How to remember more words of foreign language quickly

[jeff-wang]

As a student, I have to and also want to learn a foreign language, but I meet some barriers. Here is one of them. (Saying the truth, I’m learning English)

How to remember words quickly and more easily? After many years’ learning, grammar seems no hard to me, but I feel it difficult to remember more and more words. Can anyone give me some advice?(ways about other language is OK)

[nvictor]

Association is a technique of memorization that works great. It's simple, associate the new word with something you already know in your native language.

Here is an example of how to memorize the word for a cat in japanese.

cat = neko in japanese

think of neck in english, see a cat with a long neck in your mind (images and feelings work better than sounds)

You know what? I've learn this word 5 to 6 years ago and it's still there because of the strong image I've associated with it. I've forgotten many though...

[C33]

For every day vocabulary, I would suggest to put stickers around, so that, when you grab for a pen, the word "pen" in the language you are learning is written on it.

If you are a visual person, buying a picture dictionary could also help.

If you are a more advanced learner, I suggest to learn vocabulary by themes.

[Iamsuperman]

Yah, that association thing is a great way to remember nouns quickly and for a long time. The memory book that Steve recommends explains it in full. It's worth a look.

[Rapid]

Hi, Jeff. Ah, I recall those days when I had to memorize vocabulary words for the SAT! A pretty painful task.

My company offers a free software that enables users to create their own intelligent digital flashcards. It's "intelligent" in the sense that: If you miss a question, the software will remind you the answer. Then the same question will pop up again a few questions later to test your recollection of the answer. This process continues until you attain a high level of retention of the material. It's pretty neat. Just enter the vocabulary word as the question and its corresponding definition as the answer (or vice versa), and let the fun begin!

This is how you access the software:
1) Go to Total Recall Learning.
2) Click on "Free Downloads" on the lefthand menu bar.
3) Scroll down the page until you get to the product, "Know It All."
4) Click on "Free Download."

Let me know how you like the software. Good luck on learning those vocab words!

[ethereal]

Look into some of the accelerated learning stuff: Accelerated language learning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can't attest to how well it works myself, but apparently this Georgi Lozanov fellow found a way for people to learn hundreds-thousands of language words per day, with 95% retention after a month or something crazy like that. Not bad, eh?

A lot of it seems to be based on using left-right brain synchronization by incorporating logical/linear along with visual/auditory, and relaxing the mind into the alpha brain wave state, which allows for optimal learning. So perhaps you can fiddle around with these things too.

[da1prophet]

Originally Posted by jeff-wang

As a student, I have to and also want to learn a foreign language, but I meet some barriers. Here is one of them. (Saying the truth, I’m learning English)

How to remember words quickly and more easily? After many years’ learning, grammar seems no hard to me, but I feel it difficult to remember more and more words. Can anyone give me some advice?(ways about other language is OK)

One of my friends from high school went on a Mormon mission to Italy and, obviously, had to learn Italian. He wasn't a great student and had literally no aptitude for foreign languages. I used to joke with him that he shouldn't expect to learn a second language when he hadn't even mastered his native language.

Anyway, one of his tricks was reading Italian comic books and picture books for small children. The pictures are usually very descriptive in what is going on, and he said that he picked up more this way than in any of his intensive language classes.

If you have the time, just watching American TV shows can be very helpful. I'm always trying to improve my Spanish and I've found that just watching television shows in that language--particularly dubbed versions of programs I'm already familiar with--is a great way to pick up a lot of vocabulary quickly.

[Marc Greve]

Originally Posted by nvictor

Association is a technique of memorization that works great. It's simple, associate the new word with something you already know in your native language.

Here is an example of how to memorize the word for a cat in japanese.

cat = neko in japanese

think of neck in english, see a cat with a long neck in your mind (images and feelings work better than sounds)

You know what? I've learn this word 5 to 6 years ago and it's still there because of the strong image I've associated with it. I've forgotten many though...

Many people I've shared memory techniques with, I feel, don't use them outrageously enough - evolution has us wired to pay more attention to anything sexual or painful. Use this.
In regard to the cat example, I'd visualize something like this:

See a grey and black spotted cat with an exceptionally long neck, so long that the cat can't move properly because its head drag across the floor. Then all of a sudden blood starts dripping from the elongated neck and a little claw pops out and in one swift motion slices the head off of the neck-mutant and a tiny REAL cat emerges and looks you straight in the eye and says "That's not how a cat looks like, fool. I'M a cat and don't forget it. Then the tiny kitten explodes.

[h00pla]

Hello,

I have always been interested in languages, being a foreign language teacher (teaching English to speakers of Spanish). I always advise my students to try to learn 10 words a day. A good method to do this is to write down the English word and then the word in the target language - plus a sample sentence in both languages. This is a bit easier now, thanks to the internet. You can use various tools (like Google language tools) to get you a translation of the sentence in the target language. Theoretically, 10 words a day will give you a vocabulary of 3600+ words in a year, which is more than enough to carry on decent conversations. With flash cards, you can set up some kind of review/reinforcement system. A system designed by German psychologist Sebastian Leitner is pretty effective. A quick Google search will get you more information on that.

I hope that helps.

Good Luck

Mike

[Brutha]

I have always been interested in languages, being a foreign language teacher (teaching English to speakers of Spanish). I always advise my students to try to learn 10 words a day. A good method to do this is to write down the English word and then the word in the target language - plus a sample sentence in both languages. This is a bit easier now, thanks to the internet. You can use various tools (like Google language tools) to get you a translation of the sentence in the target language.

That seems like on of the worst ways to learn a language.
1) Lack of any Association Techinques means that you need a lot more time to learn the vocabular.
2) If you use Google to translate your sentence you will learn wrong things because google does Word to Word translations.

Most people who teach foreign language have no clue over effective learning.

[Lauxa]

I second reading books and watching TV programs. I'm also working on Spanish and enjoy watching Spanish-dubbed preschool-level programs (Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues, Sesame Street). I have trouble picking up on what is going on with anything too advanced. Then I get books from the library or Half-Price Books that are at a basic story level (Curious George, Winnie the Pooh, and Froggy are some of my favorites). I don't always look up the words I don't know, just absorb the stories, reading them over and over (often aloud to my children). It is always the best feeling when a word "clicks" -- like maybe I had read it in a book and then they use it on Dora and suddenly I *know* what it means, or when they use a word I thought I knew but it turns out I had been pronouncing it wrong. As I get better at the language, I can raise my level of books and video programs. Hey, it's how I learned English, and people who read a bunch tend to have better vocabularies in general. If you want to build vocabulary on a particular subject area, read books and watch shows about that subject. The more hooks you have to a word in your mind the more firmly it will be cemented in place.