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015 - How to Memorize Vocabulary

Kevin: Hello there. Kevin here, with another Q & A Saturday episode for you, answering questions from listeners around the world.

Today’s question comes from a listener, I don’t actually know where they are from; they never said that, but they want to know how they can memorize words for a longer period. How to memorize new vocabulary and how to make this vocabulary actually stay in your head, so you don’t forget it.

Very good question. I have struggled a lot with memorization. I don’t have a good memory, but it’s also because I used to try to memorize things in school; the very traditional way. You get a list, or you get flashcards, you know, those cards where you have one word on one side of the paper, and then the answer on one side of the paper. These methods do not work for me. I am terrible at it.

So, I’ve gotten clever and created some techniques that help me memorize new words and phrases, could be for language, could be for other things, and I’m going to give you one method that has worked very well for me, and give you an example is actually not about language learning; it’s about Memorization technique

when I used to work in a restaurant, and you can try this out.

See if it works for you. This won’t be for everybody, but for some of you, you’ll like it. Then, it’ll work. If you want to ask a question as well, go to my website, www.feelgoodenglish.com.

Here you go. Digging in to this question, let’s do it.

So again, the question for today is “How to Memorize Words and How to Keep Them in Your Memory for a Longer Period.” Well, there’s kind of two separate aspects here: The first one is actually memorizing a new word and learning a new vocabulary word or a new phrase, and on the second part is keeping it in our memory.

Like anything, if we don’t use something, if we don’t practice something, if we don’t use a new word or use a skill that we know, eventually, it goes away. You haven’t spoken English for some months. When you try again, it will be rusty. It won’t be as good.

So, the second part of it is how to keep it in your memory. The first part is how to really learn it and memorize it and put it into your brain in the first place. So, let me tell you a story: I used to work as a server, a waiter in a restaurant here in the U.S., and when you start at a restaurant, you have to learn the menu. A lot of restaurants have tons of items on their menu of dishes and appetizers and drinks and all of these different things that you’re supposed to know if you want to be a good server, if you want to help your clients, your customers choose the right things. So, what I did when I was working at this restaurant was that I decided to take these menu items and sing them in a song. Remember, this is only for you. Nobody’s going to hear this unless you want them to. I would record my voice on my phone talking about these menu items. So let’s say I put ten menu items in there, each one was a different song.

I’m talking like a ten–second song, where I would repeat that.

For example, “Chicken breast with vegetables and rice and a side of soup.” Sorry, you had to hear that, but that was an example; recording that, and putting it on your phone. Then, what’s the next step? Every day, I might listen to these in my ears on repeat over and over and over. Just repeating them.

Kind of boring, yes. Kind of funny, because you hear yourself acting stupid, but every day, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Nothing happened at the first few days, I would even say, the first couple of weeks, it didn’t seem that I was really remembering these things. However, after a couple of weeks, all of a sudden, these menu items became totally ingrained into my brain. They were there, and then when I had to go into work, I had to actually take a test on these. They were automatically there in my brain. Automatically, I subconsciously learned these new phrases, these new menu items from just listening to them on repeat. Also the music, the rhythm, and the melodies are stuck in my head. So I kind of sing this to myself on my head, and I would be able to write down every single item from that dish. Pretty impressed with myself and said “Wow! This works.” It took a couple of weeks, but every day, I would listen to them on repeat. Easy. You’re sitting on a train or whatever, and just listened to this, and it worked.

So if you’re learning new English, take a word that you’re learning or a phrase that you’re learning. You don’t have to sing it. You can just speak it, but nobody’s going to hear this.

You might as well sing it, or kind of just add a little bit of fun as you memorize it a little bit better too, and just put this on your phone. Don’t go crazy. You don’t need a hundred words. Start small. Go small, I always recommend going small. Let’s say if you did five sentences a week with five new vocabulary words that would be twenty over the month. You could obviously do more than that, but you could use this for tests, for work, if you had to learn new things. Record your voice with new words, sing them, preferably. Don’t let anybody else hear them, or you might die of embarrassment, and put them on repeat, listen to them for a week, a couple of weeks, watch how they stay in your head. So, that’s the first part: Memorizing them.

Now, the second part is memorizing them over a long term.

Like I said in the beginning of the episode, if you don’t use it, it’ll go away. It’ll disappear. So, occasionally, you have to revert back to these recordings. You don’t have to do it all of the time, but once a week, a couple of times a week. If you have the opportunity to speak a lot, and you’re using these words in your conversations, they’ll stay with you. You don’t have to review them so much, but if you’re not using them in conversations much, you’re going to have to hear them again just to keep them fresh. So, keep those recordings, go back to them sometimes. When you’re bored on the train or you had a hard day at work, just listen to yourself being a complete idiot, singing sentences with vocabulary words to review. This is called “space repetition.” In the beginning, you need to hear them a lot. Over time, you need to hear them less often, but you still need to hear them. If you want to learn more about space repetition, go on to Google and search that theory. It’s a very well – researched and proven theory of memorization, Space Repetition.”

So, your actions for today: If you want to learn some new vocab, if you read a blog, if you read a book, if you listen to a song, take the new words and vocab from that, make sentences with them.

Don’t worry about being grammatically incorrect; they don’t have to be grammatically correct, or just go to Google and search those words and find sentences from the Internet that you can use, and record those sentences, reading the sentences, or even much better, singing with the sentences or rapping the sentences. Rap like this, “So I went to the store, and I bought some tuna fish. Tuna fish is good, it’s really scrumptious.”

Scrumptious means very, very tasty, delicious. Scrumptious. So, maybe that’s a new word: scrumptious. I went to the store and bought some tuna fish. It’s scrumptious. Hey, here you go.

Sorry, bad rapping.

Anyway, if you have any questions, find me at

feelgoodenglish.com, I’m here to help.

I hope you’re enjoying your weekend.

We will talk to you soon.

Bye!