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7 Tricks To Help Remember New Words Quickly & Easily

By Paul Turner

Words, words, words…so many to learn and it’s so hard to remember them all, let alone use them, right? Well, today I’ve got seven tips that should make learning & remembering new vocabulary easier, faster, more fun, and more effective.

1. Make word association webs – our brain takes what we read and makes it into images, ideas, and feelings etc. and then makes connections between what we knew before and the new information (words and ideas). This is how we remember things. The “new” stuff is fitted into the “old” stuff. Think of a tree. It is easier for you to see a big tree with lots of branches and leaves than it is to see a small tree with very few branches and leaves, right? Well, it’s the same for your brain. When you connect a new word or idea to things you already know you make it easier for your brain to find (see) it when you need to remember it. How can you do this? Easy. Make an Idea Web. Start with the thing you want to remember (words, ideas, sentences) in the middle of a piece of paper. Then draw lines from it like a spider’s web. At the end of the line write down any ideas or words or even pictures that you think of when you say the word or idea in the middle of the page. Anything you think of is ok…just write it down.

This only takes about 2 minutes. Now all the words/ideas are getting connected in your mind. If you see or hear one of them it will help your brain remember all of the others. To make this work really well, you can talk to yourself about how each word/idea fits together with the others. The more you do this, the more connections you make. Lots of connections makes it very easy for your brain to “see” the word you want to recall when you are trying to remember it.

2. Remember in Chunks (collocations) – Remembering the word is important but English, like Chinese, is a language and languages are NOT just facts to be remembered – they are tools for people to USE to express their ideas and communicate. So, find examples of how each word is used in your text. Write a few words before and after the word so that you remember how it is used. For example: if your word is “arrogant” write something like this….”the tall, arrogant man” … This will help you to remember that “arrogant” is an adjective and that it describes people. The next thing to do is to make 3 full sentences with the word to practice using it.

3. Use pictures – Draw small pictures that show the meaning of the word if you can. Sounds crazy, right? That’s why it works. Our brains have so much normal information coming in every moment that a crazy image is a nice surprise – and you always remember surprises, don’t you? Our brains are also specially designed to catch and understand visual information quickly. So, make a funny picture that shows the meaning of the word you want to remember and your brain will remember it easily.

4. Tell a tall story – I always hear my students say that there are too many new words to remember. There’s a memory trick you can use to do this. Just make a crazy story that uses all the words. Picture it in your mind as you make the story. We remember stories easily, especially crazy stories that we can imagine in detail in our minds. Repeat the story and you will remember the words. When you make the story connect the words in funny ways. For example, if you want to remember these 20 words:

shoes, piano, tree, pencil, bird, bus, books, driver, dog, pizza, flower, basketball, door, television, spoons, chair, jump, dance, computer, stone….you could make a story like this:

There is a piano wearing shoes and sitting in a tree. The tree is strange because someone has stuck a giant pencil through it. On the pencil a bird is sitting and watching a bus full of people reading books. Even the driver is reading a book which is bad because he isn’t paying attention to driving. So, he hits a dog that is eating a pizza in the middle of the road and kills it. The driver digs a hole and buries the dog in it and then puts a flower on it. He notices that there is a door in the dog’s grave and opens it. Inside he can see a television with 2 spoons for antennas on top of it. No-one is watching the television because they are all watching the chair. Why? – Because the chair is jumping and dancing and throwing stones at the computer.

Try it. You’ll be surprised!

5. Recycle the pieces – Use roots, prefixes and suffixes to guess what a word means. For example:

Maybe you don’t recognize this word “microbiology” but may be able to guess what it means. First, look at the prefix “micro”. Micro means very small. You may also remember that “ology” means a subject, the study of something. Already we know that part of this word’s meaning is “the study of” + “something small”. Now, you will probably remember that “bio” means living things. So, we can figure out that microbiology probably means the study of very small living things. This is correct. English is like a puzzle – we put the pieces together to make new words. So if you make a list of word beginnings that you often see (un-, dis-, con-, micro-, etc.) and word endings that you often see (-able, -ly, -ent, -tion, -ive, etc.) and remember what they mean, you will be able to guess what many new words mean.

6. Think & learn in opposites – Learn words with opposite meanings (antonyms) and words with similar meanings (synonyms) together. For example, learn angry/happy (antonyms) and angry/cross (synonyms) at the same time. We can remember similar and opposite things more easily because they “stick together” in our minds.

7. Timing is everything – According to psychologists who study how we remember anything, there is a better way to learn things quickly and permanently. Use the new word immediately. Use it 10 minutes later. Use it 1 hour later. Use it 1 day later. Use it 1 week later. After that, you’ll rarely have to review – the new vocabulary is yours forever.

Have Fun!

Written by Paul Turner for TEFL.net July 2008
Paul Turner M.Ed TSL, BA Psych.

56 Comments

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  • Farzaneh says:

    That was so useful and great. I want to talk about experience that can help learners. To remember words,I use an application named wordup that help me so much.at the first it teaches you lots of words, then it has practice part, ask you words and help you to remember those with some questions and example. I recemmend you to use it which is so useful. Wordupapp.co

  • Catherine says:

    I had many problems to memorise new English words. But I was lucky to have a very good Scottish teacher who told us to examine what works for you: reading, talking out loud, writing or doing an activity when learning. For me, it works best when I speak the words loud to myself.

  • hasan says:

    The all new ideas are very helpful i hope you will share ideas all time tanks a lot.

  • Abinash says:

    tysm….nice one

  • Aria says:

    Thanks for your article very helped to me and the others friends

  • mohit says:

    It’s very helpful for everyone and lovely or nice tricks

  • Fghh says:

    Is there any app for remembering vocab by tricks?

  • Sriramam says:

    This is way more than my expectations…it helped me learn more than 20 new words with its meanings and antonyms in just 3 days

  • renny says:

    nice tips…………………….

  • kainat says:

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    EXCELLENT! IT IS VERY HELPFUL FOR ME, IF I FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTION.

  • Nok says:

    Thank you very much for sharing your idea and knowledge.
    I teach the small kids English. Sometimes I cannot have their attention in class. because they like playing all the time. Anyway, I am finding the new way for them to learn new vocabulary during their play.

    Thanks once again.

  • imran says:

    Nothing is impossible be +ve work hard ?

  • imran says:

    I should try it !!

  • Prasanth says:

    Sure..It really works out….high concentration is required…..but people with low concentration like me? Is it possible?

  • Pankaj Marandi santhal says:

    its verý good trick sir i feel our mind is catch it.
    wonderfull it of my life.

  • Suraj singh says:

    I found these tricks really helpful thank you so much sir

  • oki doki says:

    woow…i ve been learnin english bout 6 yrs…Last trick is the greatest and true one….Just trust it….

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  • reza says:

    Thanks for your informative tips coming in handy.These points are expected to work like a magic,anyway,keep up the good work,dudes.Ta ta.

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  • Piyush says:

    This is such wonderful tricks…

    It works for all….

    Thanks…

  • rathi says:

    i really like tis… its very useful for me… thks…

  • Quan says:

    It sounds nice but it’s not easy to practice and feel the usefulness.
    Trust me. Learning English words is not never an easy work.

  • naveen says:

    its really fantastic,my heartful thanks to this site

  • sivakumar says:

    Thank you for this, it helps. But looking at the other comments here you seriosly need to help these guys out with grammer as well.

  • kunleOyetunj says:

    Very interesting

  • theslimer3 says:

    Thank you for this, it helps. But looking at the other comments here you seriosly need to help these guys out with grammer as well.

  • JIJI says:

    I think that the most motivating technique is “crasy story”.I don’t mind using it with my pupils

  • raghu says:

    i find it easy,i will try to exlore it

  • V.Aishwarya says:

    hi,

    It’s sounds interesting because many people don’t have the time to remember new words in every walks of our life.This technique of mind mapping is interesting.

    Thank you

  • cilamet says:

    it’s great……… !!!!!

  • may says:

    i think very helpful for me ,thanks

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    i advise others to read this article again and again . it may change ur life .

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  • Nghia Nguyen says:

    Thank you very much, It’s so helpful!
    Thanks again ^^

  • my ho says:

    thanks for your article. it is really helpful for me. i will try. thanks again. 🙂

  • Ala'a Abu Alaish says:

    Hello, I think writing the words and take few minutes seeing word by word will help.

  • Reza says:

    Hi,
    I found it really good,
    Thanks

  • vat says:

    nice article ! most of the people(like me) are too lethargic to try these tricks.i hope they work. but the only problem is with words which are difficult to pronounce which i think is directly related to the difficulty one will have in remembering it.

  • pink says:

    thank u so much::::))))

  • Donna Tung says:

    I found your idea is very helpful for learners, can I put it on my blog for more Taiwanese people to read?

  • Boulfoul says:

    I found you idea, about Tricks To Help Remember New Words Quickly & Easily, very wonderful and should be tried.

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TEFLnet : TEFL Articles : Teacher Technique : 7 Tricks To Help Remember New Words Quickly & Easily