Hey Gilles,

Well, honestly I think you learn new vocabulary reading books. This seem really simple but that's one of the methods that worked for me.

I'm a Portuguese native speaker (Portugal - Europe) and when I say to people who ask me how I learned English that I learned it at school they're like O.O? Because trust me, most of the kids here just goof around so it's something big when you actually know something about english or speak almost fluently... 

I remember that when I started I think I used to research a lot on the Internet in English, read books OH OH! and watch Cartoon Network (when it wasn't dubbed, bleh)  - Powerpuff girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Laboratory... Those were my favorites :D And til today I keep on reading books, thinking in English, using Google mainly in English - but yeah, books are great tool to learn new vocabulary :D

I still make mistakes on grammar (I would like to fix that) but that's what I did and do and of course, be motivated or interested in the things you learn. I liked english, it wasn't boring, so that's one of the reasons I 'caught it' :)

In my view, there are some useful steps , look new words up, write them down, carefully surf them everyday and try to use them in several entries.

Hi to everyone who wants to master vocabulary:

First of all, I had better remind some learners who want to master vocabulary in a very short of time that there is no short cut by any means unless you are an exceptional marvel in language learning. For most of the adult people who have their primary languages, I am afraid the only one useful way to master vocabulary is intensive learning.

There are 2 steps you have to accomplish:

The first step is from unknown to known: it goes without saying you have to check the word in the dictionary at first, English-English dictionary is preferred if anything. You may as well learn a new word by reading papers while it is quite suffering sometimes especially your vocabulary is quite limited. Some people claimed checking books in the dictionary word by word which is adopted by me. But there is a very tip you have to notice that is never focus on only too abstruse words and absolutely practice this word by reading its example sentences.

The second step is to practice the word thoroughly and comprehensively on different occasion that often implies you have to read a large number of articles to practice this word. As soon as you found an unfamiliar or unknown word, ponder it at first sight according to its context then if nothing got, check the dictionary. Do not check words at the first sight unless you did not have met this word by any means or no related context to refer.

However, to have a large number of vocabulary is not the only way to master English despite it is an essential step to achieve. Do not forget to practice the word over and over again while you view this word later on.

Good luck to you

Allen, an earnest English learner

I watch anime most of the time in English subs, if I dont understand any particular word i would google it and if I still dont understand that word, I would look for an alternative word in theasarus to understand its meaning better. 

Hope this helps you :) 

It may sound a bit blunt, but to me the only way to learn some vocabulary is to feel I'm actually likely to use it in a real life situation.. So when you're given a list of words about a topic, try thinking of what you would like to say if you were to talk about that topic with someone else. In the same train of thought, at highschool I would just speak to myself out loud (preferably after making sure no one was around ;p). I know it sounds a bit funny, but it's as close to 'real life' as it can be when you're still in the learning process. So my advice is: improvise. Just talk about it and express your opinions. Very naturally, you'll not only use the vocab you were already given, but you'll also build up on it with some words that are useful or meaningful to you.

..If that make any sense?

P.S. Je viens de réaliser qu'on parle la même langue. Lol.