How do you study new vocabulary?

[Jonathan1980tr]

Dear members,
I want to know the ways you study English vocabulary. Would you like to share with me and other members? Thanks for your interests.

[Cesar]

I strongly believe that the best way is by learning words --or phrases-- in their context. If you simply learn words by reading a vocabulary list, you will probably forget most of them in the following three days. Instead, I suggest you get a book for learning vocabulary through reading articles.

Take, for example, the idiom "to make ends meet." If you learn the meaning of it (to have just enough money to pay for the things that you need) you will probably forget it cause you do not remember a situation in which you applied it.

But if you read something like the following, you will probably remember it:

[qqqqq]

The more you recite words, the more you feel confident to learn English. Firstly we should recite some roots and the culture behind the words. Secondly we are supposed to know one word with different meanings. For most of us one word with different meanings make us confused, so it is nessary to have a connection between the meaning and the situation.Finally, The stronger the motivation, the more quickly we will learn a English..
Some people argue that we learn words in the text, but I disagree to this opion. I always spend shorter time to recite some new vocabularies, and then I read a lot of articles and practised these words. Different people have different methods to learn English, The most important we should feel happy during our learning. I wish I could do you a favor.

[Leedsana]

[Jamie (K)]

Some of my students who are the most successful at learning vocabulary do searches on Yahoo! or Google and find the words in natural sentences, in a lot of different contexts. This way you get not only words, but collocations (those are the other words that are usually used nearby).

I would also invest in a good dictionary of collocations. I would recommend The Oxford Collocations Dictionary, and the Longman Language Activator.

Keep in mind, though, that the vocabulary you study is really only a small portion of the vocabulary you learn. Most vocabulary is just picked up without people thinking about it much. Because of this, the best way to learn vocabulary is to expose yourself to a lot of natural language. Read a lot, listen a lot, and talk a lot. Just take a bath in the language you're learning. You need to encounter a new word again and again, many times, and in many different sentences, before you can actually keep the word in your head and use it.

[Jan]

Hi,
what may help but it is nothing for sure

a piece of paper possible white , size or format A4 or similar write on paper one word in big clear letters
- one word in English
very close to it in very very small letters write translation
in your mother tongue possible in bleach color so it will
be invisible from one meter, you may do also pronunciation
in very small letters also hard to read from distance.
post paper in your day room for some time change with
others "word papers" change location change words
it should be just few like five or seven at once
Mostly you will spot this and remind yourself of the meaning and if you fhad forgotten than try first to recollect than if it is to hard come closer and read the translation once more.

I was trying to work like that and it was helpfull
good luck
Jan

[Yankee]

Hi

I like Jamie's Google idea. And Jan's A4 idea, too.

Reading and listening help a lot, but much/most vocabulary will remain passive until you get active with it.

Active means, you have to DO something with it! Speak it, write it, sing it, draw it, play with it, "google" it, etc.

And don't be afraid of making mistakes!

Amy

[Conchita]

In a British film I started watching (and enjoying!) yesterday, Ladies in Lavender, there is another (funny) idea for learning vocabulary.

The movie tells the somewhat unlikely, but quaint, lovely and humorous story of two spinster sisters (the great Judi Dench and Maggie Smith) who find a young Polish violinist on their Cornish beach (dramatic and stunning scenery!) in 1936. They jealously take care of him and one of them falls a bit in love with him. He can’t speak a word of English, so she devises a method to teach him: she writes out labels and pins them all over the place (chair, mirror, window, etc.), including one on herself with her name (she then gets scolded by her sister for making holes in the furniture -- they didn't have post-its back then!).

[Outofbreath]

Conchita, that's a delightful method of learning new words.

Well, you know, there is a relatively painless method of learning some new words - just post them on your bathroom wall.

[Conchita]

[Chocolatee]

Well, another way of doing it is by reading a book. Just read a book and find the meaning of each word which you don't understand. You don't only learn the meaning of the word, you also get a good example on how the word or phrase is used in a sentence.

[Zpyra]

Hi everyone
Maybe I am old fashioned but I believe in the old fashioned way of studying vocabulary. Learning them from a list of words. This doesnt exclude other ways like reading books, watching films, posting notes on the bathroom walls etc I use an online tool www.vocabitor.com which has helped me a lot lately. I learn a lot in an organised way. I can easily go back to old words and repeat them etc.

I guess we are all different but it worked for me

Johan

[Sahid59]

....

Does anyone know any screensaver program which can put a few words on your desktop every day...it will be helpful to look at your desktop to learn a couple of new words every day this way..isn't ?

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_________________
Sahid59

Better tomorrow with better English

[Bg]

Reading book and watching movies with subtitles and also lyrics from songs . For that i'm using Songbird ( it's like Itunes) , when you are playing a song you've got in the same time the lyrics on the right. It's really fun for me to learn vocabulary like that !