German Vocabulary Memorization Tips - German Learning Tips #11 - Deutsch lernen

In this week's tip I try to help you get vocabulary to stay in your brain easier, faster, and for longer. These are just some things that I used when I was learning German. If you have suggestions, leave them in the comments.

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[jaimegallegos]

DER SCHMETTERLING!!! – "the butterfly"
DIE SCHMETTERLINGE!!! – "the butterflies"

A true classic

[renatonali]

Your tips are awesome! Another thing that I found EXTREMELY helpful is writing the word with the respective color: RED for feminine, BLUE for masculine and GREEN for neutral... It is funny how everytime I think of a word I learned, it appears on the right color and then I just know the gender... Plus, I find it better than using DER, DIE, DAS in front of the word, because the declensions mess it all up (especially when DIE becomes DER in Dativ and so on).

[Yatsua]

My German teacher in highschool said that war is a masculine noun "Der Krieg" while in French it's feminine "la guerre" and that's why Germany wins its wars and French don't. I was very offended as a French, but I got to admit that I will never forget that war is "Der Krieg" in German lol

[dianecalvert]

Hallo Herr Antrim, I want to thank you so much for your videos. I have been learning on my own for 11 months and I practice and learn every day using duolingo, German reader books, a grammar book, slow German podcast and flash cards. I do write the words down but I don’t repeat them, so now I will! Your videos have helped fill in gaps that I had not fully understood. It is like lightbulb moments all the time. So thank you again

[sirprize]

Now I can't forget a word after repeatedly saying it like a song. I wish I had thought about this earlier. My boring plan consisted of writing and then reading them everyday but this actually buries the words in your brain. Thanks, wish I stumbled on this earlier, subbed

[LearningZoneLanguages]

I think the best way if we say the words out loud and form sentences with them.

[konradheumann]

As a German professor, I agree with Herr Antrim's tips, the only minor quibble being that a student should not - in my humble opinion - try to say the word as fast as possible. In the long run, accuracy is more important that speed, esp. since speed can lead to fossilized errors that are hard to un-learn.

[esmatooz]

Thanks so much for your support, you are totally right when said ‘’as you write as you read ‘’ this is absolutely the best technique to memorize new vocabularies...
Thanks once again.
Ich bin deutsche Sprache Schüler in B1 . And i used to follow this channel on daily basis.

[thelinthicums]

More brilliant stuff from the hardest working man in the Deutsch lernen biz. Nonsense imagery simply works for memorization, and if I write something, I know it.

[davidbrisbane]

I personally find Anrtim's method of presenting straightforward and I like the fact that he explains why the structure of the language is the way it is.

He doesn't try to hide things that he thinks might be too overwhelming. Instead, he isolates these things from the main learning lesson, but presents both fully.

I used to get frustrated at first reading even simple German because of idioms, and mystifying sentence constructions.

If I had been told to watch out for (but not necessarily learn) cases, conjunctions prepositions and subordinate clause structures early on, then I'd have made more progress and learned faster with less frustration.

[UlrikeRettig]

Nice! I like your 'silliness' tips, especially the one of the table hitting on the fork. My Dutch mom could have used it - she always said das Gabel.

[nicolettaciccone]

That is what I am doing now writing my vocabulary and verbs plus I write one word 10 or 20 times until I memorize it. Danke Herr.

[visalakshik.raman.]

I belong to the Old School Of Thoughts. So I too share your views that writing down the new words, reading them aloud and associating them with other interesting facts, literally etch those words in one's memory for ever. Very well explained for everyone to understand and feel motivated to follow these practical and very useful suggestions.

[pegasusdba]

Herr Antrim, this has to be one of your best videos yet! It was pleasing to read in the desc that you learned German, like we're doing...so you understand what difficulties we are experiencing...
The ideas put forward about learning new words is direct and instructive!! I am a fan of Anki because I can add images and audio to my cards and the fact that is uses SRS. But writing down the words may be a quick method.
I ask myself sometimes, have I learned any new words today. (Rather than just rehearsing old words). So, instead of learning no words, I could easily follow your suggestion and learn 5. That's a huge increase. :-)
As to music, music with words is definitely going to fight against the learning process. A gentle classical tune in the background however can be supportive. This shouldn't be confused with learning German from German songs (independent of the vocabulary activity).
Thanks for all your work!

[chriss]

Personally, I am an audio visual learner therefore it helps me to not only write out the words, but also hear them. Although, I usually write out words in one language. Then I turn over the page to test my memory, by attempting to duplicate that list as many times correctly as possible until the vocabulary becomes memorized.

I believe related groups of words are easier to recall. Than random words that are unrelated. Such as words for articles of clothing, or rooms in a house, and so on.

I did learn words such as ' die Mauer' using the method of creating a mental picture like this: picture a woman pushing a lawnmower towards a wall. The woman represents the grammatical gender of the German word for wall, and lawnmower sort of gives an English word that has a similar sound to the German word 'Mauer' and the fact the woman is moving to towards the wall essentially points out the object for emphasis.

That method does work, because even if I forget what 'wall' is in German. I can see the mental picture of that woman pushing a lawnmower towards a wall, then I recall it. Then I know it is: die Mauer = the wall. One common statement from the cold war era is: Die Mauer ist weg. Thankfully it has been torn down.

I also have used stickers to label different things around my house and each time I see them I can say: das Badezimmer, die Küche, das Buch... und so weiter... but I need to extend that

[HoubkneghteS]

I like to write the word in a few sentences.
Say I am learning "die Bewertung" (the rating). I'd write a few stuff like:
"Meine Bewertung ist da.""Das Lied hat eine hohe Bewertung."

[azbycxbyaz]

Thank you for saying listening to music doesn't help in learning. I could never do it and failed to understand why some would do it.

[StickNate]

I study with a small amount of cards. If you're trying to memorize 20 words at one sitting, you'll overload your brain. I'll get 2 groups of 3-cards. I have a free, boxing timer ap where I can create timed rounds. I do four, two minute rounds with a 15 second break between rounds. I start with stack #1. I read the English word aloud, flip the card and read the German. I then place it at the back of the 3 card stack (flipped) and continue. It forces me to alternate German/English. I do round 1&2 somewhat moderate/fast. After round 1, I put down stack #1 and study stack #2, and repeat the process with those 3 cards. After that round, I go back to stack #1 and then back to stack #2. These 4 rounds total take about 9 minutes. I then take a 5 minute break to reset my head and repeat with new cards. I find that a timer keeps me on a schedule. If I have note cards without a timer, I'll daydream or get distracted.

[aymenayari]

i think your video is one of the bestes tipps because you had explained that apps are not all ways the best method to learn vocabluary, i think it is a commercial thing, these apps. Danke.

[Yatsua]

Thank you very much for your video. I have been learning German for many years, I know the grammar, the different tenses etc... but I can't really have a conversation with someone or understand or write something more complicated or even basic things because I can't remember the vocabular... It is very frustrating because I know how to write complicated sentences and how to use the prepositions etc but actually I can't because I can't remember the words in between (the vocabular...)