So, you’ve looked over the vocabulary in the current chapter of your foreign language textbook. You recognize most of the words, even if you haven’t memorized very many of them yet. Hopefully, your instructor will speak to you in the target language and use those words so that you can practice hearing them in context. Then, you might read something that contains a lot of those words. Ideally, you will do an activity (or two, or three…) to reinforce all of those 180 vocabulary words that you need to know for the upcoming quiz. That’s great, but is that all it takes to learn new vocab? Looking at it, hearing it, reading it and saying it a few times? Nope.
Looking over vocab before class is a good idea, and a good instructor will provide lots of opportunities for you to practice. But most of the work is up to you. You may need to say the words out loud, or write them over and over. If you are a visual learner, a picture dictionary might be a good idea.
Make it easier on yourself:
- Don’t try to learn all the new words at once. Make it your goal to learn a few words each day. Then, as you increase your vocabulary, start reviewing daily. It will be hard at first, but it will get easier with practice.
- The Rule of Eights: saying a new word once isn’t enough to engrave it on your brain. Say each word (or write it) eight times in a row before going on to the next one on the list.
- Make connections to things or people that are important to you. For instance, adjectives like ‘pretty’, ‘tall’, and ‘intelligent’ will mean more when connected to your current celebrity crush.
For serious memory tricks, check out
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTIM_10.htm
