6 ways to learn English words so that you can reliably remember them

According to a study by Longman's dictionary authors, knowing 3000 English words is enough to understand 86% of what you have read (or even more). To type these 3000, you can, of course, memorize a hundred expressions a day and deal with them for a month, but without repetition and a system they will quickly be forgotten. Information will not go from RAM to long-term. Yes, and learning the language is pretty boring!

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«Medusa”And experts from the Skyeng online school talk about how to expand your vocabulary - and do it with pleasure.

Start from the beginning

Children learn languages ​​- and native, and not only - much easier than adults. They quickly memorize the necessary words, because they repeat them many times in the simplest phrases. But adults can also take this into service: learn basic phrases and start using them. And after that, you can move on to those words that are needed in specific situations: at the airport or, say, at an interview.

Children remember what is interesting. They may not know obvious things, but they can perfectly navigate dinosaur species names or car brands. The same applies to adults. Movie fans will be interested to know that director is a director, and voice acting is voice acting, especially if they watch thematic articles and videos in English.

And children learn through the game and cartoons - but adults do not interfere with watching the series “House of Cards” with subtitles if they like politics. Or "News Service" if they are interested in journalism.

Sing (and more!)

Another “childish” way! Most likely, this is how everyone once learned the English alphabet, colors and names of animals. This is an excellent method, because, firstly, through repeated repetition, you can remember new words and their pronunciation (try to forget the trinity tough - rough - enough after the main hit of Billy Ailish). And secondly, they immediately go in context (which is no reason to deal with the mysterious Duh! From the refrain of the same song).

But sometimes musicians neglect the rules of grammar. For example, if Gwen Stefani can say “If I was a rich girl” instead of “If I were ...”, then the rest should not do so. If something is embarrassing, you should make out the song with the teacher, so as not to accidentally memorize the wrong constructions.

On the subject: Effective Tips: How to easily memorize 100 new English words per week

Pay attention to context

Learning words individually in the form in which the translator issues them is not a good idea: it’s easy to make mistakes here. For example, the word species translates as "species." But if you say: “Iʼd like to try all species of jam” (“I would try all kinds of jam”), you won’t understand. Why? Because species is a biological species. And the word kind comes up to jam. View is also a view, but it is used when we talk about landscapes: “What a great view!” (“What a magnificent view!”). If it comes to people, then you need to use look. Therefore, it is most effective to write out whole phrases or even small sentences.

Reading helps a lot with context. The main thing is not to abandon it, as it happens, if you choose a too complicated thing. If the original books seem too difficult, you can start with publications where the Russian and English texts run in parallel. Among bilingual books today you can find the "Diary of Bridget Jones," and the "Collector," and the "Book Thief." Another nice option is comics; in them you can guess everything said from the pictures.

Connect mnemonics

If some words constantly fly out of your head, you need to outwit your brain and remember them through associations: in this way you can attach something hard to remember to something familiar. Such techniques are called mnemonic. In fact, we use them constantly: it is worth recalling “Every Hunter” and a rainbow or a bisector rat.

For example, with the word to bend (“bend down”) the phrase “BENDER had to bend down to get through” will help. With the word murder ("murder") - the ominous "For the theft of honey, bees kill." And since our brain perceives visual information easier and faster, we can also draw bees and Bender.

Use interval training

To translate a word from short-term memory to long-term, you need to repeat it, and with a certain frequency. This conclusion was reached at the end of the 19th century by the scientist Herman Ebbinghaus through many years of experiments on himself. He found that the speed with which we forget words decreases after each repetition. That is, if you memorize a word, but then do not return to it for a week, it will almost certainly fly out of your head. But if you repeat it in half an hour, and then in a day, then it will linger in memory for at least a couple of weeks. And then it’s worth refreshing it again. To keep the words in your head for a long time, you must adhere to the schedule.

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Learn related words

The secret is to learn not just single words, but also to deal well with their derivatives and cognates. So one learned word turns into several dozen related concepts.

Take the verb use. You can use anything: from the phone (May I use your phone, please? - “Can I use your phone?”) To the person (Stop using me! - “Stop using me!”). It is easy to turn it into a pair of adjectives with the opposite meaning - useful (“useful”) and useless (“useless”). Or in the noun - user ("user"). It would be nice to remember the expression I am used to - “I am used to” (I am used to suffering - “I am used to suffering”). In addition, with this word there is a darkness of useful phrases in the spirit of Itʼs no use! ("It is pointless").

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