One of the most difficult aspects students encounter when learning a second language is that concerned with vocabulary. How could a learner succeed when facing so many new words in a single text?. Many of them spend long hours reading and reading long strings of words put up together which they find meaningless.Although acquiring new words is in fact a difficult target in any language, remembering vocabulary is not such a great deal when giving it an appropiate approach and adopting a grand strategy.

The majority of students rush into libraries to get the latest dictionaries to help them out and as a matter of fact, they learn many new words, but the problem arouses when the student speaks and finds himself/herself always using the same basic words over and over again. Therefore, the question is:”how could a student be successful at using the new words without dying in the attempt?”

I’ll try to provide many of the methods that have proved to be successful to me:

Firstly, it’s always better to memorize an example of the particular word in usage, that’s to say, do not try to remember its definition or even more don’t try to understand every word the definition of that lexical item means!.
I’ll try to make this explanation clearer by proving the following example:

The student finds this new word in a particular reading text:

They start reading its dictionary definition: a small but noticeable trace of some quality that might become stronger.
Teacher: Ok, do you understand the definition of this word? Is it clear?
John (student): mmm, but what’s the meaning of noticeable?
Teacher: easy to see or recognize
John: and what about trace?
Teacher: a characteristic ...
John: Sorry teacher, I cannot follow you...
The teacher ends up extremely exhausted wondering what went wrong in his/her explanation when everything could have been easier if she/he had provided a straightforward example from the very beginning.

Teacher: Ok, John, don’t look at this sentence, forget about it, I’ll write an example to help you out.
Michael might not be the brighest spark at school, but he has gotten high marks this month.
Teacher: What do you understand by this example John?.
Student: Let me think.... intelligent... mmmm good student...
Teacher: Excellent John, that’s the meaning: Michael might not be the greatest student in his class but he got high marks.

Secondly, another great suggestion for remembering words is that of association. If you encounter the lexical item calumniate e.g. try to think of many other words that might mean the same, in this way, the mind acts as a sort of dictionary that stores files that belong to a similar field: calumniate, lie, slander, misinform, etc.

The crucial thing here is that you avoid using and repeating constantly the same words: if you want to say that something is important, make an effort and try to recall words that mean the same but sound more colorful, polished and native-like:

e.g This is an important feature that requires our inmediate attention.Why not replacing important by: noticeable, distinguished, measurable, essential, crucial, valuable?
e.g This is an essential feature that requires our inmediate attention.

Thirdly,it’s important to link a word to a visual image especially when learning nouns, let’s take a look the following words:

baby carriage	bathrobe	beet	blender	cane	jet	kettle	overhead projector

But what happens when the word is an abstract adjective and so we cannot attach a picture to it? Make your own associations!

Let’s read the following adjective as an example:

kind-hearted: A kind-hearted person is one who cares a lot about other people and always wants to help them.

What’s advisable to do here is to read the word’s definition and then make an association, e.g. think about real people that you know:

Susan ,my mother, is a kind-hearted person. ( So whenever you are trying to use this word, it’s quite likely that the name of this person would come to you mind and so would the word)

Remember this is just a piece of advice, you can try out by making your own associations!

Another problem regarding the study of vocabulary is that of words with multiple meanings.
If you encounter a word which has more than 3 meanings, don’t pretend to memorize them all together, just pick up the one you like the most and focus on that particular meaning:

PINCH ( this word can be used both as a noun and as a verb)

pinch (verb) ?

These shoes are too tight, they pinch (my feet). (press)
Right, who's pinched my chair? (steal)

pinch (noun)
While the tomatoes are cooking add a pinch of salt (small amount)

Don’t attempt to get? the 3 meanings altogether, work on one, then on another one and so forth.

Finally, it’s always better to study words in a particular context, e.g if you decide to study words related to the field of kitchen tools, look for a reading text including the words connected to this field, it’s always recommended to find words in a proper context rather than just read their isolated definitions.

Remember, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, try to resort to different words when you speak, a fluent speaker of any language has to excel himself/herself when speaking. I do hope that you find all my recommendations made herein to be inmensely helpful.