There are many fulfilling steps in learning a language, from the excitement of your first conversation with a fluent speaker to the intellectual challenge of learning grammar rules. But at some point, there’s just no way around it: you have to memorize a bunch of words.
While learning English vocabulary lists is not glamorous work, every new word gained is another ticket towards making yourself understood. Here are our top tips for how to absorb new English words as efficiently possible!
10 simple tips on how to memorize English vocabulary
Maybe one day, scientists will invent a way for us to download dictionaries straight into our brains. Until then, here are 15 vocabulary-building tips for those learning English.
1. Use flashcards (in moderation!)
To use flashcards or not to use flashcards? Some teachers say they’re an effective way to learn small facts in bulk. Others say that learning words with flashcards means removing them from their contexts, and often causes important layers of meaning to be lost.
We think that flashcards are very useful tools. If you’re just starting out, they certainly have a place in your language-learning toolkit. This said, make sure to practice whatever words you learn with flashcards in different situations as soon as you can. For example, if you learn lots of food words, try reading a recipe in English too to see how they are used in practice.
There are many free flashcard apps available to use on your phone. With these, you can learn a few new vocabulary words anytime you get a spare moment. They often also come with fun vocabulary quizzes built in to test yourself! Some of our favorites include:
- Tinycards
- Memrise (Memrise is great — check out our review!)
- Word Power Lite
- Quizlet
For best results, make your own sets rather than relying on pre-created ones. This way, you can learn words which you yourself have come across in your other English language work, and so will be familiar with their context from the beginning. The making process will also help you learn the words quicker.
2. Try learning example sentences
Another point about the importance of learning words in context! Sometimes words are used completely differently in practice than you might think. For example, when taking journeys by train or bus, many native English speakers, in practice, use the verb “to catch.” It is common to hear sentences such as:
- I catch the bus at 7:30 every weekday.
- We’re catching an overnight train.
If you learned the verb “to catch” as a single word, you might describe it as “to receive and hold, or to capture.” This definition is correct! But learning this and nothing else would make a common sentence like the one above sound extremely odd to you.
That’s why lots of people swear by a technique called “sentence mining” — learning lists of full sentences. Fans claim that it makes them able to use new vocabulary faster since they memorize its grammar and common use cases from the start.
Not sure which sentences to start with? Try this free list complete with audio recordings or invest in an ebook like this one. Better yet, work with a Preply tutor to come up with some sentences which are relevant to your own life!
3. Use it or lose it
There’s a cliche in English, “use it or lose it.” This can refer to anything which gets weaker or stops working without regular use — fitness levels, car engines…relationships. “Use it or lose it” is especially true of new vocabulary. Every student has had the experience of forgetting a word they already learned once because they didn’t take it for a test ride.
As soon as you learn a word, try it out to “make it stick.” In the ideal world, this would mean using it in conversation with an English speaker. For instance, learning the vocabulary relevant to getting a haircut, and then visiting an English speaking barber. However, this isn’t always possible, so here are some other ways to use new vocabulary:
- Leave a comment on a forum or YouTube video using this word.
- Watch a video or listen to a podcast where you know this word is likely to come up “in the wild” — allowing you to recognize it and apply your knowledge in context.
- Speak the word aloud in a sentence, even if just to yourself.
These ways can all help, but using new words in conversation is by far the most effective way to make them “stick” in your memory for good. Book a lesson with a Preply tutor and you have an entire hour of a native speaker’s attention to discuss the vocabulary you need. You’ll be amazed at how many more words you remember!
4. Look up new words (the right way!)
This is an obvious point, but if you keep hearing a word and aren’t sure what it means, try to look it up as soon as you can. In the age of Google translate, this is easier than ever! However, many words do not translate directly between two languages, so according to some people, Google translate and dual-language dictionaries can lead to a lot of misunderstandings. We asked an expert, the YouTube teaching star, Bob the Canadian: what is the best way to look up new words?
Bob said, “My preferred way to look up a new word is to use Google images. If it’s a noun, try to do that because it’s good to see a picture before reading a definition.” That’s a good idea for nouns, at least images have no language! “My second choice would be to look up the word in an English dictionary, and then my last choice would be to use an English-to-your-native-language dictionary, such as Google translate.”
According to Bob, “Your native language is both your friend and your enemy when learning a new language. Sometimes, you have to let it into the learning process, but if you can keep it at a distance, you will learn faster.”
5. Write words down
Writing out new words by hand is really old-fashioned! Surely, in the digital age, language learning has moved on? Well, you would think so, but no.
Writing new information out with a pen and paper makes you more likely to remember it than just typing it out — we found a ton of studies to prove it. No one is quite sure of the science behind this! Perhaps it is just because putting something down on paper takes more time than tapping it out on a keyboard. Perhaps it is because writing by hand requires more intentional movement. In any case, this is a surprisingly helpful trick.
6. Keep a notebook handy
Every time you are exposed to English you will come across new words that you don’t understand. Each time you notice a new word, it’s a great opportunity! Get a dedicated notebook for your new English vocabulary, and write down each new word that strikes you as interesting. This is an effective study method because each one of your notebook words comes attached to its own memory, giving you a more significant reason to remember them.
Start small – try writing down five new words for each English study session you do. Your notebook will soon grow into a really helpful resource!
7. Try using the plural form or different tenses
As every ESL student knows, English grammar can be cruel. There are lots of strange rules and unkind exceptions (see also: our article with ten tips on English grammar). When learning new words, it can be helpful to learn some of them in their plural or past tense forms. This helps you get a little extra grammar practice, and can also make those words easier to use in real-life situations.
This is also very helpful when learning words with irregular past tenses or plural forms. For instance, it is worth learning “people” separately to the singular “person,” because this word is used quite often.
8. Use mnemonics
Mnemonics are a memorization technique that many people swear by. A mnemonic is a strange image or a story that learners make to help them remember a word and its meaning. For example, if you were trying to remember the Spanish verb, “to fit” — “caber” — you might picture a man trying to fit a bear into the passenger seat of a cab (or taxi). In that bizarre mental image, you have the two sounds you need to remember “cab” and “ber”, along with the meaning of the word “to fit”
The stranger and sillier the image, the more likely it is to stick in your brain. Mnemonics require a little bit of imagination to come up with, but they are astonishingly effective!
9. Mix it up!
If you need to learn a lot of vocabulary in a short time — for a test, for instance — don’t rely solely on a flashcard app! To stay engaged, your brain needs new experiences. Introducing new vocabulary in unusual ways can seem silly, but can be extremely effective. You could try:
- Putting post-it notes with new words in places where you see them often in daily life: on the bathroom mirror, on the kettle, on the fridge (if the people you live with don’t mind!)
- Recording yourself speaking a list of new vocabulary and its translations, and listening back when you’re doing some other task.
- Making some old-school flashcards, hand-writing your definitions.
Bob the Canadian also gave us some great advice on how and why to vary your memorization tasks. “I highly recommend that when you learn an English noun, you draw a picture of it. If you can get things to go through your brain in different ways, you will know it better.”
10. Read, read, read
Once you have mastered the basics of English, you can start to learn new vocabulary as children do. By making sensible guesses about an unknown word based upon the words used around it that you do know. For example, you might not have specifically learned the word “grunted” but if you read the sentence “the pig grunted loudly, and the other animals on the farm were afraid”…then you’ve probably made an accurate guess that this is the English name for the noise a pig makes.
This is one of the best ways to learn new words since you understand from the beginning the circ*mstances where they are used. Many people start out by reading children’s books since they were, after all, made for English learners! If your reading level is a little more advanced than this and you’d like some interesting reading materials, check out our article on where to find free English audiobooks.
Expert advice: the best ways to improve your vocabulary in English
Still want more advice? Here’s a live lesson from tutor, Michael P. with some expert tips for increasing your vocabulary in English. Michael has 17 years experience as an English teacher, and works as the Head of English at a high school in Guadalajara, Mexico (when he’s not teaching on Preply!) so he has a lot of knowledge to share.
1-on-1 tutoring with Preply: the best way to memorize and master vocabulary
Serious about improving your English vocabulary fast? Then 1-on-1 lessons with a personal tutor are a sensible investment. Lessons with Preply can save you hours of struggle by giving you the valuable practice you need to make words stick. If you have regular opportunities to talk to an English speaker, you’ll end the infuriating process of learning and instantly forgetting words!
Unlike in a traditional classroom setting, you and your tutor can decide on exactly what you want to learn. Lessons can focus on vocabulary which is relevant to your own life, and you can put all those juicy new words to use whenever you need to! Try it and you’ll be amazed at the speed of progress.
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