I agree with alexuisw. Pictures are a tremendous help. You can also try the key-word technique. This requires you to come up with a mental picture combining the meaning and sound of a word in English with the meaning and sound of a word in Chinese. Another way to improve your method of learning vocabulary words is learning about prefixes and suffixes. Typically, prefixes change the meaning of a word. For example, happy and unhappy mean different things thanks to the prefix. Suffixes change the grammar or form of a word. For example, communicate is a verb. With the suffix -ation, it becomes communication. This word is now a noun. Hope this helps!

think of a funny picture to go with each word that usually helps me