How to learn English vocabulary ?

[iamthebest]

Vocabulary is the most difficult problem that all english learners must deal with, and so am I . I learn English not only for me, but also for the University Entrance Exam and The Olympic English Contest. But I'd like to say that it takes me TOO MUCH time to learn new words (or new phrasal verbs, idioms,...blah...blah..blah...) that I see while I am doing the exercises ( self - study ). For example, I have to do something like looking up the words in the dictionary, taking notes...Therefore, the speed of finishing the the exercise books is TOO SLOW. And I can forget most of them on the next day. I know that hard-work is not enough, when I have decided to join this race, only the better is the winner. Can you help me ?

[solzen]

Your question reminded me of this blog post, The Korean's English Acquisition, by a guy who moved to the U.S. when he was 16 and didn't know any English. He made flashcards for every word he came across that he didn't know and studied a group of 50 until he memorized them all. Then after memorizing five groups of 50, he practiced all of them (i.e. 250 words) again. He says that by the time he graduated high school he had memorized over 30,000 words.

It's not the most inventive or fun way to memorize, but what you can take away from this is that it takes time. Try not to be discouraged; memorization is just something you have to do