Vocabulary learning strategies

I have several ways of memorizing new vocabulary. I don't always do it exactly the same way and I think that’s a good thing.

First of all, before I actually start studying I try to put all the words and phrases into some kind of glossary. I try to remember all the words I picked up in class, while reading a book or articles. Of course, I can't remember all of them so I collect them in a vocabulary notebook and later on write all of them down into my glossary.

I add phrases, collocations and an English definition to my glossary as I’m studying. Why not do that before studying, you may ask. Well, I simply remember the vocabulary a lot easier by doing that and the memory is still fresh when writing a progress check. If I did all that right away as I was typing the new words into my glossary, I would simply read through my list later on and would probably only keep a third of it in my head.

To get additional information about the words, I search some online dictionaries such as pons.eu, the Oxford learner’s dictionary or the Macmillan dictionary for the definition and Just the Word for collocations and phrases that go with that word. By the time I have finished my glossary I usually know a lot of the new words quite well.

This is a glossary I produced for my academic research paper which is about the bombing of Knittelfeld in WWII. This glossary contains useful vocabulary I found in some articles during the research of my topic.

In addition to the glossary and vocabulary.com I try to make studying fun, so what do I do?
I invite some friends over (mostly English students) and we play a vocabulary game. Everyone asks a vocabulary question (English definition, common phrases, collocations etc.) and for every right answer you get something (most of the time it’s cookies or chocolate). In the end the one with the most cookies wins. It sounds like a silly game but it’s incredibly simple and funny at the same time! Not only are you eager to win the game, but it actually is a great way to remember vocabulary because everyone has a different approach to study vocab and sometimes you can learn a thing or two from the others.

What I believe can be very helpful and will definitely try out for the first progress check are these flash card apps. I never used flash cards before because I thought it would take me too much time to make them but with apps like gFlash or anki I won’t lose any time and can study wherever I want. I have already downloaded gFlash and I’m thrilled about it!

I also like to study with the help of vocabulary.com. What I think is especially useful is creating my own vocabulary lists. I can even copy and paste a whole article into it and pick the difficult vocabulary to put on the list. It depends on the number of words but it can take quite some time to study a longer list because the same questions pop up over and over again. This helps a lot to really memorize the new word but can get a little boring. It also helps a little that you can unlock achievements like 10 in a row or a perfect row. I like the fact that the questions are not always the same type. Some include a sentence where a word is missing, 4 pictures from which you have to choose the best one or a simple ‘What does … mean?’ question.

By changing my study strategies from time to time and using different tools I have the variety I need to keep it interesting. If I’m not careful I might even start liking studying vocab.J