What is the best/most effective way to learn new vocabulary? How do you learn new vocab?
I think this is different from person to person.
I know a lot of people like to use flash cards to learn or memorise new words, but this has never really been effective for me.
The easiest way for me to learn new vocabulary has been to read simple Korean texts, highlight the words I don’t know, look them up, then read the text again. Then I go and find those words in other sentences, so that I’m repeatedly exposed to that word in use, rather than just having that word and it’s translation available on a card or a list somewhere.
Say for example I find the sentence:
“고양이는 아주 깔끔한 동물이다"
I know that 고양이 means “cat”, 는 is the topic marker, 아주 means “very”... But I have never seen 깔끔한 before. However, I know that 동물 means “animal”, and 이다 means “to be”, so there’s just the one word here that I’m unfamiliar with.
I’ll look that word up in a dictionary, usually Naver’s online dictionary, and find the direct translation. In this case, 깔끔한 means “neat” or “cleanly”.
So then I look at the whole sentence again, and now I know that “고양이는 아주 깔끔한 동물이다” means that “Cats are very cleanly animals”.
Now I go off and find more examples of 깔끔한 or 깔끔하다 used in different sentences, and then usually it sticks. It also helps me to try to write my own sentences with that word.
I do this with any kind of text, with song lyrics or children’s books. I just read them and learn the words I don’t know, because for me it’s hard to remember things if I learn them without any context.
However, some people are able to learn just from wordlists or flash cards or similar things, and those are good methods too. The most important thing is that you find a method that works for you, and that you enjoy.
Not sure if this answer helps, but I hope so. Thank you for the ask. ♥