Vocabulary Learning in a Second Language

In this post I will give some tips on learning vocabulary in a second language that have been proven to be effective through empirical studies. 

Firstly you need to know what vocabulary you should learn, which means you should have a good idea of your current level. For anyone learning English as a Second language it is very easy to find this out; you can do a simple test of around 140 questions here, which has both monolingual and bilingual tests. English vocabulary can be separated into High Frequency (HF), Academic, Technical and Low Frequency (LF) word families. Knowing a word family means you know the different forms of the root forms of the word. For example, the word family for nation would include nations, nationalist, nationalistic and so on. For learners of other languages it would be a good idea to see lists of the frequencies of words in the target languages before continuing. This will save you both time and effort in the long run. 

Most of this information comes from this book by Paul Nation.

ENJOYED THIS? HAVE MORE.

MOUNTAINS OF WISDOM

Subscribe to my yamabushi newsletter

RECENT BLOG POSTS

Tim Bunting AKA Kiwi Yamabushi on Zao-san
One now at a time
Tim Bunting AKA Kiwi Yamabushi on Zao-san
Now-focused. Not goal-focused.
Tim Bunting AKA Kiwi Yamabushi on Zao-san
Can you honestly say that you gave it your best?

YAMABUSHI BLOG POSTS

white daisy flower bloom
The Greatest Chance for Growth
Chokai-zan
How to Put Sakata City on The Map
fire cracker spark in night time photography
Soul-crushing inspiration

RANDOM POSTS

person writing on notebook
Incremental periodic additions – 100 podcasts!
accomplishment action adult adventure
Nobody’s fault but mine
adult man in brown and white striped button up shirt raising his hand
Doing things differently
Tim Bunting Kiwi Yamabushi

Tim Bunting Kiwi Yamabushi

Get In Touch

Sakata City, Yamagata, Japan 

tim@timbunting.com

Share this:

Like this:

Like Loading...
Scroll to Top