My Search for the Most Effective Way to Memorize Vocabulary

I love to learn grammar. I could sit and study grammar all day long. On the other hand, I find it hard to memorize vocabulary. For the longest while I was trying to find a way to memorize vocabulary that I could stand. Of course there are:

• classic flashcards and spaced repetition systems
• Mnemonics- I love doing this. My latest one that I find hilarious  산소에 사는 사람들이 산소가 필요 없어요. ( People who live in tombs don't need oxygen)
• Creating crazy stories around a particular word
• Memory palaces- which I never tried because I figure it would be too time consuming

There was an article I found called "Vocabulary Myths: Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching" by Keith Folse which aims to debunk the following ideas people have concerning vocabulary:

• In learning another language, vocabulary is not as important as grammar or other areas.
• Using word lists to learn L2 vocabulary is unproductive.
• Presenting new vocabulary in semantic sets facilitates learning.
• The use of translations to learn new vocabulary should be discouraged.
• Guessing words from context is an excellent strategy for learning L2 vocabulary.
• The best vocabulary learners make use of one or two really specific vocabulary learning strategies.
• The best dictionary for L2 learners is a monolingual dictionary.
• Teachers, textbooks, and curricula cover L2 vocabulary adequately.

These are three things that Folse discussed that I found interesting:

a) Making vocabulary lists by grouping words in to "scenes/events"(thematic sets) is better than making a list simply based on similarity(semantic sets).
Example: Making a vocab list including the things related to a birthday party vs making a list of colours.

b) Word lists may seem not useful but they are. However, too much information should not be used. A study done showed better retention using a single word or a word in a single sentence(minimal context) versus words in text context or elaborate text context.
I also learned about word lists for English learners like the Dolch list, the University Word list and the Academic Word list.

c) Guessing from context for native speakers of a language can be difficult and so therefore it is more difficult for a foreign language learner. The possibility of inferring the meaning of a word incorrectly is high. Folse therefore recommends "reading with explicit, planned vocabulary work."


Every time I think about memorization, I always think about my lovely childhood memories of memorizing times tables. I can't count how many times a week we had to stand in class and recite the times tables. We went over them countless times and now (even though some of them still always seem to escape me) they are practically engraved in my brain. Not to mention that we need to recall them often in our daily lives. If this method has been proven effective to memorize times tables, why not do the same for language? These days people are always crying down rote memorization. As a science student I can see how this type of 'learning' is not the best. In science you need to understand most concepts and not just simply memorize them. In the case of language, particularly vocabulary, there is no need to understand anything in that manner. All you need to do is remember. I was reading an  article by Ask a Korean in which he talked about his English language learning journey and how rote memorization played an important role. One of the things that he said which remained with me was this

"But there are certain things about contemporary America drives the Korean crazy, and this is one of them: the idea that the process of learning is somehow supposed to be fun. Just drop it. Forget it. What is fun is the result of learning – the infinite amount of fun when you finally put the finished product to use."

These days everyone says that the learning process should be fun. I thought (think?) like this as well. I am beginning to think that this is not necessarily so. Discipline is key.

I decided to heed the Korean's words to just 'suck it up' and get to studying. After taking a look at the shared decks on Anki, I found a Korean deck that is called 'Grand sentence mine'. This was just filled with sentences. I tried using the deck for a while. Before, when I used flashcards I just used single word flashcards. This was extremely boring and seemingly not very effective. Somehow, using the sentences, though not necessarily fun, was much more enjoyable. In addition to reading the flashcards, I say them out loud. Instead of just repeating a single, solitary word, I feel like I am actually using the language because it is an actual sentence. This also provides context for the word being studied. Not only do you learn vocabulary words, but sometimes you also end up learning grammar as well.

The only thing is that these sentences may not be related to my own personal interests. I always wanted to have the ability to save sentences like I could words into my Naver wordbook. I would therefore have to start creating my own decks but.......truthfully I am too lazy to do that.

For the past three months or so I have been using this method. I started off using sentences in a phrasebook in preparation for my trip to Korea. Now I have moved on to using the sentences on Learning Korean with Oliver. I downloaded all the flashcards from the intermediate to very advanced and started going over them. I am enjoying it and actually feel that I am making some sort of progress. I really think this sentence mining thing is the way to go.