What exercise you do if you are in a strange country and you want to order a drink in a café or you demand to buy some soap or potatoes? You lot will probably reach for your smartphone or (if yous nonetheless utilize one) your lexicon and look for a translation of the words y'all demand. You probably won't accomplish for your grammar book!

Grammar is important, I'g not proverb it isn't, but if yous don't have the right words (vocabulary) you tin can't say anything! No amount of grammar is going to help you get a java if you don't know the word for 'java' in the local language. An IELTS essay might be grammatically perfect but without a good variety of words, it will not score well.

And then, how tin you recollect words? At that place are thousands of words, right? 'It's incommunicable!' I hear you shout! Well, here are a few ideas to help you remember all the new words y'all come across. Attempt them out and come across which ones work for you.

1. Discussion families – why larn one new discussion when you can hands learn six?

Word families are words which are related. Take the discussion 'happy' (because you will be happy afterwards you have read this!). If this is a new give-and-take to you, yous wait information technology upwardly in your lexicon. But don't stop there. Ask yourself some questions:

  • 'What kind of discussion is it?' – adjective.
  • 'What is the opposite?' – unhappy.
  • 'What virtually the adverb?' – happily. - (Note the change in spelling 'y' to 'i').
  • 'And is there an opposite adverb?' – Yes! – unhappily.
  • 'Is there a substantive from this word?' – Yes!! – happiness.
  • 'Tin we say 'unhappiness' – Yep!
  • 'Is in that location a verb?' – no! But we can say 'to exist happy'.

So from one new word, you all of a sudden have half-dozen!! And they are all in the aforementioned family unit so you are more likely to retrieve them. You just need to do a fiddling bit of work with the new give-and-take that you encounter. And by doing that piece of work you accept a greater chance of remembering those words – your brain has 'played' with the words then will think them improve.

two. Heed maps

Learning in topic areas is some other adept way to remember new words. I'm certain your instructor has told you this. Great! But now that y'all have written down all the words related to 'The surroundings' how will you remember them? Making a listing with a translation is 1 fashion, merely it's not very effective. Your encephalon does non work in lists. It works in patterns.

Collect together at to the lowest degree 4 unlike coloured pens. Have a big canvass of newspaper and write 'The environment' in the middle. Put a circle or a pretty cloud shape effectually the words. Take some other color and draw a line from the cloud and write the give-and-take 'verbs' along it. Now, from that line write whatsoever verbs you lot know that collocate with 'environment', due east.g. 'pollute', 'protect', 'save'. Hither is mine:

Now cull another colour and draw some other line coming out from the cloud. This time write the word 'rubbish' forth it. What words do you know (or can yous notice) that collocate with 'rubbish'? I tin call up of 'recycle rubbish', 'reuse rubbish', 'reduce (the corporeality of) rubbish', dump rubbish', throw out/away rubbish'.

You can determine how y'all want to suit the words on the paper. Mayhap you do only verbs; or perhaps verb and substantive collocations; phrasal verbs… yous can choose. Here is mine after I added some more:

The map might get besides crowded and you need to split the vocabulary into two separate maps, withal on the topic of 'the surround'. You might think that it is getting too messy and y'all need to start again. That'due south fine. In fact it is good! Past working on all the words once more, you will start to remember them.

iii. Using your listen maps

At present that yous have made your cute mind map, what tin you do with it? If yous are studying for IELTS y'all tin can employ them in a few ways.

  • Find a part 2 speaking question (the part where you accept to talk for ii minutes) on the topic of your mind map. Utilize your map while yous brand notes for your talk. Don't worry about only planning for i minute at start; have ii minutes or even three – the thought is to make your talk richer with all your great new words. When you have had a lot of practise, endeavour to plan for only one infinitesimal.
  • When y'all are planning your answer to a task ii essay, use a mind map on that topic to better the variety of your vocabulary. If you don't have one, make one first.
  • For reading or listening practice, find texts on topics that you accept prepared mind maps for. Review the map before y'all read, and so see how many of your phrases you find in the text. Maybe there are new ones in the text that you can add to your map.

Fifty-fifty if you are not studying for IELTS, you can do all the exercises in a higher place. Plus:

  • Have discussions with your teacher or someone else on the topics of your maps. Keep your listen map in front of you while you talk.
  • Make a quiz or a puzzle using the words and put information technology on the italki discussion folio for others to do. They can message you with the answers – you might even find a new language partner!

4. Learn phrases, not words

What does it mean to know a word? To be able to translate information technology into your language? To know the plural? To know the irregular forms of verbs?

To know a word ways all of these things, only also much more than! Ane of my students was recently telling me almost his mean solar day. He had been at work and was very decorated. He was trying to tell me what he had done; he knew the words 'coming together' and 'workshop' but he didn't know that you lot concur a coming together (if yous are in accuse) or that you lot give a workshop (again, if you are in accuse of it). Then he couldn't tell me nigh his day very clearly.

When you meet a new word, you demand to apply a good dictionary to find out how to actually use the give-and-take in the correct context. Ask yourself some more questions:

  • 'What verb/noun goes with (collocates with) this word. Is there more than one?'
  • 'What is the grammer later this word?' E.g. If it is a verb do you put –ing or the infinitive later it? Do you need a noun after or noun phrase? Can you put a clause later it?

Let's look at 'recommend'.

  • I recommend you exercise...
  • I recommend that y'all practise...
  • I recommend doing…

But NOT

  • I recommend yous to practise.
  • I recommend y'all should practise.

This is mayhap the most of import tip you should recall because if you tin't utilise the words properly, there is no betoken in learning them in the get-go place!

And then, let's sum upwardly.

There are many ways you tin can help yourself learn new words. It is non enough to just interpret the words and make a overnice long list in your notebook or in a file on your computer. You need to practise some work with the words; your encephalon needs to play with them and you need to practice this again and again.

Simply it doesn't need to be boring. Detect that I used the give-and-take play. Use your imagination to make up fun activities. Utilize colours and big pieces of paper. Go out your scissors and glue and be a child over again!

Image Sources

Hero image by Per Gosche (CC Past ii.0)