How I Studied Vocabulary
Why Premade Lists Didn’t Work for Me
At the start of my journey, I believed that vocabulary was my biggest challenge. I initially searched Google for terms like “B2 level German vocabulary” and downloaded a few lists. My plan was to go through them repeatedly until I felt secure with the words. I even printed them out. However, I never ended up using them.
Here’s why: I’ve always disliked memorizing words from lists. When I was first learning English, my father made me memorize a page from a children’s English dictionary every day and wouldn’t let me go to bed until I finished. I hated it. Later, in middle school, I had 20 sets of 200 words each, and random tests would pull 10 words from each set. I couldn’t go home until I scored over 90%. This rote memorization method also applied to any additional vocabulary I encountered during listening or reading comprehension exercises.
While this approach worked for exams, as shown by my high scores in the subject back then, it only worked because there was external pressure (and not so enjoyable). As a self-learner, I realized that the same method wouldn’t be ideal. I had already tried methods like Anki many times before and failed to stick with it.
Setting a Realistic(?) Goal
I then wanted to know how many words I should aim to learn and whether it was possible to get a comprehensive list. I eventually set my goal to 15,000 words—a YouTuber I followed mentioned that this is a solid number for reaching C-level. According to her, native speakers use around 30,000 words.
Working for my Goal
I started by marking unfamiliar words in my textbooks and adding them to my list. Over time, as the textbook material became easier, I switched to reading more engaging content—first magazines, and then novels for young readers and non-fiction books. Since I enjoyed these readings more, I progressed faster, though I didn’t always have time to look up words in the dictionary. Instead, I would mark unfamiliar words and only look them up if they reappeared frequently. Even without looking up every word, I could generally grasp the meaning of the text.
In addition to reading, I began listening to Tagesschau (daily news) every evening, as well as various podcasts while working out. Whenever I encountered new words, I jotted them down in a memo app and later added them to my word list. The vocabulary I gathered this way was stickier, as it was relevant to my interests and experiences.
Building a Digital Word List
I kept track of new words in a digital spreadsheet, where I would note down unfamiliar words, their translations (either in English or Korean), and example phrases. If the phrase contained other unknown words, I sometimes included translations for those as well.
By keeping the list digital, I could easily check how often I encountered and forgot specific words. This allowed me to gather examples from different contexts, reinforcing my understanding.
Discovering Word Patterns
An interesting part of this process was when I started identifying patterns in the words I learned. For example, if I encountered a word like “annehmen” (to accept), I would also write down related forms like “die Annahme” (acceptence, assumption), compound words like “die Warenannahme” (goods reception), and related terms like “die Warenlieferung” (goods delivery).
This helped me notice patterns, such as verbs ending in "-nehmen" often had corresponding feminine nouns ending in "-nahme." I explored other prefixes, such as ein-, aus-, ab-, auf-, zu-, and ent-, applying them to “nehmen” to create new words: einnehmen (to take in), ausnehmen (to exclude), abnehmen (to remove), aufnehmen (to record), zunehmen (to increase), and entnehmen (to take something from something; to gather). This exercise helped me better understand how prefixes alter the meaning of verbs and nouns.
Creating Patterns for Easier Memorization
One of the most useful discoveries was that many German words follow predictable patterns, making them much easier to learn. Coming from a background of only knowing Korean and English, the concept of gendered nouns was initially challenging. However, learning basic noun patterns and deriving related words significantly reduced the effort needed to memorize new vocabulary. Learning irregular verbs also became more effective, as their participles often form adjectives. For example, angenommen (accepted) and zunehmend (increasing) are new words in themselves. Even though I might not always recall the correct Partizip II form of nehmen, I could remember from angenommen that it should be genommen. Adjectives or adverbs can also be formed by adding -bar or -lich to verbs or nouns, like annehmbar (acceptable).
Sometimes I come across words that appear similar, which makes me curious about their relation. I then write these down nearby, such as angenehm (pleasant), annehmlich (an old word, probably not often used, meaning present or agreeable), die Annehmlichkeit (convenience), and die Unannehmlichkeit (inconvenience). Regardless of the real etymological connection, marking the relationship between words and processing them again has helped me remember many words.
I enjoy discovering and exploring these rules in my free time, and this playful approach has allowed me to internalize the structure of the language more naturally.
Why This Approach Worked for Me
This method helped in three important ways. First, I encountered new words actively from different channels within contexts that I was interested in. Secondly, when I came across new words, I could often deduce their meanings based on the patterns and structures I had already learned or was actively building. Finally, once I understood the meaning of a word and placed it within this internal structure, it became much easier to remember. Instead of relying on the rote memorization of lists made by others, I focused on identifying patterns and connections, making vocabulary acquisition both more effective and enjoyable.