5 Ways to Improve Your Vocabulary

I won’t give you the whole “each word in a language’s vocabulary is a brick that works towards building up the entire structure” kind of speech again (I did it in another post on the blog), but I have to emphasize on the fact that without a proper vocabulary base, it’s a lot harder to learn the other components of a language: grammar, syntax and even spelling and pronunciation. Since a lot of modern courses and exercises (including some that you can find on www.internetpolyglot.com ) focus on vocabulary so intensely, I thought about making a list of 5 of the most important techniques that you could use to increase your word count and make your vocabulary in a foreign language flourish.

Repetition

Our memory can be quite a rudimentary process at times and the only way we can get things (literally) in our head is by repeating them over and over again. Repetition can be helpful for assimilating harder words that you wouldn’t be able to pick up from context in a sentence, or if you’re using the phonebook method (having a list of words that you want to learn and trying to memorize them top to bottom).

Contextual Assimilation

Whenever you read a text in a foreign language that you’re studying and you find a word that you don’t understand, try to pick up its meaning from the context it’s placed in. The same process can be put to work when watching a TV show in that particular language.

Personal Relevance

Our memory, again, works in very mysterious was sometimes. It seems that the memory has an internal parsing process that blocks out information that is not personally relevant. For example, if you’re not especially interested in koala bears, watching a show on Discovery about them won’t allow really get you a lot of information, because the subject is not personally relevant. However, seeing Rex Hunt’s Fishing Adventures (with you being a huge fishing fan) will stock in a lot of information on the subject because, you guessed, this time it’s personally relevant. If you can make words personally relevant, you’ll also learn them better. This is where association and mnemonics kick in.

Visual Imagery

We store information a lot faster if it is transmitted to us via a visual signal than if it’s written or heard. Some may argue that in fact writing makes use of visual memory, since the characters you use in writing are graphical symbols. True, but it’s better if you associate words with objects that can be traced with more ease. Use flash cards if needed with this learning technique.

Word Games

Did you know that children learn words almost 30 times faster than an adult? That’s because children, at an early age, are actually “forced” to learn new words, in order to communicate. Obviously, as an adult, this need slowly fades away, which also degrades the word assimilation process. In order to hasten up your language learning, you could try and go back to being a kid and play some word games. These include puzzles, translation games, scrabbles and many others. You can find a lot of these fun word games at www.internetpolyglot.com .

How to Learn the Vocabulary of a Foreign Language

A language’s vocabulary is its foundation, each word being a brick that can help you build vertically towards your goal. Unlike other concepts in the language learning process, such as grammar structure, pronunciation or spelling, learning vocabulary is not a one-time thing that you can study for a couple of days and understand. Your vocabulary in a foreign language will expand organically as you talk, read, write and listen. Let’s take a look at some popular methods that can help you improve your vocabulary in the language that you’re studying.

Keeping a Word Log

This is a tried and tested method that can help you out in the long run. What you need to do is this: each time you learn a new word, write it down in a log (a journal, a notebook, just make sure it’s something you don’t lose over time). Don’t explain the word, don’t give it a definition and don’t associate it with anything, just write it down. Now, every once in a while (2-3 months) go through the log and read each word and see if you remember what it meant. Chances are some of them might have been lost on you, especially if you haven’t used them again since you logged them, so get a dictionary and again, find out what they mean. This is not so much a method of learning new words, but one of storing the new words better in your memory.

Learning Words in Context


This technique is extremely beneficial and it can mostly be done through constant reading in the foreign language you’re studying. This is how it works: when you already have a basic word base, reading a sentence like as their smell is divine> will usually allow you to logically deduce the word from the context. This will help you create association links between words, helping you understand new concepts quicker if they are next to already known ones.

Read. Listen. Write!

Reading and listening will be your main channels of vocabulary improvement. They can get you a solid word base to use, but it’s also important to use that word base every now and then! If you don’t write and use what you’ve learned it might as well be lost on you. Talking can also help out, but writing is better purely from the vocabulary’s point of view (writing something down rather than saying it gets stuck better in your memory, because of the visual stimuli).

Hopefully these techniques will be helpful throughout your language journey. If you need more similar techniques, word games and useful (and practical) vocabulary improvement methods, try out www.internetpolyglot.com . You’ll find a vast base of exercises that have helped thousands of people struggling with a new foreign language.