6 ways

to remember words easily

Many people complain that it’s hard to remember new words. They forget the words themselves and/or forget their meaning. What can you do? I’ll show you a couple of techniques.

Before I show you anything, let me summarize what you should NOT do to learn a word.

1

Never learn a word with its equivalent in your mother tongue. A simple translation will not create the necessary neuro-connections in your brain, or if it does, it requires a whole lot of time and way much more practice than other methods.

(Of course it’s not a problem if you translate a word for yourself to see if you can do it, but don’t use translation for learning the word.)

2

Never learn a word without context. If you separate a word from its context (=you learn the word as it is), you deprive yourself of a very useful memory peg: the context also helps you remember the meaning.

3

Never learn a word on its own. Basically because if you need to remember the use of a word (e.g.: irregular past tense form, typical prepositions after it, etc), you have to learn them one by one.

However, if you learn a phrase or, even better, a sentence that includes the word, you will automatically know its usage. For example, if you want to learn “proud”, it’s better to learn “I’m proud of you.”

OK, so now, here’s how you should do it.

“picturize” it

People think in pictures, not in words. Researchers claim that we remember pictures way much easier than words. Just observe: when you dream, do you see pictures or words? 😉

For this reason, it is logical to involve pictures into your learning process. How? There are many ways. I’ll show you two but feel free to create your own methods.

Cards

One option can be that you use flashcards. On one side of the card you draw (or print) a picture, on the other side you print the word itself (in a sentence, highlighting the word that you find in the picture on the other side.)

The main purpose of this technique is to remember the meaning (not the form) of a word, and to think in English. As you look at the picture, you practice the English version of the word, without involving your native language in the process of understanding. What’s the result? You will retrieve the word immediately when you see the given object (you previously practiced through the picture), which will make your speech much faster.

Imagine in the picture 

You can remember both the word and its meaning easier if you write the word itself on the picture. If you can’t write it there, imagine it, it works just as well.

Then spend time watching and observing your (imaginary) picture. Count the number of the letters that make up the word, imagine many objects that look the same (here: many flowers with “petal” written on them, or you can imagine the word “petal” made up of petals), imagine as the wind is blowing and the petals move, etc. The point is: imprint the picture in your memory.

Of course you can apply this technique mostly with nouns and activities. But these are the majority of the words. 🙂

associate

Associate the form

This technique is similar to the previous one but in a more advanced form. Here we add association to the process. The aim is to create visual and/or auditory connection between the word and its meaning.

Let’s say that you want to learn the word “swan”. Here’s an option how you can associate. Imagine the animal itself. As it is in the picture, it has the shape of an “S”. Great, as this is how the word starts. (Sometimes it’s enough to retrieve a word but sometimes you have to go further.) The rest of the word sounds like “1”, so imagine a “number 1” next to the animal. Now together it’s S+ONE=SWAN.

Naturally, this is my association, but create your own – that’s the best. Imagine anything, really. The sillier the better. If you imagine something really silly, you might think that it is childish. But who are the fastest learners? 🙂 The children, of course. And anyway, nobody will know about your association. 😉

Associate the meaning

The best thing in this technique is that any kind of word can be involved: a noun, a verb, an adjective, anything.

The concept is: take the word and find a connection between the word form and its meaning. The number of solutions is limitless, everything depends on your imagination. Let’s see an example:

You want to learn the word ‘argue’. It means that two or more people disagree and fight, shouting with each other. When you pronounce it, it sounds similar to the Hungarian word “ágyú” (cannon). Fighting and cannon can easily be connected, so the word “ágyú” triggers the word “argue” in your brain.

 

be a linguist

Analyze the word

Sometimes a word can be really tricky, especially if it is long. However, if you analyze the word how it’s built up, you will realize how easy it is to memorize.

For example, here’s the word ‘encouragingly‘. How is it built up?

courage – this is the base, and the meaning is quite international (bravery)

en+courage – ‘en’ makes a verb out of the noun

encourage + ing – ‘ing’ makes an adjective (present participle) out of the verb

encouraging + ly – ‘ly’ makes an adverb out of the adjective

So, en + courage + ing + ly = encouragingly. Easy, isn’t it?

Make rhymes

Rhymes help a lot in remembering, just think of songs. That’s why it is a useful technique.

There are two types of rhymes (the word you want to learn is bold):

1 – When you create two lines:

I always get irritated
When popstars are imitated.

2 – When you use rhyming words next to or close to each other:

I can’t afford a Ford.

Now, here’s a task for you to practice and turn using these techniques into a habit. There’s a list of words here. How would you learn them? Use one or more technique and share your way with us in a comment. (You can choose only one word or do all of them, it’s up to you.)

ridiculous – tiny – confident – muscle – irrationally – deserve

A bejegyzés szerzője

Gönczy Edit vagyok, angoltanár 20 éve, tudom, mi okoz problémát és nehézséget az angolul tanulóknak. Küldetésem, hogy minél több embert megtanítsak magabiztosan beszélni angolul. Hiszem, hogy mindenki képes megtanulni egy idegen nyelvet, csak meg kell találni a számára működő módszert. Éppen ezért tananyagaim rendkívül változatosak, praktikusak, és sokaknak nyújtanak sikerélményt.

Magyarország angol kiejtéstanáraként emlegetnek még sokan, esetleg így vagyok számodra is ismerős. A Bar-ANGOL Program kitalálója, megvalósítója, és a beszédfejlesztő blog szerzője is vagyok, könnyen lehet, hogy elsősorban innen ismersz.