The Best Way to Study Vocabulary: 9 Expert Tips

Today we have a great, straight-talking guest post on the best way to study vocabulary from Dani Maizner, who I was lucky enough to meet in Berlin this summer!

Dani is a passionate language learner from Austria who enjoys the great variety of languages in the world.

You can find more information about her and her language projects on isimplylovelanguages.com or connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

Enter Dani…

Just before we get started, if you're interested in picking up vocabulary naturally, as you read stories in your target language, then you'd enjoy my StoryLearning courses: get a free 7-day trial.

We often read generic advice on how to study for a vocabulary test, what we should do to achieve our goals or improve our language learning skills. But what really is the best way to study vocabulary?

Today I want to give you some easy and actionable tips on how to study vocabulary.

1. Realise there isn't a perfect method

The Internet is full of methods, tools and tips for learning vocabulary and, of course, each one claims to be the best. But there will be no method that is perfect.

Look around and try out some things you like and then stick to a few methods or tools you like.

2. Try out different methods to find what suits you

When you find a suitable tool, it doesn’t mean that it will always be the best option for your needs. Different situations require different methods. Learning how to study for vocabulary tests requires different skills than preparing for a conversation with friends.

Therefore, it’s useful to have a personal “vocabulary tool box” at hand out of which you can always pick the best tool for each situation. Also, working with different methods helps you to anchor words in your brain.

3. Don't let anybody tell you which words are essential

There are many lists and entire books available that provide you with the basic and advanced vocabulary of your target language. While these lists are often a nice and convenient collection, you should always think about whether these words are suitable for your needs and your personal level.

Example: Last year, I studied the words for animals in six languages – about 60 words each. Not because I’m such a big fan of animals or speak so often about them, but I thought it should be part of my personal vocabulary. I know that for many other learners this is not an important word field.

However, I never study slang vocabulary because I don’t use slang when speaking a foreign language. Also, speaking is not my top-priority. For others, it might be just the other way round.

4. You don't need to learn every word you come across

It’s impossible to know every word in a language and often even native speakers don’t understand every word that appears in a text. You only need to retain vocabulary that is useful or interesting to you – and it’s your personal decision.

Trying to learn every word in the dictionary is not a good way to study vocabulary. 

If there is a word you simply can’t remember although you try hard, this could be a sign that you don’t need this word. Why trying hard then? Just don’t care about it anymore. If you will ever need it in the future, there is still time to study it then.

5. Try to remember the context

The context in which a word is used not only helps you understand how a word is used, it also helps you retain the word better than studying an isolated item. Therefore, it’s important to not only study a single word but also to find good example sentences, e.g. on Tatoeba.

6. Don't neglect pronunciation

One of the most comon ways to study vocabulary is looking up words we don't know when we come across them in writing. However,  in that case we usually only read the word and don't hear it. It could be problematic to only read the words, especially for beginners, because often they are not sure about the right pronunciation.

If you memorize a word with a wrong pronunciation it might be difficult when you want to actively use the word later. So make sure you also know the pronunciation of each word you study. You can easily check the pronunciation of isolated words on forvo.

7. Stick with your learning preference

We can make the best of our studying time when we use methods that fit to our learning style. If you can easily remember things you hear, you should focus on hearing words.

If you prefer to write by hand, write new words down. If you like to draw, you can create images etc.

8. Every day doesn't need to be the same

We often have goals like “I want to study 30 new words every day”. On some days, this is just fine but on others days we will have difficulties to remember 30 new words. If you feel that after 20 words your daily capacity is reached, just stop.

There is no sense in struggling for the other 10 words because you won’t remember them anyway when your brain is already tired. There will be other days when you will be able to learn 40 words instead.

9. Remember real life

It’s very tempting to spend hours over vocabulary lists because this gives us the feeling that we actually do something for our language. But studying these words is useless until we go out into the world and consume real-life language.

That’s why we should always combine language learning activities with reading/listening/speaking/….

How about you?

What are your favourite vocabulary study tips? My weak points are #5 and #9. Sometimes I'm too lazy to look for example sentences or to write down the whole sentence I found the word in.

But then I often realize that it's very difficult for me to retain this isolate word. I'm also guilty for spending too much time with vocabulary lists and SRS apps (that's the app villain at work right there!). It just gives me this good feeling of doing something.

Thanks Dani!

What do you struggle most with from the list above? What is on your personal DON'T-DO-list? Please Like this post on Facebook then leave Dani a comment below!

Olly Richards

Creator of the StoryLearning® Method

Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.

Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.

When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.