Friday 15 February 2013

New words are our new friends



When I’m learning a new language, I’m always on the lookout for effective ways to deal with grammar and vocabulary.

Grammar rules tend to stick to my mind rather easily, even though they tend to… disappear right when I need them! But vocabulary is a different story. Learning vocabulary in a new language takes both time and patience. What’s more, if we don’t see new words often, they constantly slip our minds. 

Maybe this happens because new words are like new friends. We have to meet them often in order to be their friends.

I find it impossible to take a list of new words and learn them by heart. Even if some of them stick, I am going to forget them later on.

Just like people I met once. They are not my friends.

But if I meet them one day at the grocery store, the next day at the supermarket, or at a friend’s house… First they are acquaintances. Yet slowly, these people become my friends.

That’s exactly what we need to do with vocabulary.

Not only should we meet new words again and again but also we should meet them in various environments or contexts.

This way they will stick to our minds much easier.

 And how are we going to do that?

By increasing the possibility of meeting new words again and again. That’s what I have done when I learned English:

I listened to songs and looked up the lyrics.
I saw movies without subs.
I read a great amount of novels and non-fiction.
I noticed everything written in English.
I looked up stuff that interested me such as recipes, gardening tips etc.
I looked up every single word in the dictionary.

All the above involve spending amounts of time just hanging out with the new language. And without stressing, just hanging out, it was much easier to learn.

2 comments:

mag said...

Πολύ καλή η δουλειά σου Σοφία!

Sofia Polykreti said...

Ευχαριστώ πολύ!