Tips for remembering vocabulary :)
Over the years, I’ve noticed that some students assimilate vocabulary quite quickly while others don’t. People tend to blame this on having a good or bad memory, or, even being good or bad at languages – which I’m not convinced is a thing! But, what really makes this difference?
Based on my experience and research, one of the main reasons some students are able to remember vocabulary more quickly is because they simply spend more time with the language than others. Inevitably, the more time you spend reading, listening to and speaking a language, the easier it is to assimilate. However, I also have some specific tips about how you spend this time with a language that I’d like to share with you here. I hope they’ll be useful for you!
1) Listen to or read English every day for 20 minutes – or as often as you can! Ideally, you would engage in this activity every day, but we’re busy people with lives – so, it’s a good idea to aim to listen to or read English AT LEAST TWICE A WEEK, in addition to the lessons you may have or the homework that the teacher gives you.
For those of you thinking that you don’t even have time to do this, listening while driving or walking, for example, is still helpful. You’ll start to absorb common words as they’re repeated a lot – without deliberately revising them.
If you have time to sit down and give your full attention to a video or article etc, my advice is to try to understand the general meaning and to only look up words that are crucial to understanding or that are consistently used - and therefore seem useful.
A lot of students feel that they need to pay attention to and understand every word – it’s not the case. Think about it – how much attention do you pay to watching Netflix in your native language?! You’re focusing on the meaning, not every little word. So, try to relax and just focus on what you can understand.
You’ll find that by engaging with the same content multiple times, you’ll naturally start to retain words even if you’re not consciously studying them – although, of course you can also do this, which I’ll discuss in tip 2.
Learning words within a context is very useful – and this is why working with real sources helps a lot. When we form memories, we’re forming networks in our brains between not only words, but other things experienced when we come across them – such as smell, sound, location, people, the story etc. The more context you have to link a word to, the more chance you’ll have of recalling it because that word is attached to more things in your mind.
2) Active revision of language also helps, especially when you’re not able to consume as much as you’d like – but how do we do this?!
There are a number of useful methods for doing this, but, before you start revising – be realistic! Most of us can’t remember 100 new words or phrases in a week, so you have to be selective. If you manage to consciously memorise 20 new words or phrases in a week, you’ll make consistently great progress - especially since memorising vocabulary gets easier as you become more familiar with the language in general.
Once you’ve got your words to revise, you can choose different tools to help you.
You can use flashcard apps like Duocards – my preference – or Anki. You can also revise with lists, diagrams, pictures or all of these!
In all cases, though, you need to pay attention to the frequency of your revision. In his book, How We learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where And Why It Happens, Benedict Carrey uses various academic studies to show that ‘distributed learning’ or the ‘spacing effect’ – spacing our revision appropriately rather than concentrating it into a short space of time - is far more effective for long-term retention.
He argues that while cramming (concentrated learning) can be very useful the day before an exam, it’s unlikely that you’ll retain the information after that. He further contends that revising immediately after learning something ‘doesn’t deepen the memory much, if at all’ whereas ‘studying it an hour later or a day later, does’.
Using the studies performed by Wiseheart and Pashler and the ‘Four Bahrick Study’, he explains that your intervals of study should be determined by how long you want to retain things for, and that longer spaces between repetition ultimately help long-term retention more than more frequent repetition.
According to Wiseheart and Pashler, if you want to retain something for a year - your first revision interval should be 1 month after consciously trying to learn it the first time. Counterintuitive perhaps, and they show that shorter intervals are better if you only need to remember something for a short period. However, by leaving 1 month between revision you’re making your brain work harder to recall the word and therefore making the network around it stronger. Ultimately, you’ll be able to more easily recover that word as a result.
After this first interval, repetition should become less frequent but regular. So, for example, if you can remember the word after a month, you shouldn’t study it again for 3 and then 6 months etc.
If you don’t want to have to organise all of this yourself, I suggest using an app like ‘Duocards’ since many use research on distributed learning to space the repetition for you – and that’s why I like them!
3) Try not to just remember single words, but phrases or useful collocations. We’ve already mentioned that our brains form networks between things experienced at the same moment. Language in context also helps us form networks with more points of contact, which increases our chances of word retrieval. So, it follows that we shouldn’t try to remember words without some kind of context.
I’m currently learning Ukrainian and I was very naughty and tried to learn a lot of individual words at the beginning, even though I knew better. I figured, easy words like colours or foods didn’t need much context – but I quickly found out I was wrong! My language exchange partner asked me to describe my apartment and I found I couldn’t remember any colours at all, despite having revised these words many times and having retrieved them in tests.
The memories were in my brain, but I couldn’t get to them because they weren’t really linked to much else – they were just floating around who-knows-where! So, I gradually updated all of my flashcards from just single words and it’s helped a lot. ‘червоне вино’ (red wine) and ‘Я не їм цукру’ (I don’t eat sugar) are more difficult to learn at first but ultimately easier memories to retrieve.
And this is not the only advantage of memorising phrases and collocations (words that are commonly used together). A major advantage is that you start to assimilate phrases that you can actually use, rather than just random words, and you learn grammatical structures without focusing too much on the grammar itself.
4) Vary your revision, sources and even location!
Carrey tells us in his book that studying with interruptions and in different locations can be beneficial and this is because it adds more stimulus to our experience, therefore making it easier to retrieve in the long term – as discussed before. So, give different locations or times of study, for example, a go.
He also, cites work by researchers Bjork and his student, Kate Kornell who advocate for ‘interleaving’, which is ‘mixing related but distinct material’ – and this is key for us. Interleaving builds up more general skills in an area which, although less efficient in the beginning, makes retention of vocabulary and understanding of concepts like grammar, much better in the long term.
What does that mean for us practically? It means, mix your new vocabulary with your old vocabulary; if you’re revising food words – watch cooking videos which will also use a range of verbs and adjectives for example; or, switch between vocabulary lists. It also means doing small things like changing your phone language into English (or whatever you’re trying to learn).
Anybody who’s had any success in learning a language will tell you that they did it by using lots of different sources and taking advantage of varying opportunities to practice – they didn’t do it be simply using a textbook or revising lists of vocabulary. It doesn’t mean abandon focused practice, it just means don’t try to perfect one thing, to the exclusion of everything else, before you move on.
5) Have conversations or make speeches in your head! This one might sound a bit strange, but I know I’m not the only one who practices foreign languages in my head. I swear it works!
Firstly, you can use vocabulary in imaginary conversations which aids retrieval because the more times we try to recall something, the stronger the neural links for this memory become. Furthermore, it helps you to notice where the holes in your vocabulary are quickly so you know that you need to look up these words. Next time you’re walking, putting on your make up or doing the washing up – give it a go!
6) Lastly, if all else fails, do something! As I said at the beginning of this post, spending time with the language will inevitably increase your skills in the end – so that means, don’t give up. Keep going, even if you can’t dedicate as much time as you want, in the way you want.
In his book, The 9 Unbreakable Laws of Language Learning…, English teacher and language learner, Benjamin J. Lawson agrees that gradual practice is the best way to learn a language and he personally tries to practice for between 15-30 minutes per day. However, the rule that he’s created for himself is that he’ll dedicate at least 1 minute per day to his chosen language.
I like this rule, because it’s realistic and even if it seems too little, ‘something is infinitely better than nothing’, as he says, and it keeps the process going when life gets stressful or busy – getting you closer to your ultimate goal.
Your personal bare minimum rule might be different, especially depending on how many languages you’re learning but I like Lawson’s rule and try to apply it. I try to do something every day, even if it’s a terrible day – and this is where things like Duolingo or flashcard apps come in handy – you don’t have to crack out the books or do too much thinking!
So, those are my tips - I hope they’ll be helpful to you. Maybe you’ve found other ways of remembering vocabulary - I’d love to hear about them! If you’re really interested in upgrading your learning, you can check out the books I mention in the text as they’re useful. Good luck!