Vocabulary memorization is one of the biggest obstacles when it comes to learning English. People spend a lot of time learning words, but end up forgetting most of them. This happens to most beginners and it can feel frustrating or that it’s taking too long. The reality is, that the problem is not the person. It’s the way they learn.
Words that are learned without a context don’t stay in the mind for a long time. On the other hand, words that are learned in context stick to memory for a much longer period. Learning phrases that are used in conversations like saying “Hi, how are you?” or phrases that are used at a restaurant like “I’d like to order…”, teach the learner how to use the word in a sentence. So instead of memorizing a word and its translation, the person learns how to use it.
This makes the word more useful and easier to remember because now the word is part of a conversation. Repetition is another way of learning and remembering vocabulary. Using a word several times in different contexts helps a lot. This can be done by reading, listening, speaking, and writing. For example, reading a few paragraphs a day, listening to someone talk in English, speaking and repeating the words out loud, and writing a few sentences help to learn new vocabulary.
Doing this, the brain learns how to use the word and after a while, it starts to recognize it. Speaking the words out loud is also a good technique to learn and remember vocabulary. When someone speaks, they use more areas of the brain than when they just listen or read. Speaking forces the brain to remember the word and this strengthens the memory of that word.
There are some exercises that can be done to help to remember vocabulary. For example, saying out loud as many fruits as you can remember, or repeating phrases that you learned in conversations, or saying how you feel today. The truth is, that vocabulary can’t be learned all at once. The best way is little by little. Learning words in context, repeating them in different contexts and speaking them out loud are some of the best ways to remember vocabulary.