How do you memorize vocabulary? Do you trudge through it like you memorized dates in primary school or do you take a more creative approach?
Back when I started with my language studies, I used the classic repeat method to learn vocabulary. I’ll take a word from my language learning software and repeat it numerous times until I have retained it to memory. The next time I’m in a conversation with a native speaker, I might recognize the word and, perhaps, even find a way to use it myself, eventually cementing it into my treasure trove of learned items.
This is a perfectly valid way of getting a grasp of vocabulary, although it does suffer from two glaring problems. First, it’s incredibly boring – as snooze-inducing as memorizing the names of all the presidents back when I was in grade school. Second, it’s completely inefficient, with a single word taking too much time to learn (that is, if you do manage to learn it at all).
There are many creative approaches to memorizing stuff that you can apply to vocabulary mastery. If you’ve used particular techniques to remember facts in school, do note that you can apply the exact same things in your language studies. Did you use word associations, images or some other mnemonics? Look back at those days and try to figure out which ones worked best for you. Chances are, they’re the same things that can help you best in your quest to gain a better grasp of your target vocabulary.