Yes, some words seem to be so hard to memorize - you may even wonder who on earth has created such a word or why they needed to create such a word.
It may help if you know the 'root' in a word, for example, it may help you memorize the word 'vocabulary' if you know the root 'vocabul' means 'word'. A lot of 'word roots' are Greek or Latin originated, which may seem alien or unfamiliar to you.
It may be so helpful if you can pronounce the word correctly. The most effective way, though, may be 'repeat' - the more you use the word, the more likely you'll memorize it.
However, you may need to try whatever works for you. For instance, 'ethic' and 'ethnic' are two different words and are so confusing, but there is an 'n' in 'ethnic' and 'n' may be related to 'nation':)
It may sound so funny, but it works for you. Anyway, you have managed to memorize the word.
Comments
Thanks Risty, Khan!
Hello Sir Expector, you are so right! :)
Hi Evangelina,
Yes, 'read aloud' can be so helpful. There must be an effective way for everybody - try to find it!
I hope our members can keep sharing their tricks here. Let's memorize words together!
@chocoo
Yes, that means repetition is effective. Thanks.
@Lone
Great! Thanks for sharing the trick of memorizing the confusing words.
Dear Expector Smith
Thanks a lot for posting informative blogs for us.
"Word Power Made Easy" by Norman Lewis is a great book for studying vocabulary.
He explains the 'roots' and the words originated from them so that we can memorise the words easily.
Now I remember how I differentiated the following words:
Station E ry - p E n, p E ncil, paper etc.
Stationary - not moving
Qui te - Comple te
Quiet - Calm
@bet
Thanks for the comment. Yes, it's not always so easy to memorize a word - we need to find a way which is effective to help us remember it.
@Luci
Yes, most of the medical terms are just such Latin words - it helps if your mother tongue (first language) is Latin related.
It seems we really need some mnemonics to help us remember a difficult word.
@Onee
It's true that you keep forgetting words while you keep trying to memorize them. Yes, a word may have several meanings, and some of the meanings may not be related - some words are just so tricky.
@MARY
Yes, there are a lot of such compound words, such as toothpaste, football, girlfriend. It sure helps if we know a word's history or origin - we call it 'etymology'. Why did they put certain letters together to form a new word - why is it such a combination:)
Nice tip.
The cool thing about some english words is when they are compound of words that describes the object, because that helps a lot to remember the word. For instance, I had problems to remember the word 'necklace' till I divided it like: neck+lace. Then I could remember the word and how to write it because it describes the object pretty well :)
Same with other words like rainbow (rain+bow -I personally like this one very much 'cause it's kind of poetic), headache (head+ache) armchair (arm+chair)...
But, as you said, to know the root of some words it's also very helpful to remember that word and you can also learn some cool story about its origin :)
Dear Doc,
Otherwise, nowadays I learn about using a word correctly. One word can have so many meanings. Sometimes it confuses me when reading.
I keep memorizing some words, though. It really helps me to improve my English. Thank you for reminding us.
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