How I Never Forget New Words in English

According to research, our brains tend to deteriorate and get smaller

as we get older, especially if we don't stimulate it enough.

But did you know that something very similar happens

to your vocabulary brain if you don't activate your vocabulary brain

that is, if it only used the words and expressions

in English that you learn, you will forget them.

So today I'm going to tell you

exactly what you need to know to keep your brain alive

so that you can remember all the words and expressions that you learn forever.

Let me show you something.

This is the very first book I read in English.

Stephen King, The Shining

So let me tell you what happened

when I was reading this book for the first time.

The tires shrieked. And he began to shriek into the Dark.

Danny shrieked, but the sound never escaped his lips.

Began to shriek. Had shrieked. She shrieked.

So I began to see this word over and over again throughout the whole book.

Finally, I stopped reading and looked up that word in the dictionary, a

shriek to cry out in a high pitched voice.

You know, something like that.

That's a shriek.

But the interesting thing is that I never forgot the word again.

So this experience, this incident taught me three important lessons.

One, I wouldn't have learned that word if I hadn't been reading a book in English.

If you want to improve your vocabulary in English,

you need to be consuming content in English.

Every single day. Two I looked up

that word in the dictionary because it caught my attention.

You don't have to look up the meaning of every single word

you encounter on a page, for example, that you don't know.

Just focus on the words that call your attention the most,

like I did with the word shriek. Three.

The reason why I learned that word is because I brought that word

back to the surface of my memory repeatedly throughout the book.

In other words, I was activating that word over

and over in my head because I was seeing it so many times.

And by the way, a great way for you to activate and react to

vocabulary is by watching our weekly videos here on YouTube.

So make sure to hit the subscribe button and bell down below

so you don't miss any single new lesson. All right.

But how does the process of remembering, learning

and forgetting words actually work in our brains?

Let me show you something.

Okay. Check it out.

Imagine.

This right here is an ocean, right ?

And this is the surface of our memory.

So everything that you remember easily is up here.

Okay. Now, imagine down here.

You see, this is the dark hole of our memory.

So the words and expressions and all the information

that you forget tends to be here.

Right.

So imagine this.

Imagine you learn a new word today. Okay.

Imagine this is the word.

The tendency is as the time passes,

you will start to forget this word.

In other words, this word will start to want to go into this dark hole.

But you don't want this to happen, right?

So what do you do?

You have to bring this word back to the surface of your memory.

In other words, you have to see this word again.

You have to review it.

And then the same thing is going to happen.

So after a while, your memory, you will want to forget it.

Right.

But then you bring it back to the surface right here.

And you remember it again.

And that's how it works.

Well, the cool thing is that if you keep doing this

over and over, you see

it becomes less probable that you will forget it

until you get to a point where the new word is actually here.

You see on the surface of our memory.

So let's say that this is day one.

Okay.

When you learn the word and all these little points here,

we can call this review.

All the times you review the new word or expression you're trying to learn.

This is how your memory works. Got it.

Now, I was able to remember that word shriek because I was bringing that word

back to the surface of my memory over and over again.

And the funny thing is that that wasn't intentional.

I was just reading a book in English.

My goal at that time wasn't to learn a new word,

but that ended up happening anyway.

So again, that's why it's important for you to be consuming content in English

every day

all the time, because you never know when you're going to learn a new word.

But of course, you can be more intentional with your vocabulary practice.

And a great way for you to do this is by using flashcards.

Let me show you a very easy way that you can follow to create your own flashcards.

Check it out.

Cut a regular sheet of paper into equal pieces. On one side of the card,

you write the word you're trying to learn next to it.

You can write the definition of the word on the other side.

You can draw a picture.

You associate with that word.

And if you don't have time to do this manually, you can also use our app.

Check it out.

Someone who helps and supports someone else.

Okay, so let's see the answer.

This is Ally.

Okay?

Someone who helps and supports someone else is an ally.

And then you have an example here.

His sister was his ally against their grandparents.

Really cool, right?

And then at the bottom, the app asks you the question, Did you remember?

Right.

If I say no, repeat,

the app is going to repeat that word or present that word to me again

at another time so that I can remember re-activate that word.

Bring it back to the surface of my memory.

Look at this one.

To disapprove of something.

There is an image. Let's go to the answer.

Frown upon.

So when you frown upon something, you disapprove of, of this thing.

Smoking is frowned upon in many societies.

That's the example.

So did you remember? Right?

Let's say yes, I've learned it.

So if I go?

Yes, then I've learned this word.

And the app is not going to show me that word again.

Right. Look at this one.

Remember the vocab, a rectangular block or hard

material used for building walls and houses?

Okay, we have the image here.

Show answer.

That's Brick.

Okay.

The chimney was made of bricks. Hmm.

Did you remember? Right.

I'm going to go with sort of.

If you go with sort of,

the app will present the word to me or to you again at another time,

but not as frequently as if I had chosen. No.

So that's pretty much how it works.

Pretty cool, isn't it?

You can download the app for free by clicking the link in the description,

or you can search for RealLife English on your favorite app

store, Google Play Store or App Store and download it from there.

Now, aside from consuming content in English every day and using flashcards,

let me give you some more quick tips to help you remember the words forever.

So once, if I can give you is try to attach an emotion

to the word you're trying to learn.

It's usually easier for us to remember words

when they are connected to an emotion.

For example, think about the childhood memories

you have and that you remember until today.

Probably you remember those memories until today

because they were related to an emotion back then.

Maybe you were sad when they happened.

Maybe you were excited or happy.

But anyhow, that burned in our memory.

And you remembered that until today.

It's exactly what I did with the word shriek.

So, for example, when I think of the word shriek

that I learned from the book, I associate that word with fear.

Scared. I'm feeling scared.

I'm feeling fear. Got it.

Identify the words and expressions

you already use in our native language and look for their equivalent in English.

For example, I'm from Brazil, right?

I speak Portuguese as my native language.

In Portuguese, for example, if I want to say that a guitar player

is really good or really cool, I can call him an animal.

That's Portuguese.

Okay.

I can say, "Wow, that guitar player is an animal."

But that doesn't make much sense in English.

An equivalent in English that we have is a beast.

So I can say, Wow, that guitar player is a beast.

In other words, he's really cool, really good.

Okay.

Learn fillers.

Fillers are, you know, like, I mean, well,

you know, these words and expressions, they are very useful, especially

when you are having a conversation with someone and you need those extra two

or 3 seconds to think about the next word you're going to say or use.

So learn those.

Also, I would say try not to learn the words individually.

Always try to learn the words in context.

Any phrases, because the more tangible

you make it for yourself by looking at the situation, the better.

I remember one time, you know, I was watching Two and a Half Men,

one of my favorite sitcoms, and it was kind of funny

because in this scene, this is what was happening.

The characters were in the kitchen,

sitting at the table, having breakfast together or eating something.

And then one of the characters, she lifts up

her plate and says, "Hit me."

Then I was like, "Hit me", man, that doesn't make any sense.

They're eating together.

And she's saying, "Hit me".

No, that doesn't make any sense.

But when I saw the context,

I could understand that she was saying, Serve me more food.

Give me more food. I want more food.

"Hit me, Hit me".

So that's why it's

important for you to always pay attention to the context,

because that makes it more tangible for your vocabulary.

Acquisition also, make sure you learn word chunks.

Word chunks are groups of words that have a certain meaning.

So don't think about the words individually.

Try to memorize a short phrase and what that means.

For example, imagine you are talking to a friend

and then her friend says, Yeah, that movie is amazing.

And then you can reply, "Yeah, tell me about it."

You see this phrase this chunk means.

"Yeah, I agree."

The movie is amazing, but you see,

if you stop to think about the individual words, you're going to get confused.

Then I go, "Tell me about it."

Don't do that.

So just focus on the whole meaning of this phrase.

"Tell me about it."

Yeah, it's amazing.

You see, I am agreeing with the person.

So word chunks are very powerful as well.

Learn the different

contexts and meanings a word can have.

It's very common in English for us to have words that mean

two, three, four or five or even more things.

So, for example, if you look up a word in the dictionary,

in a monolingual dictionary, I mean, right English to English.

Normally the dictionary gives you the three, four or five possible definitions.

That word can have maybe you already know the primary meaning of that word

learning, the secondary meaning, the tertiary meaning, and so on.

That's also a great way for you to improve vocabulary.

And lastly, guys, be patient.

You know, I know it can be frustrating, but the truth is

some words will take longer for you to learn

and remember and really incorporate than others.

The same thing happened to me

when I was studying English and trying to improve my vocabulary.

I learned some words more easily, but other phrases

and words, they took me a longer, you know, to really learn them.

I had to review them, activate them over and over again in my brain.

And then with time I was able to remember them and use them.

So be patient, Keep learning, keep studying and keep going.

That's how it works.

But now, when I hear from you, what are the things you have been doing

in your life

to consume content in English every day and to improve your vocabulary?

I'm curious to know let us know in the comments.

If there is one thing you take away from this video is if you'd only use it,

you lose it.

You need to review the words you learn and study over and over again.

Bring them back to the surface of her brain,

bring them back, activate them over and over again.

That's how you remember them eventually.

Okay.

And make sure you also come back to this video, maybe next week or next month

to also reactivate and review all these tips and strategies I gave you today.

All right.

And if you want more tips and tricks to improve your vocabulary

and remember the words you learn, check out this video next.

And if you actually start paying attention to the way that you speak in your own

native language, you probably don't do this either.

So why would you do it in English?

Now, it depends what study you look at, but English only has about

3000 words that natives use in 95% of their speaking.

And this is a really tiny number.

When you consider that English has hundreds of thousands of words.

And this is really true in any language.

So the good news here is that unless you want to study English

literature, you really do not need to have a huge vocabulary base.