I see a lot of students learning vocabulary the wrong way. Here’s exactly why you should stop learning vocabulary by heart and what to do instead.
You know when you’re studying a list of words to try and learn them by heart and then you can’t remember them at all? Here’s why: your brain does not CARE because it can’t connect the words to anything. That ”anything” is called context and let me show you why learning a list of words can’t and won’t work.
For instance, you want to say that your phone ran out of battery but you want to keep it cool. So, you say: ”My phone died.” OK, that makes sense. But doesn’t died mean the same as deceased?
It does, but not in this case.
In fact, I’m pretty sure anyone whose ”phone has deceased” would make everyone laugh. Don’t be THAT person! We use ”died” both for people and phones for example, but we NEVER use ”deceased” for phones.
What to do instead:
That’s right! That should be your mantra from today on!
Let me give you an example. Let’s say you’re learning the word: ” epiphany”, meaning ”a moment of sudden great revelation or realization”. So, try to come up with an example of when you had a sudden realization. Here’s mine: ”I had an epiphany this morning and decided to write this blog post.”
Another thing you can do:
Look for a magazine article on the internet containing the word ”epiphany” so that you can see the word in context. This way it won’t be just ”one of the words I have to learn” but you’ll see real people using it in real situations.
Something that I also love doing is to go to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/ and scroll down to ”examples”. Let’s look at one of these examples for our word:
”In other words, an epiphany occurs where the words and music ‘speak to you’, becoming something more than the sum of their parts.
How poetic, right? Well, now you can see that an epiphany can occur while listening to music as well so you may opt for using it in that context! This way you’ll feel more confident while sharing your ”epiphanies” with others, as you’ll know for sure that somebody before you – most probably a native speaker (we love native speakers!) – used the word in the same context.
Help your brain connect the new words instead of tiring it out for nothing.
CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING.
