An excellent* way to learn new words is to make vocabulary cards. The diagrams below show an example using the word cat

Here's how you do it:

• Write the word you want to learn on the front of the card (e.g. size A7 or A8).

• On the back of the card, write either the translation of the word in your language, or a definition of the word, or a gap sentence. If you write 2 or all 3 of these you will learn the word more quickly, and give yourself extra English practice. You could of course copy the definition and example sentence from the web page, but writing your own is the better choice.

  (If you write down a verb, it's best to put its infinitive form. So for example it's better to write "to purchase" than "purchased" or "to strike" than "struck".)

• Now imagine you have a stack of 20 words that you want to learn. To do this, you can test yourself in many different ways. For example, you can look at the word and try to remember the translation or definition; you can look at the gap sentence and try to think of the word that fits in it; you can look at the word in your language and see if you know the English.

• If you get the answer right, write a tick in the left corner on side one of the card, put the card at the back of your "To learn" stack, and take the next card. If you get it wrong, write a cross and put the card ten places from the front of your stack. When you have three ticks in a row on your card, you know the word and can put the card into a second stack, called the "Done" stack. You should try and look at about 10-20 words each week in your "To learn stack"; and every few months you can look at some of the cards in your "Done" stack, just to make sure you haven't forgotten them. If you have, then you can return the card to the "To learn" stack and start the process again!

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* Paul Nation, one of the most renowned researchers in the field of vocabulary learning, states:

"There is a very large number of studies showing the effectiveness of such learning (i.e. using vocabulary cards) in terms of the amount and speed of learning."

Nation, P. Vocabulary size, text coverage and word lists". In: Schmitt, N. & McCarthy, M. (eds.) Vocabulary: Description, Acquisition and Pedagogy. Cambridge University Press. 1997.)

Return to the general advice on learning vocabulary.

Go to the web vocabulary files.