The Secret to Remembering New VOCABULARY | 8 Tips for English Learners
I'm Ethan your RealLife English fluency coach
and in today's lesson i'm going to give you eight
different vocabulary learning recommendations that helped me a lot
in learning six different languages and also when I was teaching
that my students found not only effective but also a lot of fun
but before we get into the first tip I want to let you know that if you're new
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All right so this is the number one thing that you need to start doing if
you're not doing it already now a spaced repetition system or SRS
basically is technology that works along the same way that your memory does
so basically when you learn a new word in order for you to engrave it in your
memory you need to be reminded about it right
away within a minute but as time passes kind of the
increments that you need to be reminded about this word in order to remember it
get larger and larger so for example how a spaced repetition system will work
along with the science of memory is that if you add a new word that you
just learned to it it's going to remind you about it in
like one minute but then after that as long as you remembered it correctly
then it'll wait a little bit longer to wait 10 minutes and then it'll wait a
day and then three days and then an entire week before showing it to you
again and in this way you can really get to
the point where you never forget new words and expressions
So I've used a lot of different SRS apps over the years both
personally and with my students and so I'll recommend you a couple that
you can try out and find which one works best for you.
So the first two are really simple they just work
with that basic kind of technology and science that I told you about
and you can add images to them and sounds but
really you're just going to kind of add your vocabulary expressions there and
study them every day so the first one is probably one of the
most famous ones out there also is called Anki and actually on my Iphone
nowadays i use one called Flashcards deluxe
now these two are very similar in functionalities
but the reason I use flashcard deluxe on Iphone is because it is much cheaper
Anki has an app for Iphone but it's very expensive
although it is free on Android.
All right but maybe you want something a little
bit more complex so if that's the case then you could try
Memrise and Quizlet now these in addition to kind of that
basic functionality that works with your memory
also include things like quizzes and different little games
that help to not only increase your memorization but they also make it more
fun now the really great thing about this is
that you can download these apps on your phone and just use them anytime
anywhere so for me I really love to do this anytime that I have a few minutes
that I'm waiting for someone or you know if i'm at the doctor's
office or at the bank or anywhere else where I have a couple minutes I would
just pop out my phone and I will start studying that new
vocabulary that I have or the old vocabulary that I have to review a
little bit and this is really great way to make
productive use of your time and you'll just be remembering
Now if you only follow this first
recommendation you are going to see a huge transformation in your ability to
remember new vocabulary and expressions but actually it's really
important that we talk about what exactly are the words and
expressions that you should be filling your SRS app with.
So i've met a lot of English learners who think that they have to know
everything they learn a lot of advanced really obscure vocabulary
because they think that it'll make their english sound like it's at a higher
level but really natives do not speak like
this they don't really use these kind of words
Now obviously that's an exaggeration but seriously I've met so many English
learners out there who try to use really complex vocabulary
that natives never use or they just try to use expressions and
idioms in every single sentence and it can make them sound really
unnatural and if you actually start paying attention to the way that you
speak in your own native language you probably don't do this either so why
Now it depends what study you look at
but English only has about 3,000 words that natives use in 95%
of their speaking and this is a really tiny number when you consider that
english has hundreds of thousands of words and this is really true in any language.
So the good news here is that unless you
want to study English literature you really do not need to have a huge
Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't
consistently be learning vocabulary and expressions
even if you're an advanced English learner but it does mean
that maybe the amount of vocabulary that you need to be fluent
and actually we did a lesson on 5 Myths About English Fluency
and if you haven't seen that yet then I
really highly recommend that you watch it next
but the point here is is that your English will not sound more fluent by
using more complex vocabulary and in fact if you're not using this
kind of vocabulary tactfully it could actually make you sound less
fluent because it's obvious that you're trying too hard
and furthermore most English is used between non-natives
for example when you're in a business setting usually a meeting could be
in English between someone from the United States
and someone from Germany and someone from Brazil and someone from Japan
and if you're traveling this is also the case so if you're using really complex
vocabulary then other English learners like
yourself probably won't really understand you
and really the goal is to be able to communicate and to be understood
But you're probably still asking yourself "what are the 3,000 words that I
actually need to learn in order to be fluent in English?"
now of course you could just go onto Google and type in the most common words
in English and you could get a list that will have
a lot of words that people use every day speaking in English
and that might be useful for you but really a lot of these words you probably
already know the most essential ones anyway and a lot
of what you're going to have to learn is going to be personal to you so for
example you could think about what are the things that you usually
spend your time doing every day what kind of hobbies do you have
so I could give you an example actually using myself right now I'm actually
taking classes for singing in Spanish and so a lot of the vocabulary that I
have to learn has to do with singing but this would be really
useless probably for most Spanish learners
and another thing that you probably need to think about is your work
so do you work in a business setting maybe you need to learn more business
English or maybe you work in science and you
need scientific vocabulary or you work in law
or so on so basically the point here is that I want you to change your mindset
about vocabulary learning so it doesn't have to do with just
memorizing tons of words each and every one of our lives are different
and our vocabulary base needs to reflect those differences
and the uniqueness of our life.
Now just a disclaimer before I move on I am
mostly talking about active vocabulary up to this point now
active vocabulary is a vocabulary that you can actually think of
and use passive vocabulary on the other hand
is the vocabulary that you'll understand but you can't necessarily recall it when
you're in conversation or writing and our passive vocabulary is
always much larger than our active vocabulary
this is true whether you're a native or whether you're a learner.
All right so now let's talk more about the best way to increase your active and passive
vocabulary in English so it is super important that you are
constantly doing things that you enjoy
in English because you will naturally expose yourself to the vocabulary that
you need now watching tv series is one great way
to do this with shows like Friends for example you get
exposed to everyday situations so you learn the vocabulary that you
need in daily life now podcasts are another really great
way to exercise both your active and passive vocabulary
a great place to start is with our own RealLife English podcast
and you can also sign up for power learning week now in this free
three-part mini course you will actually learn the vocabulary that natives use in
everyday life and this will help you so much to understand
and speak better so you can learn more and sign up by clicking up here or down
As I mentioned before it's useful to
reflect on what you work in and then you can listen to a TV series
or podcast that will help you to get the vocabulary related to that that you need
so for example if you're a lawyer you could watch a show like Suits
if you work in technology you could watch Silicon Valley
and if you want to learn more things like this that will help you to improve
your communication then for sure check out this lesson
where I talk about things that you can do every day to improve your English
And in addition to the space repetition systems we talked about in the beginning
you should definitely start keeping a word journal as well
now this could actually be physically paper that you keep in your pocket
or you could actually use any sort of notepad app on your phone
that you'll have access to wherever you are so anytime you read something or you
watch something or you listen to something then you find
a new word you can note it down in your word journal before you actually
add it to the app that you're using for spaced repetition.
Reading is actually probably the best way to expand your vocabulary
so if you're reading a book or a newspaper or anything else what I
actually recommend is not looking up everything in the
moment but actually highlight things and then later go add them to your word
journal and finally to a space repetition system so you'll never forget
them now the more that you do this the more
that you will be able to understand new vocabulary through the context
without even looking it up in a dictionary it will naturally be added to
your passive and even your active vocabulary.
Now this recommendation is short but it's also probably one of the hardest to
do now you need to avoid just memorizing a
translation from your native language and this will also help you to cultivate
actually starting to think in English now if you don't do this then you're
always going to be having to think first in your language how you say that word
and then translating it in your head to
English and this will really slow your speaking.
Now when you encounter a new word in
English don't just head over to Google translate
actually look it up in an English-speaking dictionary and
when you add it to your word journal or SRS then be sure to also put the
definition in English don't use your language at all if you
can avoid it and this will help you to break the bad habit
of translating first in your mind and it will help you to start cultivating the
good habit of thinking in English.
So have you ever really thought about
So I'm going to go through some
different types and I want you to actually use this time to reflect
on which type of learner you believe you are and it can be really helpful to
think of past experiences in learning where you have learned in a
really effective way and basically use that to try to
So first of all maybe you have a
photographic memory and as soon as you see a word you
remember it but I'm guessing if that's the case you probably would not need to
watch this video so the next one is if you're
like me you're a visual learner this means that you have to actually see
things to remember them now for me I noticed i remember things a
lot by where I was when I learned it or what exactly i was doing so for
example I can remember something that I heard in a podcast
by what activity that I was doing and where I was at so maybe I was running
and I was in a specific location and I'll actually remember about that
information along with the information that I learned
now maybe it's not always effective to put yourself in some location that you
really remember so you can do other things for example
with your spaced repetition system to a certain flashcard you could
actually add an illustration maybe one that you drew
or a picture of something so just to give you an example of how I've done
this in the past one word that I learned in Catalan was
em xifla and this means that you're crazy about something, that you
absolutely love something so I actually learned this because
someone was telling me that a certain sandwich shop here in Barcelona
is something that they're crazy about so I actually used the logo
of that sandwich shop on my flash card for
that term em xifla and it helped me a ton to remember that and to add it to my
So next maybe you're an aural learner
this means that you use your ears to remember
things so maybe you actually need to hear a word in order to remember it
and if this is the case for you then it's really important that you add sound
to your space repetition system now this could just be a sound that actually
reminds you of the word or it could be the pronunciation the
word itself and of course if this is the case for you
then anytime you learn a new word it's really important that you for example go
to google and type in the word plus pronunciation
and if you do this then it will actually bring up an audio file of the
pronunciation of the word you could also use a website like
forvo.com where you'll find natives pronouncing different words
and something else you might find super effective if this is the case for you
is to learn English with music.
So finally we have kinesthetic learners
now this is actually the rarest type and this means
that you learn with movement so it might help you in your learning and thinking
if you're standing up or even moving around and for
kinesthetic learners tactile activities can be really effective too
so you might actually want to find something physical that represents the
word that you're learning and actually even touch it and play
around with it with your hands.
Alright so for this next tip we're going
to use associations so first of all you could visualize
something in your head and maybe this wouldn't even necessarily
have anything to do with the word it's just something that helps you to
remember it in a really visual way now if you are a visual learner then
it's going to be very helpful so just to give you an example
you could for example be learning the word "buzz" which is the feeling that you
get right after you drink a coffee and you
might actually remember that the word buzz is also the sound that a bee makes so
that z sound we also call buzz so maybe to help
yourself remember this in a really silly way
you could imagine a bee drinking a coffee now something else that you could
try is actually drawing a picture yourself
not just looking up one online this will actually help to make
it more fun and relaxing while you're actively learning
vocabulary and while it's not good to just
translate words into English it can be very effective to think of a word in
your own language that sounds like the word
that you're learning in English so just to give you an example say that
you are a Spanish speaker learning English
and you want to learn the word to run actually the infinitive verb
to run and you might actually think well in Spanish that sounds a lot like the
dessert that we have at christmas which is
called turon so now every time you try to think of the word to run
you're just going to think about the dessert or maybe again if you're very
visual you might actually think about someone running and eating some turrón.
And that actually brings us to our next tip so as soon as possible after you
learn a new word or expression you should actually be writing it or
speaking it so in the next conversation that you get
into see if there's some way that you can sneak in that new expression
or that new word that you just learned but maybe you have no one to speak to
so what you can do in that case is you can create actual example sentences
you can do this by writing them down in your journal you can do this
by actually thinking of some sentence and recording it and listening back and
correcting your mistakes or just think about them in your head if you don't
have a pen or a recorder handy now I actually had a
student a few years back who had a really long
commute to work and he would actually take advantage of
this time by speaking to himself in the car
about various subjects and this was a great way to sneak in some vocabulary
practice of words that he had recently learned so
something that you could actually try is
thinking up a story with five words
that you learned in English yesterday
so expanding your active vocabulary is
really challenging and I think that the recommendations I
gave you today will help you a lot on your journey to reach English fluency
to be able to have the words that you need
but when you forget a word don't let it get you stressed out
what you should do in these instances instead of just going blank
or trying to translate from your own language is trying to find a different
way that you can describe it because this is really the essence of
fluency it's not that you have every single word for every situation or
that you can speak exactly like a native.
Natives in fact forget words too, fluency
is about that you're able to flow with the language so
when you forget a word you are able to say it in a different way
you're able to explain what you want to say so that the conversation doesn't get
interrupted, so if you start practicing doing this
you're going to just notice a huge transformation in your ability to be
fluent in English, you will feel more confident
because you'll know that you'll always have some way to describe what you want
to say and if you don't you can just laugh it
off and you can know that you have to look up that word when you get home.
And as I've told you in this video you can lower the bar you don't need to know
every single word as I mentioned before
there's only about 3 000 that you'll need to be confident
and fluent in your daily conversations so really what's essential here
is that you actually develop a habit that you're learning at least a few
words every day and that you are using them
So I hope you found this video very
useful I would love to hear if you have any other tips out there for English
learners like you write them down in the comments below so
we can all learn together and now it's time to go beyond the classroom and
I'm Andrea your RealLife English fluency coach
and today we have a great lesson for you to help you become more confident