What English words to learn. How to learn English words: the hard and easy ways

Vocabulary matters a lot. If you know the words, you understand what it is about, even without knowing the intricacies of grammar. If you don't know the word, you communicate like Ellochka the ogre. Today we are talking about how to memorize a lot and for a long time.

Routine memorization of words has a low efficiency. For example, over 11 years of the school curriculum, students memorize an average of 1-1.5 thousand words. To speak like a native speaker, you need to know at least 8 thousand words, the Upper-Intermediate level requires knowledge of 6 thousand words. To understand CNN news, which are created taking into account the interest of a foreign audience, you need to know at least 3 thousand words.

Using traditional methods, it is easy to learn up to 10 words in one approach, but only a few can memorize 30 or 50 new words in one day.

Words are quickly forgotten if not repeated;
- it is very difficult to learn many words at once;
- people just don't know how to learn words effectively;
- when a word gets into short-term memory, a person stops working with it.

Why is that?

During the experiments, it was found that after the first unmistakable repetition of a series of such syllables, forgetting occurs very quickly. Already within the first hour, up to 60% of all the information received is forgotten, 10 hours after memorization, 35% of what has been learned remains in memory. Further, the forgetting process proceeds much more slowly and after six days about 20% of the total number of originally learned syllables remains in memory, the same amount remains in memory after a month.

After a series of experiments in 1885, Ebbinghaus developed the Forgetting Curve (also called the Ebbinghaus Curve). Based on it, the following conclusion was made: for effective memorization, repetition of memorized material is necessary.

To remember information for a long time, after studying it, you need to repeat it at least five times:

1. 20-30 minutes after the first study;
2. after a couple of hours;
3. the next day;
4. after 1-2 weeks;
5. 2-3 months after the fourth repetition.

Other traditional methods

If you want to use a dictionary, it is more convenient to compile a list of words on a specific topic, for example, select the category "Clothes" or "Travel". A community of related words is easier to remember.

- Learn from sticker cards
On one side of the card we write a word in Russian, on the other - in English. You need to spend time making cards, but you can carry them with you and repeat the words when you have a free minute. If you don't feel like messing around with paper, you can download a special application to your smartphone.

- Learn words in context
For example, when watching TV shows or movies. It is better for beginners to start with the series, you can watch them with subtitles. Do not memorize an unfamiliar word separately. Record or copy a whole sentence from subtitles at once. So you will remember in what situations it can be used.

The method of associations or "Mnemonics"

Facts about mnemonics:

Scientists have found that visual connections are best made in the human brain.
- The method appeared 2.5 thousand years ago. It was used by the ancient Greeks, including the famous thinker Socrates.
- Mnemonics gives quick results. Anyone, if desired, can reach a memorization rate of 100 words per hour or more.

Why mnemonics?

Algorithm

Step 2
Find an association with a similar sound to the Russian word. Fist in English fist. For example, you can imagine a pistachio clenched in a fist. The ridiculous and funny associations are best remembered: the brighter, the better. It is also worth creating your own associations, as they will be more vividly deposited in memory.

Step 3
Combine the association with the picture. The picture representing the word and the association picture should be visually connected. For example, remembering the word crown, you can imagine a crane lifting the crown. If the crane and the crown in your imagination will just be nearby, there will be no effect; it is better to imagine that the crane is lifting the crown by the edge or on a rope. It is better to imagine a huge crown, as large objects are better remembered. You can also add a certain sound or music playing against the background, which would be associated with the crown.

Step 4
Repeat the memorized word out loud 4-5 times in English, slightly raising your eyes upward, as if looking at the bridge of your nose. Scientists have found that with this position of the eyes the largest number of neurons are activated. The eyes must be kept open, if you remember with closed, then you will remember with closed eyes.

Step 5
Repeat words - at least after an hour or two, every other day and after a month. Qualitatively created associations are stored in memory for a month. If you do everything according to the algorithm with repetition, you will remember the words for years.

Typical mistakes

- Immediately learn difficult words that do not correspond to the level of knowledge of the language
Even if the word is difficult to pronounce, you shouldn't learn it. Beginners need to learn the most common words, that's about 400 words. More than half of them are verbs. Start easy and build up complexity.

- Don't repeat what you've learned
Without repetition, new words are forgotten.

- Memorize without understanding the context
You won't be able to use new words if you don't know the situations in which they are used.

- Memorize incorrect pronunciation
You must first listen to the correct pronunciation, even if you know the reading rules well. The site wooordhunt.ru is good for listening.

And the most important thing

• Share your progress with friends to keep yourself motivated.
• Reward your success to get used to learning is good.
• Develop your memory in general, not just in English.
• Practice the words you have learned in conversation clubs to finally cement the words in context.

Bonuses for Habr readers

We give you access for a year to the English course for self-study "Online Course".
To access, simply go to.

Individually via Skype

Among our students there are already students from GeekBrains, ITVDN, Softengi, Netology. Join us! And we wish you only successful interviews and career success.

Instead of learning thematic vocabulary from textbooks, focus on the essentials and you will be amazed at the results. Neural networks analyzed thousands of texts of books, articles and discussions in English and identified words that make sense to spend time on. Let's talk about this in more detail.

In Soviet and post-Soviet schools, it was important to know grammar. Therefore, their graduates find it difficult to talk. English was studied from the abstract heroes of textbooks, encyclopedias and literature, missing the most important thing - ordinary human speech.

How many words do you need to know?

The compilers of modern curricula in chorus pronounce the number 3000 - this is such a "gold reserve" of English words. We named it Gold 3000 and now we'll tell you all about it.

How to understand whether this is a lot or a little?

3000 words - this is the first chapter of the poem by Eugene Onegin, 15 pages of A4 text in 12 point size, half an hour of leisurely reading aloud. In short, this is not so much. But this is where the tricky thing begins. You cannot learn any three thousand words and be sure that you know the language fluently. It's like trying to form the word "happiness" from a known set of letters.

Read also:

What English words to learn?

To pass for someone who speaks English, you need to learn common, colloquial words, fixed expressions, phrases of high frequency, which are all collected in one list from the compilers of the Oxford Dictionary. To grow professionally, you need those that relate to your profession. To understand the subject - on the subject.

Those who have learned frequency words can easily read texts in the New York Times, watch the BBC and communicate with native speakers about Brexit and Donald Trump. Because I studied using relevant and relevant materials. And some at this time for some reason remembered the word serendipity, so that later they would come across it one day in an article on bipolar disorder.

How many words are there in English?

Calm down, no one knows all the words. A more or less educated native speaker of English has an average of 10,000 to 30,000 words.

The compilers of the legendary Macmillan Dictionary estimate that 2,500 of the most frequent expressions cover 80% of English speech. 7500 words already cover 90% of speech. That is, by learning more, you earn yourself a chance to communicate on professional topics, read thematic literature, or somehow speak especially deeply about your feelings.

How did they get it?

This is understood by artificial intelligence, having performed a computer analysis of thousands of texts of books, articles, essays and discussions (now there are already 1.6 billion words in the Macmillan corpus).

The authors of the Longman dictionary have identified 3000 (in reality a little more) words, which, according to their research, cover 86% of all texts in English.

The Oxford Dictionary also has its own list of the most important words in the English language. Here they are also 3000 (and here they rounded down to an even number), but the authors do not mention what percentage of speech and / or texts they will help to understand.

So what are these words?

For example, you can run a fragment of The Guardian's article in a special service of the Oxford Dictionary, which shows how many words from the Oxford 3000 ™ list are used in the text. As you can see, 90% of the text falls on those same 3000 most frequent words.

Read also:

The same list was uploaded to the Skyeng mobile app for learning words on iOs and Android. Since the list is called Gold 3000, every frequency word that deserves your time is marked with a golden bag. The application can be used not only to learn words, but in general to learn (do homework and read useful materials, this one is included).

Basic English (basic English) is already worth falling in love with, if only for the fact that it is enough to learn only 850 words to learn it. Oddly enough, this amount is quite enough to communicate easily and naturally with a resident of any English-speaking country. Of course, if you need English for the profession of a translator or for reading Wilkie Collins in the original, then welcome to the philology or very serious courses. However, if your goal is simply to speak an international language, then welcome to this article!

For the sake of simplicity, 850 words are divided into major groups:

1) objects and phenomena (600 words, of which 400 are general, and 200 are designations of objects);

2) action or movement (100 words);

3) expression of quality (150 words, of which 100 are common and 50 with the opposite meaning).

Particularly encouraging is the fact that out of 850 basic words, 514 have only one syllable! This is not a conservationalist or anything worse. Already rubbing your palms in anticipation of the Basic Dictionary? You are welcome.

1. OBJECTS AND PHENOMENA

If you act according to the method "from simple to complex", then the minimum vocabulary can be learned from picture words. There are 200 of them. You can stick stickers all over the apartment (if the household does not go crazy, taking an apple from the refrigerator with a piece of paper "apple"). Or cut pictures from books. Or download images on the Internet and print them with signatures (by the way, you can flip through them in queues or traffic jams). And here is a ready-made list with pictures on Wikipedia.

1.1. 200 picture words:

It is most convenient and quickest to divide these basic words into 6 groups according to meaning: body parts, food, animals, vehicles, objects, etc. If you study at least 2 groups every day, then in three days you can master the basic vocabulary. The main thing is not to lose your knowledge and consolidate it in practice. Any acquaintance who agrees to become an evil examiner or pretends to be a dunno, who is interested in everything, is suitable for this.

U:
umbrella - umbrella

1.2. 400 common words:

To make this sequence easier to learn, let's not reinvent the wheel. You can, of course, torment yourself and divide all words into semantic groups, but there will be so many of them that some will contain only one or two terms. It's easier to learn alphabetically. There are about ten words for each letter. If you lean over a piece of paper for 10 minutes at least three times a day, then you can learn at least 3 letters a day. The maximum depends on your goals and desires.

Y:
year - year

2. ACTION AND MOTION (100 words)

Miraculously, this list includes words that do not seem to fit the concept of "action" at all: pronouns, polite phrases. Well, what did you want? Try asking someone to move without "please let him go northeast for the star."

You can learn alphabetically. And it can be divided into parts of speech: verbs, pronouns, prepositions, etc. Prepositions are easy to remember if you use a schema. Draw a square in the very center on a piece of paper and indicate movement with dots or arrows. For example, the preposition in translates as "in" - put a dot in the square and sign it in. And, for example, out is translated as "from" - put an arrow from the square.

3. EXPRESSION OF QUALITY (150 WORDS)

3.1. General (100 words)

This is probably the nicest part of the vocabulary. Without adjectives, the language would be too bland and official. You can learn alphabetically. Or you can find images of objects or photographs of people and write on the back of what you think of them. Feel free to express yourself. The more adjectives you use from the list, the faster you will learn.

3.2. Opposite (50 words)

The easiest way to quickly master words is to find antonyms. Have you already said everything about the different people in the photos? Change your look and use opposite adjectives. Or just write down first the designation of quality from paragraph 3.1., And through a hyphen - the opposite in meaning from paragraph 3.2.

That's all. Congratulations! You have a basic vocabulary. And it will be quite enough for communication. It remains only to learn how to put these most necessary words into sentences. Welcome to grammar!

Today, self-development in the form of learning languages \u200b\u200band going to the gym is literally a trend that everyone is trying to keep up with.

From everywhere you can only hear “Don't give up!”, “Be better than yesterday!”, “Work on yourself!”. If your figure is not perfect, everything is clear here - you need to observe proper nutrition and pump muscles. However, is learning English really that easy? Let "s see.

If you have gaps in English, it is worth tightening up your grammar and expanding your vocabulary. What if you have a bad memory and all these words do not fit in your head? Is it possible to pump memory? The answer will pleasantly surprise you - you can.

Of course, someone will be able to quickly learn a number of new English words just by looking at them, while others will have to make an effort. It all depends on your desire.

In order to understand how you can pump memory, it is worth considering a few of your own characteristics - all individually. As you know, there are two types of memory - someone perceives new by ear, and someone visually. There is one secret technique that we intuitively master at school, and eventually forget.

Remember how at break, repeating a verse, you walked from corner to corner with a textbook. Indeed, movement helps to remember new things. And of course, memorization is significantly influenced not only by speed, but also by the quality of memorization or the level of attention. It is important to focus on what you are learning here and now, rather than flying in the clouds.

Understanding what memory is, it becomes obvious that having worked on yourself, adding more self-discipline, you can develop your memory and easily memorize the required amount of new memorization of English words. All the excuses you used before, it's time to get together and make a breakthrough in learning English.

How to quickly learn English words

1. Learn words from context.

It is quite difficult to learn words if they are written in a list in a dictionary. This method can only be used if you are studying with a teacher who will help you use these words in context, build a dialogue with you using these new words, and translate the list of new words from your passive vocabulary into active vocabulary.

If you are at the stage of independent study of English, then it is best to memorize words in the context of topics that interest you.

In this method of learning new words, two types of memory work - visual and auditory. Subtitles are important because they will help you to be 100% sure what the word was just spoken and how it is spelled. Agree, it is difficult to remember what you are not sure enough about.

If you are studying English with a teacher, then he will definitely include podcasts in your classes, which are also a magic wand for expanding your vocabulary.

3. Don't grab onto every new word.

When learning words, do not grab onto every new word and run to write it out in the dictionary. If only because the number of words in the English language is incredible!

For starters, it’s best to memorize the base of words that you need, depending on your age and lifestyle. Of course, an experienced English teacher will be able to guide you in the right direction and tell you what to focus on.

However, you can try and independently determine what to concentrate on and which words you can omit.

4. Read.

You may be surprised, but now we are not even talking about reading in English, but about reading in your native language. It doesn't matter if it's fiction or quality articles.

Reading helps make your thinking more flexible and develops your memory, thereby improving your memorization of new words in English.

5. Learn words in conjunction with grammar.

Many people think that the main base of English is words, and you don't have to work on grammar much. Perhaps, once in a parallel universe, this myth will dispel, however, now it still exists.

Just imagine, if you know the conjugation of verbs, how many new words you will recognize at once. For example, if you do not perceive that all these new words in the text are just the first or second form of an irregular verb, they all seem new to you and confusion arises.

6. Learn English with modern technology, down with old-fashioned flashcards!

Fortunately, the world of modern technology is conducive to learning new words. For example, on our site there is a dictionary in a completely free format that will help you learn new words by memorizing them by ear and visually. The study takes place rather in a playful way, which helps to make the process of memorizing new words much more enjoyable.

In order for the English word to be remembered faster, you can draw a certain parallel with it in your mind. It doesn't matter if it makes sense for someone else, the main thing is that it carries a certain message for you and, remembering this association, you could remember a new word.

For example, the word "sing" is somewhat similar to the word Singapore. A parallel can be drawn with the phrase "singing in Singapore". In this method, only your imagination and imagination are important, add creativity.

8. Pay attention to words of common origin.

Words of common origin in different languages \u200b\u200b- cognates seem to have been created in order to instill the belief that learning a new language is not as unattainable as it might seem at first glance. When learning new words, you will personally make sure that many English words are similar to Russian ones.

9. Chat with native speakers.

It's no secret that the easiest way to learn a language is in the environment where it is spoken. However, it is not necessary to travel to another country for this. You can find yourself a penpal or call him on Skype. Communication with a native speaker will be very helpful when learning new words.

There are even many sites where people from different countries offer to improve your English for free, instead of learning something from your native language. However, this technique is best used when you already have a fairly confident English. At the initial stage, it is better to turn to a professional teacher so that he can guide you on the right track.

10. Use the S.M.A.R.T. Goal System.

Set goals for learning new English words and you will see progress. It's much more enjoyable to learn English by noticing your progress. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound - i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-limited.

Promise yourself that over the next month you will learn 70 new words that are most in demand in the English language.

11. Speak and think like a native speaker.

When learning new words, pay attention to the accent and intonation with which it is customary to pronounce the given word. Try to imitate these elements at the very beginning of your language learning. In the future, this will greatly help you overcome the barrier of communication with native speakers.

12. Don't be afraid to make a mistake.

In order to speak correctly, it is not necessary to remember all the words that exist in English. It is enough, for a start, to master the basic base of words, of which there are about 300. Having studied the base, you will be able to express a thought even without knowing any word using the paraphrasing technique.

Learning a language no longer seems so out of reach. Is not it?

By the way! We advise you to read our article on how to quickly learn English. Not everything is so simple :)

How to help your child remember English words easily

What can you do to help your child learn new words?

There are many memory poems that will greatly simplify the process of learning English for children. Is it possible to use the methods of memorizing new words developed for children, adults?

Yes! Both children and adults can learn the language with nursery rhymes.

For example:

We were given red tomatoes for lunch!(Red - red)
And the lemon, when ripe, wears a yellow skin!(Yellow - yellow)
I love to run around the city in blue jeans!(Blue - blue)
Orange means orange, the color is the same, we will eat.(Orange - orange)
Let's call the gray mouse, the gray mouse will be it.(Gray color - gray)
Black - our black master, as always came alone.(Black - black)
Green - green grass, it grew itself.(Green - green)
Brown is the new chocolate, I'm glad for brown.(Brown - brown)
White is white and snow. (White - white)

You can help children learn new words by studying the rhyme and demonstrating the items the poem is talking about. This technique will come in handy when working out the following rhymes:

This is a bear, this is a hare,
This is a dog and this is a frog.
This is a car, this is a star,
This is a ball and this is a doll.

One, two, three, four, five,
Once I caught a fish alive,
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
Then I let it go again.
Why did you let it go?
Because it bit my finger so.
Which finger did it bite?
The little finger on the right.

With the help of poems, you can learn not only new words, but also memorize temporary structures. For example:

To have
I have a father,
I have a mother,
I have a sister,
I have a brother.
Father, mother, sister, brother -
Hand in hand with one another.

With this rhyme, you can work out the structure of the question:

How to learn English words for business

Do not be alarmed, everything is the same here as in the study of General English. The main thing is to select the necessary sources of study. It is worth focusing on videos on a topic that is relevant to you.

When choosing a textbook, it is also worth considering the business area that you need. By studying Business English with a teacher, he will help you place all the accents correctly and focus on the topic that you need, be it business, aviation or agriculture.

Do you need a mentor? Of course no one can say, for example, how to learn English words in 5 minutes;) But mwe will select the best teacher who will lead you to the result. Set goals and achieve them! There is nothing unattainable, the main thing is to correctly prioritize and understand what to work on.

Good luck on your way to perfection!

Big and friendly family EnglishDom

If you want to master the English language, you will have to learn English words one way or another. The more words you know, the broader your ability to understand what you have read or heard and express your own thoughts. The question is where to get the words in the much needed volume, and how to learn them quickly and reliably? After carefully studying this section, you will receive answers to these questions: we share with you not only specific English vocabulary (i.e. words), but also provide effective technologies for memorizing it (i.e. we teach you to learn English words).

✯ Golden rules for learning words ✯

Before you start learning specific words, you need to understand a few rules that will make the whole process easier and allow you to learn words easily and painlessly. By knowing these rules, you will avoid serious mistakes and failures.

Learn the most common words first.

For a long time, lexicologists have done a lot to assess the use of words, compiling entire lists in which each word was assigned a degree of its frequency. For example, scientists have found that the most commonly used word in English is the definite article the; the second most frequently used was the verb to be (to be, to be), the third - the preposition to (to, in). If you are new to learning English then. Even if you are already very knowledgeable in English, we still advise you to look at the indicated page and make sure that all the words from the list are familiar to you. What if you know all the words from the suggested list? What words to learn next? Of course, you can go through the internet thoroughly and dig up something like the 150 most important words, the 1000 most important words, etc. However, our recommendation here is this: wherever you get the word (from a list, from a text, from a dictionary, etc.), first of all ask yourself a question - do I often use this word in my speech? If you use this word at least once a day, then add it to the list to be studied; otherwise, ignore it. Remember: your ability to memorize words is limited, so priority should be given only to those that you really need. So, for example, you use the word "bread" immeasurably more often than the word "orangutan". Or, for example, the verb “to eat” in your speech occurs more often than “to die out”. So decide which words to learn first.

Learn words using associations

Words are much easier to learn if you associate them with sound associations. Let's say you need to remember the English word valley (pronounced veli and translated valley). Perhaps you will remember it the first time and you will remember it all your life. But the reality is much harsher - most will forget this word the next day. The word valley will by itself fall out of my head, because it has not yet acquired connections - attachments with what is already in my memory. It hasn't caught on for anything yet ...
So, our task is to associate the word valley with what will keep this word in memory. First, valley (we remind you once again that this word is pronounced veli and translated valley) consonant with the word wallow, a wallow it is possible in valley... So we created the first association - we tied the word valley through sound similarity to the concept wallow, which in turn is related to valley... By the way, teachers-methodologists even came up with a special term for this way of memorizing words - the method of phonetic association. Here's another example of this method: the word valley is consonant with ate (meaning conifers). Can you see ate in valley? Why not ... Here again we have attached valley through sound similarity to the concept valley.
... Learning words from such dictionaries is a pleasure.

Learn words in groups

Words are easier to learn if they are not scattered by themselves, but are combined into groups based on some feature. For example, words can be combined by:

• topics:
• shopping: shop, market, counter, goods ...
• free time: cinema, theater, club, party, friends ...
• travel: plane, tickets, flight, hotel, attractions ...
• associative rows:
• phone: call, buttons, expensive, applications, tariff, connection ...
• communicative intentions or speech tasks:
• rebuttal: wrong; not true; not at all …
• greeting: hello; good day; Hi; Greetings …
• phrases:
• computer: buy, turn on, turn off, clean from viruses ...
• party: successful, canceled, postponed, failed ...
• "Chains" of actions connected by logic or temporal links:
• every day: go to work, communicate with loved ones, read the news ...
• plane: landing, pilot, economy class, stewardess, take off, turbulence ...
• natural word groups:
• i have everything: good, bad, very bad, super ...
• classifications:
• transport: water (ship, steamer, boat ...), rail (electric train, express train, metro ...), air (plane, helicopter, balloon ...)
• groups of cognate words:
• write, rewrite, note, writer ...
• antonyms:
• strong - weak; big small …
• synonyms:
• big, huge, large ...
• word-formative feature:
• relive, rewrite, rewrite, transfer, call back ...

Get to know the rules of word formation

Word formation - its importance cannot be overestimated! English word formation includes, first of all, the use of prefixes and suffixes. For example, the -ment suffix is \u200b\u200bknown to form nouns from verbs. Knowing that in English “develop” is develop, then “development” is development. If you know that in English “attach” is attach, then what is “attachment”? Attachment, of course. As soon as you understand at least basic word formation, the words will crawl into your head much faster. By the way, there is one on our website.

Write words

It so happens that some words cannot be learned in any way. Then it's time to connect the motor memory. Take a piece of paper and force yourself to write the word dozens of times. The method is far from entertaining, but effective.

Use consonance

Most often, the studied languages, such as English, are our not very distant relatives, and there are much more consonant roots in them than we think.

Learn to find these consonant roots - there is no better way to root a word in your memory. Take, for example, the English word tear and its Russian translation “to tear”, “to tear”. Take a closer look at the consonants: tr - others. Agree that they are consonant with each other.

In the end, I would like to say a few words about the physiological aspect of memorizing words. In fact, memory in general and memorization of words in particular are chemical processes, i.e. chemical reactions. Reactions in the body can be accelerated under certain conditions, such as exercise. Reactions are accelerated - the processes of memorizing information are accelerated. This is why many people love to listen to any information so much, say, during their morning runs. The benefits of light physical activity for memorization processes cannot be overestimated! If you are not eager to jog, then just walk around the room or rhythmically squeeze the expander.

Chemical reactions can also be stimulated by taking dietary supplements. One of the most common supplements is glycine, which is sold in any pharmacy. Before use, of course, read the instructions carefully.

And the very last thing: words are only means of expressing some ideas, i.e. some content. If you are interested in the content, then the words expressing it will "stick" to you by themselves. Look for what you are interested in, be it detective stories, science fiction, memoirs of prominent personalities, handicrafts, etc. You will have no problem memorizing words if you are really interested in any of them.