Learning guide
Seven research-backed techniques that make new words stick - and why most people waste months doing it wrong.
Reading word lists. Highlighting textbook pages. Re-copying vocabulary into notebooks. These feel productive but they share a critical flaw: they are all passive. Passive exposure creates a weak memory trace. You recognize the word on the page but cannot produce it when you need it. The research on memory is unambiguous - recognition and recall are different skills, and fluency requires recall.
Review each word at gradually increasing intervals - 1 day, then 7 days, then 14 days. This exploits the spacing effect: memories consolidate more strongly when reviewed just as they are starting to fade. Spaced repetition is the single highest-leverage technique in vocabulary learning. Tools like Vocabingo schedule these intervals automatically.
Instead of reading "maison = house", cover the translation and force yourself to retrieve it. The act of retrieval - even a failed attempt - strengthens the memory trace far more than rereading. Flashcards, when used correctly (translation hidden until after you attempt), leverage this mechanism.
A word learned in isolation is fragile. A word learned inside a sentence has hooks: grammar, collocations, tone, register. When you learn "renoncer" (to give up) in the sentence "Il a renoncé à son poste", you absorb the verb's syntax and typical usage simultaneously. Always study words in context.
Learning 50 words in a day sounds efficient. It is not. At 50 words per session, retention plummets and review debt accumulates faster than you can clear it. Research consistently shows that 10–20 new words per day, maintained consistently, outperforms binge-and-forget cycles. Sustainability is the variable that matters most over 6 months.
The 2,000 most frequent words in any language account for roughly 90% of everyday speech. Learning them first gives you the highest possible return on study time. Obscure vocabulary can wait. Frequency-ranked word lists - the kind Vocabingo uses - ensure you never waste sessions on low-value words early in your learning.
Studying food vocabulary for an hour, then switching to travel vocabulary for an hour, feels less focused than blocking both. But interleaved practice produces better long-term retention. Mixing topics and review sessions forces the brain to discriminate between items, which deepens encoding.
Before revealing an answer, make a conscious attempt - even if you are almost certain you do not know it. The "generation effect" shows that trying and failing to retrieve something produces better subsequent learning than skipping to the answer. Struggle is not inefficiency; it is the mechanism.
Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve, published in 1885, showed that memories decay exponentially unless reinforced. The precise timing of reinforcement matters: reviewing too soon is wasted effort; reviewing too late means relearning from near zero. The SM-2 algorithm, developed by Piotr Wozniak in 1987 and still the backbone of most spaced repetition software, calculates the optimal review interval after each session based on how well you recalled the word. A word recalled confidently gets a longer interval; a forgotten word gets reset to day 1. Over time, mastered words drift to monthly reviews and eventually exit the queue entirely.
Ten words per day is the research-backed sweet spot for sustainable vocabulary growth. At 10 words daily, a year of consistent study yields 3,650 new words - enough to read a newspaper, hold a conversation, and watch television with occasional dictionary lookups. The constraint is not arbitrary: at higher targets, review load compounds rapidly. By week four of 50-words-per-day, you owe 1,400 reviews before learning anything new.
At 10 new words per day with consistent review, approximately 4–5 months. The review burden starts light and grows, so the last 200 words take longer than the first 200. Most learners reach conversational ability in a second language after 2,000–3,000 high-frequency words.
Vocabulary first, for practical fluency. Grammar without vocabulary produces correct but empty sentences. A large vocabulary with imperfect grammar is sufficient for most real-world communication. Prioritise the 2,000 most frequent words before investing heavily in grammar study.
Yes - when they enforce active recall and schedule reviews using spaced repetition. Flashcard apps that let you passively flip through cards without testing yourself do not work. The critical feature is being required to produce the answer before it is revealed.
By frequency for fluency, by topic for specific goals. Frequency-first is the fastest path to general comprehension. Topic-based study (food, travel, business) is useful once you have a base vocabulary and need domain-specific language quickly.