To Learn Vocabulary

I am often told that you should use mnemonics to help you learn. I think they have their place, especially if you are initially trying to store something to memory.

However, I feel they are short lived. I know there where many mnemonics we were taught as kids, but I can’t remember any of them.

As an example, we were taught something as kids to remember the planets. I can’t remember this mnemonic, but I can remember the planets.

…let me just looks this up …MVEMJSUNP??

…So that makes no sense. Apparently you need to say a little sentence …My Very Educated Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets.

Well who remembers that? …NOT me, but I’m sure my 9yr old self found this very useful back in the day and it’s probably helped me commit the actual planets to memory, which is what I can still remember today.

Using Visualisations To Learn Vocabulary

This is a memory trick I see recommended all the time. The idea is that your visualise something crazy that you link to the word you want to remember. Then when you need to remember the word you remember your image, which makes you remember the word. I guess it’s like the association I mentioned above, but it’s all in your imagination.

So let me try and give you an example of how it works. The French word for camel is Chameau … It sort of sounds like Shamu …you know, the killer whale that was at SeaWorld. So, to help me remember this word I would picture Shamu the killer whale trying to do a jump, but he has a camel on his back.

I fully believe this is does work for some people, but for me, it doesn’t. I don’t know if I’m just doing it wrong or I don’t have a very visual imagination, but it just doesn’t help me.

In two days time I am not going to remember this image and if I do, it will make no sense. More importantly, when I need to say it, I’m not going to be thinking of this.

I certainly recommend you give it a try, maybe you will find it useful, but if you don’t, then you’re not the only one.

Visualisation and Kanji

As much as I’ve just say the technique of visualisation doesn’t work for me, that only seems to be in French. I have tried learning some Japanese kanji and making silly little stories about them does actually help you remember them.

However, they need to be good stories that make sense to what you are seeing in the kanji and you also need to practice them. There are some kanji I look at a few days later and nothing clicks. I have no idea what I’m looking at and can’t remember the visualisation story.

I do think this method works, you just need to practice it a lot or you can quickly lose it.

Conclusion

To learn any aspect of a language, especially vocabulary, repetition is key. Whatever you do, you need to just repeat and repeat whatever it is until you’ve got it down.

If you look at most of the language apps, they all have a review/test function where they try and get you to recall thing. Sometimes this is active and they make you type out the word and other times its passive and you just click on some options.

Always remember that language learning is a slow race. Just keep slowly adding your layers of words every day and eventually you will be where you want to be and will have built up a strong vocabulary.

(You can read more about – How Does Our Brain Memorise New Vocabulary?)