Your brain has no word limit. “Memorise every word you encounter” That’s not a requirement, that’s an impossible goal you should set for yourself. Learning vocabulary is like a plate that slowly turns into a bowl the more water you pour in it(weird metaphor I know but bear with me). You can learn 100 words and you’ll quickly forget a lot of them. You can learn 10 words and you’ll quickly forget some of them. But learning 30 words out of 100 is much better than learning 8 out of 10(you feel me?). The plate will overfill regardless of how much water you pour in there, so just pour as much as you can and turn that sucker into a bowl.
Simply put: The more you learn, the easier it gets to learn.
There’s no such thing as a useless word. Vehicle. Spaceship. Run. Skedaddle. Are all important words. Never ignore a word because you think it’s useless. It’ll come to you, maybe in the next test, maybe in a conversation with a stranger, maybe written in scary red paint on the wall of a sketchy neighbourhood telling you to skedaddle. You need it.
Speak your target language*duh*. *Imagine if you will, you’re in France with little to no vocabulary. You walk into a hotel, worried as to how you’re gonna communicate with the person at the desk. As soon as your eyes meet he greets you saying in the most fluent english accent “Hello there! How may I help you?” You sigh a sigh of relief, however you remember that you’re in France, you’re committed to learning the French language. You take a deep breath and respond with “Salut! je maple Timothy je want une casa” Now obviously there’s so much wrong there. But it’s so much better than speaking english because you’ll learn what a room is, and you’ll even learn a word in Spanish.
You’ll embarrass yourself in conversations. No advice here just telling you a fact. A Chinese guy once asked me if I understood something and I simply replied with “I am bread” So yeah good luck.
Idioms. Learn them. They’re awesome.
Think in target language. Weird I know. But seriously if you know how to think a sentence in your target language, do it. You’ll be more comfortable saying it and you’ll revise what you’ve learnt. As well as discover what you forgot.
Lie. When it’s harmless. Try telling a taxi driver you’re Sri Lankan see where that takes you. Unless you are Sri Lankan in which case you’re Cambodian. Say you married an Austrian pilot, or own a pet rock, or maybe related to the queen. You’ll have much more fun and useful conversations. (P.s. If you’re half-Sri Lankan half-Cambodian you are officially Martian.)
Helpful Apps:
HiNative: Allows you to ask native speakers what something means, how it’s used, whether your sentence is correct, or simply any question you have about said language or even culture.
Flashcards: Pretty self explanatory. Make your own flashcards, one side in your language, one side in target language. Perfect in revising words. You can also download decks that other people have created and made public. Obviously you can use it for other subjects too.
HelloTalk: Texting people of target language who want to learn your native language. Help each other learn each other’s language and has great features for correcting sentences and grammar.
(dictionary): No that’s not the name of the app. Having google translate is helpful and all but try finding a language specific App(e.g French to English). It’s also good to have a dictionary. All words. Easily accessible. Works offline. (For Chinese that App is Pleco)
TIPS FOR LEARNING A LANGUAGE
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NanoRain 