Today I’ve decided to share the only 7 tricks you need to remember vocabulary! It’s your lucky day!!!!!!🌈
Are you struggling with trying to recall all those new words for your test next week? You’re traveling to a foreign country and want to communicate with locals but you can’t without those pesky expressions that don’t even make sense? Or you just want to improve vocabulary in your own language because you want to be the king/queen of eloquence? I understand!
Let’s learn how to remember vocabulary so that it MAKES SENSE and to ensure you don’t forget it. If you’d like to know why you shouldn’t remember vocabulary by heart, make sure to check out my other article: https://accentavocado.com/learning-vocabulary-by-heart-the-truth-about-it/
OK! Ready? Let’s start with the first step (duh):
1) Study the meaning
You can’t learn something unless you know what it MEANS, right? For starters, simply look at the first dictionary entry, just so you get the overall idea. I’ll take the word ”rate” as an example. After a very quick glance at a dictionary we see that it means ”the speed at which something happens”, that is enough for the moment. In step 3 we’ll get into more detail.
2) Listen and repeat
Most of the time, my students are hesitant to use new vocabulary because THEY CAN’T PRONOUNCE IT! And it makes sense, why would you want to a) go to the trouble of saying something you don’t fully understand and b) embarrass yourself seeing as the pronunciation is incorrect ?
DON’T LET THAT STOP YOU. As kids, we’d say a lot of funny things but did that stop us from speaking our native language? NO! Consider yourself a kid that’s learning a language, all over again.😊 This time, unlike 20+ years ago, you’re a kid with a looooot of resources.
My favorite one is https://www.wordreference.com/ (for all languages) and you can even choose the dialect you’d like for the word to be repeated in.
Click PLAY and repeat the word after the speaker. And again, and again, and again. Until you can say confidently.
Keep Word Reference open, you’ll need it for the third step.
3) Study at least 3 dictionary entries (and read example sentences)
We all know that a word can have several meanings, so we need to familiarize ourselves with them because we may hear/need the word in different contexts. For example, the word ”rate” can mean:
a) measurement, ratio
”The birth rate is steadily increasing.”
b) price, fee
”What is your rate for this service?”
c) It can also be a VERB: (book, film: give a rating; evaluate; be ranked)
‘‘ She rated the book 4 stars.”; ”The boss will rate your performance.”, ”She rates second in the world.”
4) Put the words into the right context
Here comes the fun part!😊 Let your creativity shine.
You see the example sentences in part 4? You’ll be substituting them with your own ideas! Nothing crazy and not difficult at all, as you’ll be using the similar/same context. EVEN BETTER, try to make them true for you.
For example, ”I finished reading The Woman in the Window yesterday and I would rate it 5 starts because I didn’t find it predictable at all.” (I totally recommend the book, too!)
In this step, you only need to WRITE the sentences.
5) Record yourself using the word/s.
OK, your favorite part, you get to use your smartphone! You can record your voice, OR what I personally recommend – try recording a VIDEO of yourself.
Also, feel free to use all the words you’ve learned by following steps 1,2,3 and 4.
You can: make up a story you’ll tell your ”audience” or interview yourself by writing out questions you’ll answer in the video.
Did you like the tips? Let me know in the comments!
