October 7th, 2024
How to Keep Learning Vocabulary When You’re Intermediate and Advanced
You need to keep learning vocabulary to get better at languages. But how when you’re intermediate and advanced? Read on to find out.
Before we begin…
The Video
The Podcast
Why You Still Have A Limited Vocabulary: Fossilisation
It’s really common to learn a bunch of words in the beginning of a new language and then focus on grammar and then…? Things are really easy to stagnate.
This is called fossilisation, and it refers to when you stop improving in a language.
It’s very normal and is often why learners with a reasonable level feel like they still have a limited vocabulary and are constantly needing to look things up.
When you get to a point at which you can communicate well, even with mistakes, it’s all too easy to stop learning new vocabulary.
If you want vocab learning to feel more natural and to be something you pick up easier and faster, you need to intentionally keep learning vocabulary.
How to Keep Learning Vocabulary When You’re Intermediate and Advanced
Find New Vocab to Learn
The first step to keep learning vocaublary when you’re intermediate and advanced is to find the right type of new vocab to learn.
Here’s 5 of my favourite suggestions.
Use Drops
At first glance, Drops* seems like a pretty surface level app with a bunch of random word lists to learn in a pretty interface.
And that’s not necessarily wrong.
When you’re a beginner, it’s often not the best app unless you’re planning to take a language to a high level.
The detail is intense.
Drops* is the reason I know the Russian words for horseradish, pestle and mortar, and parking meter. It’s thorough.
And when you’re learning at an intermediate and advanced level, thorough is what you want.
So if you’re in need of a simple daily option to keep learning vocabulary with rote attention, Drops* is a good shout.
Related: How To Learn Vocabulary Better In Any Language (& Remember It)
Use Clozemaster
Clozemaster* presents you with sentences in the language you’re learning with a word missing. Your job is to select the correct word to fill the gap.
Again, this is an app that suits intermediate and advanced learners best.
The range of languages on Clozemaster* is impressive, and their new AI-powered ‘Explain’ button is a gem.
This is another option that’s ideal as a gentle background activity to lightly keep learning vocabulary by adding new words.
And of course, there’s plenty of ways to take it further too.
Read Wikipedia
Wikipedia is an underrated language resource, especially the flexibility of the app.
If you want to fill gaps in your vocab knowledge, pick a topic you’re interested in, find a relevant Wikipedia page and read away.
If you come across words you don’t know, some may be clickable to their own Wikipedia pages, which can help you figure out the meaning. This lets you keep learning vocabulary in context.
Others may not be clickable but if you’re on mobile and it’s a language that your phone has, you can still click and select the ‘translate’ option to learn the meanings of new words.
Listen to Podcasts
Podcasts are a great language learning resource.
I recommend finding something that you’re interested in, at a pace that feels ‘Goldilocks’ (just right!), and a length that’s not overwhelming.
You can slow the podcast down, repeat segments you miss, or even listen to the whole thing again if you want.
Podcasts are a great source of listening material for intermediate and advanced learners for all these reasons and more.
When you want to learn new vocab, it certainly helps when you can check again on what you think you just heard!
Find Synonyms & Antonyms
One of the easiest ways to learn new vocabulary is to directly expand on what you already know by considering synonyms and antonyms.
You can say “I speak”, but do you know how to say “I shout”, “I whisper” or “I articulate”?
And what are the differences between them all?
Intermediate and advanced learners can help to avoid fossilisation by intentionally increasing their vocab for words they already use frequently.
Just be sure to check you’ve fully understood the subtilties and practise with someone you trust before just heading out and replacing all your words with synonyms!
Take a Lemma Approach
Lemma is the fancy linguistics word for the core, dictionary version of a word with many forms. Those forms are called lexemes.
Here’s an example…
If ‘eat’ is a lemma, then ‘eating’, ‘eaten’, ‘ate’, ‘eats’ etc are all lexemes of that lemma.
This works in different ways in different languages.
If you’re learning Arabic, you might learn the three letter roots and their related words. Such as k-t-b being associated with writing, and words like kitab (book), maktab (desk), and aktub (I write).
For languages like Spanish with lots of verb conjugations, the lemma would be the infinitive form of the verb, and then there’s a whole load of related words (lexemes) for different tenses connected to that lemma.
Related: Applied Linguistics for Language Learners: 5 Reasons All Polyglots Need to Understand It
Use The Three Lists
Something I’ve done for years when I’ want to focus on improving an intermediate/advanced language is to keep three vocab lists.
That might sound a lot of work, but it actually saves you time! Let me explain…
The first vocab notebook or list is for words you encounter that you absolutely must learn because they’re hugely useful and you suspect they’ll come up again an again.
The second list is for words that are maybe going to be useful, but not as drastically important as list one.
And then finally, your third list is for words that you don’t really expect to encounter again, or words that are so obvious (think blatant cognates!) that they require no learning, either now or when you encounter them again.
The reason this works so well is because you’re then able to focus on learning the most important words first, so you save time by not overloading yourself with semi-useful words.
Once you have the first list mastered to a point, you can then look to the second list. But, you’ll probably never look at the third list.
So why do we write them down? Simply to get them out of our heads and in one place, so we can move on!
Join Vibrant Vocab
Want to learn vocabulary effortlessly at any level? Vibrant Vocab gives you everything you need to learn (& remember vocab) once and for all.
Everything inside Vibrant Vocab works across all languages and all levels so you’ll always have a way to learn vocab no matter where you’re at with your languages.
If you’re bored of having a limited vocabulary and constantly needing to look things up, then this is for you.
