Build your vocabulary sustainably

I don’t believe in overwhelming your brain with thousands of words at a time to build your vocabulary.

Learning 2-5 words a day is enough, but you have to know how to do it. Purchase a vocabulary book, and write down the words that come up during the day. For example, if you learn French and you suddenly realize you don’t know how to say ‘door’ in French, or say you read a post in French on Facebook but there is a word you don’t know the meaning of, note it down and later, when you have time, find the meaning of the words you have written down during the day. (Linguee.com is an awesome website to do this because it also shows the words in context.) Look through your vocabulary book every night or morning, even if you don’t actually study. It helps you to refresh your memory.

Learning 2 words per day may seem like it’s not enough, but it adds up to a nice vocabulary without much effort. 

The less is more approach also applies to learning words for school vocabulary tests. If you know you are going to have to learn 20 words for next Monday’s test, simply divide the words and learn a couple of them every day ’till the test.

Also, not only the number of words but HOW you learn it is very important as well.

How to learn new words so that you will actually remember them lists 4 different methods that help to learn words efficiently. :

1. Doodling,
2. Using it in example sentences,
3. Connect it to emotions, and
4. Definitions.

See, it’s not that scary.

Hope you feel inspired to start today!

Zsófi

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