Vocabulary
Building a sufficient vocabulary is an important part of mastering English. It is also the kind of work that may seem endless and frustrating. There are so many words! How could you even hope to know them all? How many words are enough? What is the best way to study words? How can you memorize words?
How to memorize words
There are several golden rules on how to study words and how to memorize words effectively. We recommend the following methods:
Combine words in topical groups: People, Home, Work, Traveling, Money, Food, etc. A good idea is to combine topical words with topical phrases.
Organize words in other meaningful groups, for example, Verbs of Motion, Useful Verbs, Synonyms, Synonyms and Antonyms, Necessary Adjectives.
Always memorize words in associations (in typical word combinations and phrases), not as isolated words. The ties between words in phrases will help you to remember the word you need. Good dictionaries usually give typical phrases as examples of usage, and you can use them as your associations.
Looking at words from the point of view of conversation, your top priority is to memorize:
a. Words with general meaning that can be used in many situations and instead of more specific synonyms.
b. Common, useful, simple, standard (polite and friendly) words.
Memorization is effective only when all types of memory work together. Examine the new word closely (your visual memory works), listen to its pronunciation by a speaker (your auditory memory works), say it aloud (your articulatory memory works), and write it (your writing / kinesthetic memory works). Association memory helps you to remember how the words that you have studied are used in speech and writing, i.e., in context. To develop your association memory, always study new words together with the study of their meanings and usage in typical phrases and word combinations.
It is necessary to review new words to make sure that they go to your long-term memory and stay there. Try this method: Within two hours after you studied the words, their meanings, and examples of use, review them briefly: look, listen, say, and write. On the same day in the evening before you go to bed, do a longer review and a couple of exercises on your new words. In the morning, do a brief review of the words again. Two days after that, look through the words, their meanings, and examples of use and do more exercises on them. Then practice using your new words as often as you can in speech and writing at work, in class, on forums.
A good dictionary is one of the most important books a language learner should have. A good dictionary gives pronunciation, several meanings, examples of use, synonyms, and antonyms. A good picture dictionary is a very useful additional tool that will help you to understand and memorize words without the necessity to translate them into Russian.
Topical vocabulary lists
The materials of the subsection Topical Vocabulary in the section Vocabulary contain concise lists of topical words, expressions, and related phrases. Some of the materials also contain a sample story on the specified topic. Use these materials as a basis for your own collections of topical words and expressions.
Bear in mind that it is very difficult and not very effective to memorize single words from a list, especially if the words are listed alphabetically. For example, when you are studying the topic Clothes, memorization of the words in your list of clothes will be much easier if you find pictures of people dressed in various clothes, describe them in class, and have a discussion about clothes, for example, what clothes you'd like to buy, what's in fashion these days, who's wearing what. And you will need certain phrases for such discussions.
Every group of related topical words and expressions should be combined in your list with a group of related topical phrases. Topical vocabulary lists in the section Vocabulary have corresponding collections of conversational phrases in the section Phrases.
There are many good dictionaries, textbooks, and Internet resources that can be very useful in your study of English vocabulary. Some of them are listed below.