Why you can't remember new words - and what you can do about it

Do these sentences sound like you?

“I read a lot of articles every week but I still don’t have enough words to speak confidently in English.” 

“I watch movies and series on Netflix, but it’s difficult to find the vocabulary when I’m speaking English.”

“I have to stop and think about the right words, and I can’t really explain myself properly like I do in my own language.”

Why is it that even though you understand films in English, you read The Economist or The Harvard Business Review, you can even read novels etc in English, no problem...but when you’re in a meeting, it’s like your brain is not connected to your tongue? You start a sentence but get stuck in the middle. You know EXACTLY what you want to say, but you can’t find the right words in English.

It’s SO frustrating, isn’t it? You might even feel embarrassed that your English is not as good as you’d like it.

You think the answer is to read more articles, listen to more podcasts and watch more TV.

However, I want to give you some advice which will save you a lot of wasted time and effort.

1. Stop believing that reading/listening/watching more = more vocabulary.

All this does is remind you of words which are somewhere in your memory. You are unlikely to remember new words by seeing or hearing them once without you taking some action.

You already know A LOT of words. After all, you understand far more than you can say, so somewhere in your head that knowledge exists.

But all these great words and phrases are stored passively in your memory. You recognise the words and understand them. You can even de-code a whole sentences with complex structures and vocabulary.

However, you cannot produce them when you need them. They are not in your active vocabulary yet – words which are ready to be used when you want them.

2. Stop underlining words in articles.

It seems like the obvious solution to your ‘lack of words’ problem, but just underlining stuff is counter-productive. Unless you understand what to underline and then what to do with these phrases, you’re wasting your time

So what should you do?

You need to be finding and recording the right words, and then activating them.

3.  Look for phrases, not words.

Words do not live in isolation. Find the other words in the sentence that are needed. Look at this sentence:

“Our energy and climate future increasingly hinges on the decisions made in emerging markets and developing economies.”

Notice the verb ‘hinges’ needs the little word ‘on’. It is useless to only learn ‘hinge’ because you can’t use it unless you know it needs ‘on’ after it. I have also highlighted ‘increasingly’ because it collocates with ‘hinges on’ – it’s frequently used with this verb.

4.  Find phrases that you understand but would not be able to say, and practise them.

Try this sentence:

“Countries such as India and Brazil have developed strong track records of attracting investment in ...”

You probably understand every word here, but could you say the highlighted phrase in a meeting?

5.  Make the phrases yours

Unless you put the words into action, you will never be able to use them when you want. Here are some ideas for you to try out.

1. Write out new sentences with the words. Make sure they are meaningful to your situation. Think of a real time when you could use the sentence. Is there a meeting coming up where you could use the new words. How would you use them? Write down the sentence. Now practice it – a lot.
2. Make mind maps with new phrases. If you’re not sure about how to do this here is a simple example:

Use your imagination with mind maps - that is how you'll remember the words. Use bold colours to help fix the words in your visual memory.

1. Use your mind maps to talk about the article where the phrases came from. Use all the phrases. Record yourself and listen.
2. Make dialogues using the words. Try to use situations that you have been in. Think about a meeting you had or one that is coming up. Write out a dialogue that you had/are going to have with your new words. Practise the dialogue.

6.  Check out the Cambridge online dictionary.

If you haven’t’ discovered this yet, you are missing out! There is so much information you can discover here about new words.

You will find the meaning, how to say them, sentences with the words in context, related words, opposites... It’s a gold mine.

Also, check out the +Plus feature. Here you can create your own word lists and then the site makes quizzes for you to test you on your lists. Here is the link: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/

I hope this has given you some good ideas about how you can take charge of your own learning as far as remembering new vocabulary goes.

Remember, you already know so many words. You just need to activate them in meaningful ways.

If you’d like more advice about how to improve your communication skills even more for your job, message me for a free 30-minute strategy session and we can chat about it.