How long to memorize vocabulary

And after all, he was studying French, a language closely related to English, and was using textbooks and watching TV alongside deck-study. But in this illustration it was wrong of Eric to let demotivation in one area of study to affect every area of study, and inevitably that was his downfall. He would also benefit by studying an introductory book on past and current foreign language instruction methodologies and maybe another on second language acquisition.

This would help inoculate him from current trends, fads and methods that all vie for his attention and his wallet. Then he can incorporate all of that into his base method and repeat the process over time as his circumstances and goals dictate. I also have a question — how is memorizing words a form of output? Or perhaps, how can it become a form of output? How about creating things with the words you already know?

Getting yourself involved, with much more confidence, in all those approaches I have described, it is, to me, the best way to keep motivated. But with one difference, you already know all the words and you are only doing this to talk as a native would. Hi Vinicius. I think that ultimately, everybody learns in a different way.

You also mentioned that you used a variety of approaches after having memorized a lot of words, which I assume helped to further widen your vocabulary and understand how sentences in the target language are formed and used in real life. I would argue that for most other languages, learning isolated words may not be a very good strategy. Puts the argument well, shredding the belief that you can memorize your way to learning a language.

There may be a few who may believe they did it that way, but I can guarantee they were also learning in other ways that enabled the mastery. Memorization gives the illusion of progress but when the rubber hits the metal and you actually have to conduct a conversation, all those hours spent memorizing soon comes to nought for most people. As Lingholic says best spend your time learning, what I call, organically so that your vocab develops with your interests and growing control of the language.

Develop more interests and you vocab will grow faster! Thanks for your comment Andrew, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head. We live in an era where people expect instant gratification, and being able to put a finger on the exact number of words that you learned on any given day satisfies that urge, I guess.

I would have never thought anyone would just want to memorize random words. Words that are useless to me, I just forget about them. People focus too much on memorization rather than exposure to engaging content. I was pretty successful learning French and Spanish while living in countries that spoke those languages. My approach was to systematically rote learn about ten new words each day that I had encountered during the day.

This ensured that the words were relevant to me and likely to recur. In both places I was around other students. Based on your observation of students that fell behind, though, were these students also the kind not to get exposed to large amounts of input in the foreign language they were learning? Also, when rote learning 10 or so new words a day, did you try to have them memorized as part of sentences to give the words some context? Did you feel that you could easily use in conversations the words you had rote memorized?

Thanks for commenting! Great to hear that this tactic has been working well for you Jenny. Do you feel you end up remembering the words that you review through your flashcards for a long period of time?

It has been working great for me too. It helps me to learn new vocabulary and improve my pronunciation. At the end of the day I think the thing that really matters is patience and consistency.

Yes, Eric sets a wrong goal. At the same time, I believe his even bigger mistake is committing to it too soon, being unconscious about the learning process itself, and letting automatic negative feedback loops to kick in. Why am I getting upset? How to make the process more relevant to me? What part of French I like the most? Probably carefully guarding his positive attitude and following what he enjoys and loves doing by blending it with French would be the right thing to do.

Based on the argument made in the article, would you agree that trying to memorize a set amount of words every day is the wrong way to approach language acquisition?

If we look at lives of high achievers, many of them have faced a lot of failures and wrong goals, wrong processes, wrong questions, etc. What makes a difference is their mind-set and ability to learn from mistakes. It helps build resilience discipline if you wish and techniques not only coping up with failures but praising them as valuable lessons.

As Jenny mentioned, learning 30 cards a day works for her. Yes, it goes together with reading and creating cards often ignored by beginners. So, what memorizing means anyway? Learning pre-made cards is probably the least effective tactic. Collecting words from reading active relevant reading , spoken language is more effective because of connections you mentioned and relevance. It would be actually even fun. I knew about that problem, so I rendered it a non-point.

Using Anki makes your brain understand that information is important because you see it over and over until you remember it. Even if you only learn a word in one way by that, I mean only by reading hiragana, or only by reading kanji, or only by recalling in response to an English stimulus , the fact that the word is somehow stored in your mind enables you to more easily learn other aspects of the same word.

Indeed, the more links you can make between already-known information and new information mnemonics, anyone? I need to put that into an Anki deck, too. However, when I struggle to complete a sentence and my Japanese friend suggests a word, I almost always recognize the word, and after just one such instance, it becomes a whole lot easier to remember that word when I want to use it later. It is a great article.

Then I got sick of anki and got studying and became pretty good it was by no means a full time thing. I am well past fluent but my limit is the lack of first word families and I suspect learning by rota would work in this case.

So I did a few hundred words, assimil, some series with English subtitles just to get used to sounds and pick up words, then a families or so with first shot serious grammar study, then we see.

You can anki all day using every memory technique out there and if you are ready, you can do words in a day. But if the words are past your level then you start to burn out at Obviously words get you to your level in 2 or 3 days and then you hit a wall.

I presume most people give up because of that rather than move to other learning methods for a bit. Used that way I really thing memorization apps are a great help. It helped me greately when I was living in Chile for 6 months.

Without every having studied Spanish before, just after 3 months I was able to at least cope with daily life situations and read my first not too hard Spanish novel. However, I completely agree that the way some people treat language learning as an almost competitive race for cramming in a short amount of time as much into your head as anyhow possible will most likely result in demotivation but even worse lots of time wasted. If you are never going to actively use the word and add context to it the situations or environments it appears in , you just will forget it again.

What does it mean? It sounds like a medical word. Jonathan LearnEnglish Teens Team. I tried to use the words and I'm going to look at the words again after 24 ours, one week and month. Before,I read the word several times,until remember.

After this tips I will make words cards and learn new words with my friends. I'm reading word many times and after repeats I remember this word. Also I trying to chat in English with my friends using new words. I'm using word cards to learn new vocabulary. Give frequent and regular exposure of the word to your brain.

Now that you are clear about the types of memory and how you can successfully memorize a word more exposure , you need to know about all the factors that affect the memorizing process. No matter what, you will never have constant attention towards studies. Sometimes your heart would want to play some video games; sometimes, you would want to see your favorite anime series, and so on. Your brain will grasp onto any piece of information only when you are actively paying attention.

The more attention you pay, the quicker you can memorize a word. At the same time, your wakefulness, concentration, and mindfulness also play a crucial role in a similar way. Have you ever noticed that you can memorize or study better only a few days before you have a big exam? Your brain tells you that you need to do better in that exam, and there is no other option. Some feel afraid of the failure not exactly getting an F , some feel the drive to have a good result in the exam.

This strange desperation or urge boosts your brain to memorize study materials quicker. You need to retain the words in your brain for a long time. So, try to aim for excellence and motive your brain to see the bigger picture. It will help you attain better and long-lasting results. Clearer mind helps you to grasp more knowledge. At the same time, you need to feel the urge to memorize a word from the core of your heart.

If you truly want to memorize a word from the core of your heart while considering no other secondary reason, it will beget better results. On the other hand, if you are feeling down or sad or feel forced to memorize a word, you will need way more time than you should need.

Try growing a habit of memorizing ten new words in the early morning, when your cognitive functions are flowing with positive mental energy. The location and external environment of your study place can influence your cognitive efficiency. For example, if you are trying to memorize new words while commuting through the subway in a jam-packed train car, you will most like see a below-average result. Now, if you do the same thing in the early morning in a calm and blissful park, you will a completely different result.

External environmental factors like the location, lighting, noise, and smell stimulate our brains in a different way. We will feel more conscious about them rather than focusing on memorizing the words. So, choose your study location wisely. Make yourself comfortable but not too comfortable you will end up having a nap instead! Yes, you have read it right! Your breathing practices affect your memorizing capabilities too. A study found out that having dynamic rhythmic nasal breathing helps our brains to work more efficiently.

Also, we can memorize things better if we can breathe properly. Scientists label this breathing behavior as olfactory breathing. Another study discusses that olfactory breathing stimulates the prefrontal cortex to take part in the memorizing functions.

So, you should practice having a steady and rhythmic nasal breathing while studying new words, and you will have better results. Partaking in the meditational activities will also come in handy! The first step towards is building a vocabulary base.

And believe me, this is the hardest step of all. Even learning all the grammatical rules of a language will seem like a piece of cake after you have a strong vocabulary base. Things are even tougher for kids. If you are a native English speaker, then thigs could be a little easy for you. But still, you will struggle to boost your vocabulary to 25, words quota. Why am I focusing on the number 25,?

Because memorizing new words is a daunting challenge. Still, you could try following these steps. They will help you increase your word retention capability.

Also, they are the answer to your question - how to memorize words fast! Word mapping is a simple and effective visual tool that you can use to develop your vocabulary. A typical web has the main word in the center and a couple of branches connected to it. Now, put the word weather in the center of the web and connect the four other words cold, hot, windy, and rainy connected to the weather with lined branches. This time, you will add up more branches with the previous branched word.

The stage-two branches will be the synonyms of stage-one branches cold, hot, etc. So, these four words form the second stage of the web. Go on, make your own word maps that suit your needs and situations.

The only limit is your imagination and creativity. The best way to remember a new word is by giving it a context. The right answer would be all of them! The definition of the word changes with the changing cases.

So, how can you know which definition of the word is active in a sentence? Context refers to the other words that surround a specific word in a sentence. Even the whole paragraph can help you figure out the proper definition of a word. Tom set the table for lunch. Mark set the chair by the couch. In the first sentence, set is referring to arranging the food and other tools to have a meal.

But in the second sentence, set is referring to placing an object to any specific place. You will have to use the context to help you memorize a word.

From now on, while making a list of words to memorize, don't just write the word. Add the definitions along with contexts in a sentence. If you find a different meaning of an already known word, add the new meaning with a context in your list.

This is how you can create a Context Library.