How to memorize Vocabulary?

One of my subscribers of my YouTube Channel asked my the following question.

Hi,

Could you recommend to me the best way to memorising and learning German vocabulary? Because of my lack of vocabulary I am afraid to speak German. I would be very appreciative if you could tell me how I can learn vocabulary and retain it in my memory. Would this be the same with German verbs?

Many thanks!

I think many of us are wondering about this, too. Remembering my school life I cannot imagine today, how we made it to learn so much vocabulary just by sitting down with a list and learning it by heart. But it must have worked out somehow, because I can remember some words .

Today with the internet at hand, there are several ways to build up your vocabulary. So let’s have a look at some of them.

Websites that offer online Vocabulary drills via virtual flashcards. They basically consist of a huge database of vocabulary most of them even with mp3 files attached, so you are not only learning how to write them correctly, but you learn the correct pronunciation, too.
One of the first websites which offered this kind of service is WordChamp.com. You can find vocabulary from many different languages there and they offer a huge variety of different drills. It started as a 100% free site, now they added a payed feature. But the basic usage is still for free.

Another great site for vocabulary drill with flashcards, especially when you learn german, is Leo.org. The basis is an online dictionary maintained by a community. If you sign up for a free account, you can build your own vocabulary lists and have drills there, too.
Social learning websites offer a platform where people can meet from around the globe and practice language exchange. They consist of a part, where you learn on your own with flascards and a part where you interact with other members. This can be correcting each others texts or practicing your conversional skills by chatting in chat rooms with native speakers.
The biggest community of this kind is LiveMocha.com. It has over 1 million members and it is still growing. You can enroll for a course there, so basically a vocabulary drill plus writing and speaking parts, for different languages. The writing and speaking part will be corrected by your fellow members.

Another growing community with the same aim is Babbel.com.
Language Programs by Broadcast companies. In Europe the main broadcast companies have the task given by the state to provide information to everyone. This way, you can find quite good language learning programs on their websites, too.
For Germany the site is DW-World.de. They offer a variety of podcasts and other learning material along with vocabulary building through news articles.

For Great Britain it is of course the site BBC.com with a big choice of exercises at different levels and topics. They even offer language courses in other european languages.
Video lessons. In the age of web 2.0 and digital lifestyle there are not only guys who experiment with Coke and baking powder or Britney Spears supporters shooting videos. In the past six month several teachers started to put free video lessons online. As you might know, I am one of them.
You can find my videos on DeutschHappen.com but you will also find other great teachers like Alexander Arguelles who makes great videos about learning theories or Prof Jason who makes fantastic videos about portugese and spanish.
Genki learning. This is the “weirdest” way of learning vocabulary, at least for me as an European but I have to admit that it really works. The theory is that you learn better, when the vocabulary is being sung. It’s like the worst 80ies pop song that you heard in the radio and then you cannot get it out of your head anymore.

As you can hear, you don’t even have to have talent to sing but I bet you learnt something.

Looking forward to your comments.
Kirsten

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Evrain

Thank you so much for answering my message on YouTube. I will be definately looking up at some of the suggested methods you have posted. I will also definately check out more of your videos. You’re doing such a wonderful job to help people who want to learn the German language.

Vielen Dank für die Information!
Ahmed Younis

thanx dear kirsten for your helpful topic , but I havn’t astonished when I read it , cuz I used to receive such helpful and important topics from you .

lastly , let me recommend dw-tv materials , cuz they are really so helpful and reliable. you could depend only on their materials to make a good progress in german , specially “deutsch warn nicht” and their interactive courses , but however you got courses and materials , you wouldn’t be able you despense kirsten’s lessons

thanx
Yunpeng

Thanks for providing these valuable information! I will follow your channel on youtube. They looks really great
Ron

This article is really good… 10 practical tips to help you memorize vocab words:
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/pr…
http://www.club-penguin.org/ ClubPenguinCheats

I will be definately looking up at some of the suggested methods you have posted. I will also definately check out more of your videos.
reinier_post

Mention an Asian river (Yenisey) to my father and he will start to sing the rivers in Asia song. “This is how Brother Nivardus taught placenames,” he explained. Well, I thought, it's been 60 years, but if the method really works, countless others of his pupils will remember those songs – let's try a Google search. And bingo:

http://www.cubra.nl/sjep/feestvanvroeger/feestv…

So this is indeed a time-tested method.

http://kirstenwinkler.com KirstenWinkler

Hey Reinier,
welcome on my blog . This should also be the reason why people can sing along their favourite songs, even if they don't speak the language.
I learned a lot from MTV back in the days.

reinier_post

I could sing songs before I understood the language – even my “native” language – so this even works for memorizing things you don't understand.

Another well-tested method is the “loci” (places) method: take a walk, real or imaginary, and put the things you need to remember in specific spots. I was pretty good at placenames because I was a map freak and already had detailed maps in my mind of pretty distant places, so I could simply place names on those maps. But when it came to learning vocabulary, nobody thought to remind me that such methods would work there as well. School could pick up a few things from the old Greeks …

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http://www.clubpenguingang.com Club Penguin Cheats

Word Champ is an excellent source for vocab. Thanks.
http://twitter.com/TeachingWriting Paul Barger

I think there is a connection between memorization and pattern. There is pattern in both words and writing, and seeing the pattern is the first step in the memorization process. You can learn a lot about pattern in both words and writing at http://patternbasedwriting.com.
Thanh Lan

thank you ^^
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This information is really useful for me and i will definitely follow these suggested methods.
Friend

very helpfulll thanks
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Really its a very useful info for me.Thanks
Michael Marcal

I think you have some great ideas here! For me the best way of learning vocabulary was doing flash cards (the old way though). I think actually writing the flashcards is just as useful as studying, so this might be more effective than some of the websites. I haven’t had the chance to use social learning websites but I imagine it would be very interesting and effective. I have used video lessons and songs in my classrooms and these are great ways to practice vocabulary. Lastly, lanugage programs by broadcast companies I do not know much about but I would love to learn more about and use in the future!

Guest

Memory drill using the old way is still very useful. I prefer word lists to flash card. And for me it is useless to memorise vocabulary from a textbook list (I mean ‘conversational’ textbook with a lot of vocabulary and phrases and few or no texts). When I memorise a worldlist from text where I had looked up the unknown words, it is very useful. And it is also very good to have the word in one list – which belongs to a text. Flashcard have some advantages over worlists, e.g. you can change the sequence of the words. Or you can repeat the word you do not know so well more frequently. I think it is a matter of personal preference, whether wordlist on a piece of paper or a notebook or flashcards. For me it is very important to combine the memory drill with repeated reading of the text. Memory drill yes, but only in combination with reading.

Using a pen and paper is more effective for me than systems like Anki or other sofware. In Anki there is just one repetion in a session for a batch. But I repeat my wordlists twice, with a short perion between. Writing in hand helps me to memorise much better than typing on the keyboard.

I use new technologies when I look up unknown word in dictionaries.

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