Recursio
How to Remember New English Words
Why you forget new vocabulary — and seven evidence-informed ways to make English words stick, from spaced repetition to learning words in context.
You look a word up, understand it perfectly — and a week later it's gone. That's not a bad memory; it's how memory works. Hermann Ebbinghaus's early memory experiments helped describe the forgetting curve: new information can fade quickly unless something brings it back.
The fix isn't studying harder — it's studying smarter. Here are seven evidence-informed habits that turn new words from "seen once" into words you can recognize and use.
Seven ways to make words stick
Instead of repeating a word ten times today, review it tomorrow, then in three days, then in a week. Each review at the edge of forgetting resets the curve and the memory lasts longer. This is spaced repetition, and it's one of the most useful study habits for long-term memory.
Trying to recall a word usually strengthens memory more than simply seeing it again. Cover the meaning and make yourself remember it. The small struggle is the point — that's active recall.
A word on its own is hard to hold; a word in a sentence has hooks. Save the whole phrase — "miss the bus", "a tight deadline" — so you learn how the word actually behaves, not just its translation.
Say the word out loud, write your own sentence, drop it into a message. Producing language helps fix it more deeply than only recognizing it — psychologists call this the generation effect.
Link a new word to an image, a sound-alike in your language, or a personal memory. A vivid or personal link can make the word easier to remember — a trick called the keyword method.
Five words a day is usually more useful than fifty words once a week. And mixing topics rather than drilling one set in a block — interleaving — makes each word easier to tell apart and recall later.
Sleep supports memory consolidation. A quick review in the evening and again the next morning can help new words feel more stable.
Common mistakes
Rereading and calling it studying. Recognizing a word can feel like knowing it, but recognition and recall are different. Close the book sometimes and test yourself.
Cramming the night before. Massed practice gives quick results that vanish fast. Spacing the same minutes over days is more likely to last.
Memorizing single-word translations. Words shift meaning by context. Learn the phrase, the collocation, the example sentence.
Collecting words you never review. A list of 500 saved words you never see again is just a list. Review is where much of the learning happens.
Quick check
Which habit best fixes each problem?
- "I knew it yesterday, but today it's gone." ______
- "I recognize the word but can't produce it when speaking." ______
- "I know the word but always use it in the wrong way." ______
Answer key
- Space your reviews — bring it back just before you'd forget.
- Use it / active recall — produce the word, don't just recognize it.
- Learn in context — save the whole phrase, not the bare word.
Practice this in Recursio
Recursio is built around these habits: save a word once, review it with spaced recall, practice it through active recall in real sentences, and meet it again in Daily Mixed Review before it fades.
Start your word list in Recursio → · Free to start, on iOS and Android.