Why Learning Foreign Language Vocabulary Is Difficult

One of the most common complaints I hear from people learning a foreign language is this:

“I can’t remember any of the vocabulary!”

And the disappointment is understandable. After having spent a lot of time and effort to memorize words in your new language, it is extremely frustrating and, even worse, demotivating when you find yourself unable to recall the right word at the right moment when trying to express yourself.

This experience will lead many to simply proclaim:

“Well, I guess I’m just no good at languages.”

“I don’t have a good memory.”

Personally I find it quite disheartening to see that often our initial reaction to this struggle with vocabulary is to blame ourselves believing that it indicates a lack of ability or a personal weakness

First of all, let’s get something straight: acquiring new vocabulary in a foreign language is difficult and it is difficult for everyone. You are not alone in facing this challenge.

But, the difficulty does not lie in your inability to learn languages nor in a faulty memory. Learning new words is hard because what you are attempting to do is convince your brain to seamlessly accept a completely new sound system and allow those new sounds to represent meaning.

Let me explain. A word is a verbal representation of a concept, idea, object, or physical entity. Ok, that is pretty straightforward.

But when you think about it, learning these verbal representations of a new language is not straightforward at all.

If you are in the process of learning another language, it means that you already have a language that you use on a daily basis and have used (or at least been exposed to) since the day you were born. What you are trying to do now is to get your brain to easily accept that you want brand new words and sounds to represent concepts for which you already have a well-established vocabulary–that of your native language. It is the most natural thing in the world for your brain to resist.

So this goes way beyond simple memorization or learning to quickly match up a word to its meaning on a vocabulary test. You are in essence building a completely new database from scratch, which will allow you to use this vocabulary instantaneously when you need to. And that is no easy task.

Recognizing the Problem

Alright then. We now see why learning new words in a language is challenging. But now let’s look at how this difficulty presents itself, seemingly sabotaging our attempts to acquire a foreign language.

We cannot:

Recall the word we need when attempting to express ourselves (even though we know we know the word)
Understand words quickly enough when they are spoken to us so that we are able to grasp the full meaning of a sentence or a conversation

The first is what most people think of when they say they can’t remember vocabulary. Perhaps you’re trying to speak with someone and the words you want to use to express your thoughts are simply not coming up, even though you know you’ve learned them. This could be described as an inability to recall a piece of information. And this is why many people will say it is a memory problem.

The second, however, is much more common, and more likely to happen at the beginning of your studies. It means your brain has still not fully been able to associate the word to its meaning quickly enough (or at all) to allow for fluid conversation. This too is often chalked up to a memory problem.

These are actually two different problems though:

The first is a recall problem: you know the word, but it won’t come out.
The second is an association problem: your mind still hasn’t created the seamless connection to the word’s meaning.

Now, you can certainly suffer from both, but in that case it simply means that one is causing the other. If you truly haven’t associated the meaning to the word yet, you’re going to have a hell of a time using it correctly in a conversation.

The Reasons Vocabulary Is Hard to Learn

Just as these are two different problems, they also have two different causes, neither of which is due to a bad memory nor an inability to learn.

Lack of Usage

When you are able to understand the word when spoken to you, but cannot retrieve it when you want to use it, that simply means that you lack verbal practice, i.e., using the word in real context. Since this is the case, we will need to get you using that word, which will result in an ability to recall it when you need it. This isn’t a vocabulary problem, it is a usage problem. Going back and studying vocabulary lists is not the right solution.

If you think about it, this should really come as no surprise. We must apply any type of information we learn in order for it to become ingrained. If not, we will be left with a theoretical or intellectual knowledge, but not a practical one.

Lack of Exposure

When we are children, we are exposed to our language throughout our waking hours. We hear words over and over again until we begin to use them ourselves. This exposure has allowed our minds to build the connections and associate the words to their meanings.

It is difficult to truly learn a word in one sitting. You must hear it in multiple contexts and multiple times and once that happens, you’ll begin to use it yourself naturally. The word has become a part of you.

The Solutions to Learning Vocabulary Effectively

So, we’ve discussed how to recognize the problem and the main causes. It is important to understand that point, since anyone who knows me, knows that I believe very strongly in understanding what is going on in our own learning experience. Once we do, we are primed to find solutions. This is independent language learning at its finest.

There are two things we’ve recognized that we must do:

Train our minds to quickly associate the word to its meaning without having to think about it or contemplate it
Train ourselves to actually use the vocabulary

How do we do that?

Massive Exposure

I’ve already explained why a lack of exposure to real language is one of the main reasons we have a difficult time acquiring vocabulary. But there is an easy fix: Listen to the language as much as possible.

One of the main issues I find among language learners is that they do not listen to the language enough. You must truly become familiar with the way the language is used and spoken and when you do, you will be exposed to all of that beautiful vocabulary in bulk. And that means, it will finally sink in. Once you hear the words in context and truly understand them, you will shortly find yourself using them yourself. That is when that vocabulary has become yours.

For the learner, this means moving beyond the classroom or app and instead listening to real language for hours a day. This is easy to do by simply tuning into talk-radio shows or podcasts in the language you are learning. We choose a talk-radio format for a reason: We want to listen to people speaking at a natural pace and in a natural manner.

In addition to hearing all of that vocabulary multiple times and in multiple contexts, we are also training our ears to get used to the sounds of the language. This point is often overlooked but is crucial to allow the language in.

Seek Out the Vocabulary You Want to Work On

Even through massive exposure, it isn’t guaranteed that we will hear the vocabulary that we would like to work on. If they are common words, they will come up often. But, for words used less frequently, well….

But remember this: you are still in charge. You are not at the mercy of the topic in today’s podcast nor what the talk show’s host may be ranting about.

Seek out the vocabulary you would like to acquire. You can do this by simply performing an online search to find millions of examples of those words used in real contexts. Take samples from ten different resources and use those as material to train from.

The above idea will obviously give you plenty of content, but it will most likely be text-based. That is, they will be examples taken from online newspapers, magazines, blog posts, etc. These are excellent resources and will be extremely helpful in your quest to acquire this vocabulary, but there is another resource that allows you to search actual video for specific words and it is awesome! It is called Youglish and is currently available in 18 languages. The tool allows you to search Youtube videos for specific words or phrases you would like to hear in real-life context. Youglish promotes itself as a tool to focus on pronunciation, but for me, it is a tool to focus on vocabulary acquisition.

Usage with Intent

“Use it or lose it” goes the old saying, and when it comes to retaining vocabulary, this rule is golden.

In order for words to become a part of us, we need to make them become a part of us and this means we must use them with intent. That is, do not just wait for them to come out naturally. You can be purposeful about it in order to speed up the process of vocabulary acquisition.

Plan it out. If you are going to be having conversations with a language partner, write out a list of words that you would like to use in the conversation and then use them. Once you begin to train yourself to correctly use these words, they’re yours.

If you don’t have a language partner or are not yet proficient enough to have a real conversation, no problem. Use them with yourself. One of the most powerful tools we have is our own resolve. Create role-plays with yourself and incorporate the new vocabulary. Or simply create unique sentences including the words you want to learn. Test yourself on them constantly. If you put them into practice immediately, even when you’re alone, you’ll begin to use them naturally.

Wait, There’s More…

The three ideas above address our two principle issues of lack of exposure to the language and lack of usage. There are, however, specific techniques you can apply that are designed to help you more easily associate words to their meanings, essentially speeding up the process of vocabulary acquisition.

Meaning Association Tools such as a Spaced-Repetition System

A spaced repetition system, such as Anki (available for free), allows you to create digital flash cards that work in an intelligent manner. The cards will be presented to you at the moment in which you most likely need to see to the material in order to lock it into memory. This type of intelligent system is designed to combat our natural tendency to forget information that we are exposed to infrequently.

You can also add in media such as pictures and audio files allowing you to associate the vocabulary directly to the concept. I won’t go into detail here since there are excellent resources from the Anki page itself explaining best practices. There is also an excellent book called Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner, which I highly recommend if you are interested in this type of vocabulary learning tool.

Meaning Association Techniques Using Pure Audio

I use a technique I call Dodgeball. The reference is to that terrible game my gym teacher made us play back in junior high school. If you had a similar experience, you’ll know the drill: you stand in teams on two sides of the gym and whack rubber balls at each other. The goal is to catch a ball someone else threw at you and if you do, the person who threw it is out of the game.

Maybe a stupid and silly name for this technique, but it is the first one that came to mind when I started using it, so I’m sticking with it for now.

Ok, so what I do is take vocabulary words from my audio resources (I also do this with full sentences, which I think is even more effective), cut them up into separate audio files using Audacity (a free audio software), and then put them on my phone and program them to play in random order.

This forces me to be exposed to vocabulary aurally, but also quickly and out of any order I would be able to predict. My mind must train itself to associate meaning directly to the words as they hit me and my goal is to try to “catch” them, i.e. understand them just as quickly as they come. This is challenging, but it is actually a fun game – and one that is VERY EFFECTIVE.

This technique also trains you for speed. The words and sentences will come at you fast and you won’t know from which direction. This is similar to how language works in real life and this technique is the ultimate training to prepare you for the experience.

Now, Over to You

Languages are made up of words and in order to speak a language fluently, we must learn them. But it is not memorization we are after. It is a true mental acquisition of this new vocabulary that allows us to both understand and apply our new language in a natural manner.

It is important to understand why vocabulary acquisition is challenging because once you have a better understanding of what is actually happening for yourself, you are in a position to take charge and make that vocab yours.

I hope this article has given you some insight and motivation. If you have any other ideas for techniques to truly acquire vocabulary in a foreign language, please leave them in the comments below.

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