Memorizing vocabulary is one of the hardest part which needs effort in learning languages. It’s not that fun to keep seeing unknown words. Even we try hard to memorize one day, we forget them easily after a while. Our language improvement level is not visible and it’s hard to keep motivate ourselves to learn. But if you understand how our brains store words, it would be easier to memorize new words.
Mechanism of memory
Have you heard that there are short-term memory and long-term memory? Short-term memory has limited capacity and we can keep only a few items there, but long-term memory has a massive storage capacity. For learning a language, we want to hold vocabulary inour long-term memory. So the key is to know how to change from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Here are 7 tips to memorize vocabulary.
1. Listen and Pronounce words
I know that many people only read and some others listen. I understand that we can not pronounce during studying in the train, library or other public places. However, both listening and pronouncing words are very important step and we should never skip them to learn language. Why?
If you don’t listen, you cannot learn correct pronunciation.
If you don’t know correct pronunciation, you cannot hear the words.
And If we cannot pronounce correctly, we cannot read out correctly too.
So the step to memorize vocabulary is:
See > Listen > Pronounce > Write (if needed)
In this way, you can learn by eyes, ears, and mouth. It helps to associate the words and change to long-term memory.
Please think to set your time to study at home and voice vocabulary.
2. Categorize words
Can you keep motivation to memorize endless long list of vocabulary? It’s easier to cut to small categories and choose categories to learn each day. You can set the goal of the day like “I learn vegetable and fruit words today!”. Furthermore, grouping words by category associate them and strengthen your long-term memory.
3. Basic 500 words + words for you
First, learn 500 essential words in order to communicate well and to understand others. Then, it’s time to choose words which is important or interesting for you. If you learn words related to your work, hobbies or daily life, you will have higher chance to use these words. It’s practical and it definitely motivate you to learn more vocabulary.
4. Repeat! No problem to forget!
Do you think it’s hard to memorize vocabulary because you forget it quickly? Yes, it’s true. When we see new vocabulary for the first time, it’s stored in in our short-term memory and we forget it after a while. So it’s normal to forget it. Don’t afraid to forget vocabulary!
To avoid to forget words, very classic but important simple way is REPEATING. When you see the words many times, brain recognize it as important word and store it to long-term memory.
Attention: Don’t test too quickly!
One way to repeat and check your progress is to examine vocabulary you learned. Although it’s a good way to know which vocabulary you haven’t memorize, I don’t recommend to test it too quickly. If you test before many words you learned are stored in long-term memory, it stresses your brain heavily and make you tired. There are many apps to test your learning too early. After this experience, you feel it’s too stressful and may stop to learn by the app.
So in the beginning, you just need to repeat to see, listen and pronounce words. After you feel you memorize quite well, it’s good to test and focus on the words you haven’t memorize.
5. Learn in Contexts
Another way to memorize words efficiently is to learn by context. Sometimes it’s hard to memorize only words. When you learn them in contexts, they will stick in your brain better. So when you lean vocabulary, try to make sentences by using that vocabulary.
For example, if you learn the word “pen”:
– I want to buy a pen.
– Can I borrow your pen?
– My father bought me this pen from Paris.
Try to imagine your real-life situation! You can make practical sentences.
However, it’s not easy to make sentences for all vocabulary. So you can pick up some vocabulary which is not easy to memorize for you.
6. Set a schedule in your dairy life.
I mentioned that repeating is important. It’s simple but it can be most difficult to continue for most of the people. Setting a schedule in your dairy life make it easier to continue. In the morning, during lunch time, before sleeping…depends on your life style. Set notification in your phone every day in the same time is one way.
Learning languages is like a training muscles. You cannot see the effect immediately but if you continue to train, you can surely get the result in the future.
7. Almost all can be done in LingoCards app!
Lastly, LingoCards app cover almost all points above. Flash cards which cover basic vocabularyare already categorized well. You can see, listen and pronounce vocabulary repeatedly without stress. When you want, you can test anytime. The app makes you to repeat vocabulary naturally by the gamification.
Recap
- Listen and Pronounce words
- Categorize words
- Basic 500 words + words for you
- Repeat! No problem to forget!
- Learn in Contexts
- Set a schedule in your dairy life
- Learn with LingoCards app efficiently
