Learning Vocabulary

This is a good question. Most accomplished language learners will agree that to learn a language one needs massive exposure and practice. However, the language learning community is somewhat divided as to whether one should study vocabulary explicitly or just glean it. Although I firmly believe that we assimilate most of our vocabulary through exposure and practice, regardless of which path we take, I also believe that studying it explicitly speeds up the process and allows us to reach a higher level than gleaning alone.

Imo, if you struggle with retaining vocabulary, you are a prime candidate for studying it explicitly. What I mean by studying it explicitly is making lists or flashcards for words that you have already encountered and wish to retain, and having daily sessions where you glance at translations and try to recall the words. And modern technology makes this easier. For example, you could use the reading tool here to read in your target language, then download a list of unknown words to review or load into a flashcard program.

On the other hand, struggling with vocabulary is completely natural. It takes time/exposure/usage to be able to recall words, and there are so many of them that this one of the most time consuming parts of language learning. So you might actually be doing better than you think.

A compromise between explicit study and no explicit study, again lies in the reading tool. When you use it to read, you can look up words effortlessly, just by mousing over them (or clicking on mobile), which is like having a little micro-review exactly when you need it. This is much more convenient than the old days, when you had to stop and break out a paper dictionary to look up unknown words. I must confess that I am addicted to the reading tool, haha!

Well, I tend to remember simple words quite easily, so I do not know what exactly to say here, but I will try to tell you how I learn more advanced words. 

So, basically, I try to connect the word with some kind of silly or another way rememberable the meaning or thing in my life. Don't really know how to explain this, but I will try. For example, the word "pedestrian" is quite similar to one of the Lithuanian slurs used against LGBTQIA+ people, so I kinda easily remembered it. I know it may sound not really nice, and I want to disclaim that I never use that slur, but I still know it, because a lot of people, especially angry people on social media, use it. I hope I make sense. 

Also, sometimes some words just sound silly or laughable to me, so that's is how I remember them, but I don't know how I could help with this situation. 

So, yeah, I hope I helped, or at least you understood what kind of techniques I'm using to learn vocabulary. 

Ugne.Bulotaite wrote:

the word "pedestrian" is quite similar to one of the Lithuanian slurs used against LGBTQIA+ people, so I kinda easily remembered it

They call this a mnemonic device; or memory trick. I use these when I get stuck. My favorite of these is called Linkword (e.g., to remember that in Thai, khao means rice, imagine a cow eating rice).