Learning vocabulary as international student

<p>How do u guys absorb huge amount of vocabulary? Until now, I havent had a really good way to memorize them. Some native members here found reading and then writting new word in a flashcard helpful, but that didnt work for me, esspecially the part of remembering their english meaning . I usually write english words in one row and then next row re meanings translated to my language. Is that a bad way? Plz give me some ideas</p>

<p>i wouldn't prefer that--i'd rather try defining english words in english. if you define the word in your own language then it will stick that way and you won't become totally bilingual. there are some books that can help--i've used barron's 1100 words you must know which helped me a lot, especially with SAT. you can also buy flashcards and study from them.</p>

<p>Vocabulary Cartoons are great fun to read and you also remember the words and their meanings well.</p>

<p>Are you in the States yet? Learning new words in context is a lot easier than memorizing them out of a textbook.</p>

<p>I learned the following trick from American students: if a word doesn't stick in your memory, try to engage with it. Draw a picture of its meaning, write down a few sentences containing that word, google it to see how it is being used by native speakers etc.</p>

<p>After a while in the States, I got frustrated that I knew all the words for my academics but that I still missed a lot of words for things in everyday life. At that point I got a dictionary for American middle school kids. I figured if I knew all words that a middle school student should know, I would be prepared for most situations.</p>

<p>b@ar!um, did you mean dictionaries like this one Amazon.com:</a> The American Heritage Student Thesaurus: Paul Hellweg, Joyce LeBaron, Susanna LeBaron, Editors of The American Heritage Dictionaries: Books</p>

<p>you will learn quickly once you are immersed in the language -- if you want a headstart before that, try an online flashcard service like quizlet...it is really good for foreign vocab...if its not sticking, maybe youre not practicing enough? make sure you keep repeating words often in your studies, until you're certain you won't forget</p>

<p>Recording a set of words and then their meanings on an Mp3 player and then listening while doing regular stuff did help me rote memorize them to an extent.</p>

<p>If you have a lot of time like an year or so- the best thing, which would also help in long term would be to read old classics.
I was actually very surprised that i knew quite some words in the list due to the Georgette Heyer's i had read.</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.freerice.com%5DFreeRice%5B/url"&gt;http://www.freerice.com]FreeRice[/url&lt;/a&gt;] as mentioned many times already is also helpful.</p>

<p>I used to love FreeRice and use it all the time, but I got a little tired of it after a while, because sometimes I failed to understand both the word asked and the correct synonym. It's was frustrating to have to look them up.</p>