How to build vocabulary in a foreign language
Read a lot of material you mostly understand, look up the words that block the meaning or keep coming back, and review those words on a spaced schedule. Each part of that routine rests on a different line of research, and each has a limit the others make up for.
vocabulary building/vəˈkæbjələri ˈbɪldɪŋ/noun
- Increasing the number of words you recognise and understand when reading or listening (receptive vocabulary).
- Increasing the number of words you can use when speaking and writing (productive vocabulary), which usually lags behind the first.
What the research says, in brief
- 8,000–9,000
- word families to read novels without a dictionary, at 98% known words (Nation, 2006)
- 10+
- encounters a new word often needs while reading before its meaning is likely to stick (several studies)
- 47% vs 37%
- average recall after spaced and after massed practice across 271 comparisons (Cepeda et al., 2006)
- 46%
- of the different word forms in a typical English novel appear only once in the whole book (our counts)
Methods compared
No single method does everything. The table sums up what each one is good for; the guides below go into the evidence.
| Method | Good for | Evidence | Weak spot |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reading at the right level | Meeting words many times in context; deepening knowledge of words you half know | Readers pick up part of the unknown words, and words met ten or more times have a good chance of being learned | Slow; rare words are not met often enough |
| Reading with a dictionary or glosses | Making repeated encounters count | Repetition paid off mainly when readers looked words up or were given the meaning | Looking up everything breaks the flow of reading |
| Flashcards with spaced repetition | Keeping chosen words for months and years | Spaced practice beats cramming in hundreds of experiments; recalling beats rereading | Cards without context; reviews pile up if you add too many |
| Frequency lists | Deciding which words to learn first | The most frequent 1,000 word families cover roughly 78–84% of text and speech | A list says what to learn, not how to remember it |
| Listening and watching | Recognising words by ear; pronunciation | About 3,000 word families cover roughly 95% of film and TV dialogue | In one comparison, listening alone taught far fewer words than reading |
| Speaking and writing | Turning words you recognise into words you use | One of Nation's four strands of a balanced course, each given roughly equal time | Needs a base of words to work with |
Guides
Getting startedA seven-day plan: find your level, choose a text, set up flashcards and a daily routine.
How many words do you need?Vocabulary sizes for reading novels, watching films and holding a conversation, and what a word family is.
Spaced repetitionWhy spreading reviews out beats cramming, how to schedule them, and which tools do it for you.
Learning words from readingHow much vocabulary you pick up just by reading, how many encounters a word needs, and how to speed it up.
Words in booksOur counts for 117 books in five languages: different word forms, words used once, and how varied each text is.
AboutWho writes this site, how figures are checked and where our data comes from.