The Most Effective Way to Grow Your English Vocabulary

For most people, the default way to learn English is memorizing word lists. We assume that if we drill a word and remember its translation, our vocabulary has grown.

In practice, it rarely works that way. Drilling isolated words has a few obvious downsides.

First, it is boring and inefficient. Second, even if you remember a word on a flashcard, you still might not know what it means when you run into it in a real article. You probably know that frustrating feeling: you recognize almost every word in a sentence, yet when they are put together, you have no idea what the sentence is actually saying.

On top of that, rote memorization is hard to stick with. After a while, it drains your interest in English altogether, and you start wondering if you just lack a talent for languages. And memorizing a word does not mean you can use it. When you actually need to express an idea, your mind still goes blank.

Simply put, you have memorized the word, but you have not really acquired it.

Think about the English words you truly know inside out. Words like "apple" or "banana," right? You know them because you see them all the time in real life. Words you rarely encounter in context, on the other hand, fade away almost as soon as you finish cramming them.

How I Changed My Approach

I used to be part of the word-list crowd too, picking up English and quitting over and over again. That changed four years ago after I left my job. While taking a break and figuring out what to do next, I decided to give English another real shot.

Around that time, I came across a video about language acquisition that introduced me to Comprehensible Input and the concept of "i+1." That was when it clicked: the way that actually works for building vocabulary is listening and reading a lot, and picking up words naturally in context. Instead of cramming lists, you note down unfamiliar words you meet while reading and try to understand what they mean right there in the sentence.

From then on, I ditched traditional bilingual dictionaries and switched to the Cambridge Dictionary website or ChatGPT, using English definitions and example sentences to understand new words. Sometimes I would also run a Google Image search to connect the word with a picture. For a while I tried a bilingual listening app, which saved me from switching apps, but I caught myself constantly staring at the translated subtitles. I was just memorizing translations rather than understanding the English. Later I spent some time using LingQ, got used to reading English definitions and marking new words as I went, and finally managed to turn reading into a steady habit.

Reading English definitions worked much better, but two problems kept bugging me:

First, every time I looked up a word, I had to leave my reading screen and jump between different apps. It broke my train of thought and ruined the flow of reading. And a traditional dictionary dumps a long list of definitions on you, leaving you to guess which one actually fits the sentence in front of you.

Second, the English definitions in standard dictionaries are often too hard themselves. You look up an intermediate word, and Cambridge explains it using even harder advanced words. When you cannot even understand the definition, you end up looking up words inside the definition. That happened to me all the time.

So last year I thought: AI is more than capable of handling this now. Why not build my own English reading app that explains words in context?

I really like reading English definitions. Explaining English in English gives you direct feedback inside the language itself, just like how we used a monolingual dictionary as kids in school. It trains you to think in English, whereas relying on native-language glosses keeps you stuck in a translation mindset. The catch is that the English explanation has to be simple enough for you to understand.

I spent several months building the app, which became SentiaRead. At its core, I built it to solve three things:

• Tap an unfamiliar word, and it reads the current sentence to give you only the one meaning that fits that exact context, without leaving the page or digging through irrelevant definitions.
• Adjust the explanation to match my English level, using simple English I can already understand instead of creating new roadblocks. If the English explanation and examples still leave me unsure, one more tap shows a native-language gloss as a backup.
• When I hit a long, tangled sentence where I know the words but cannot follow the structure, AI can rewrite it into simpler English at my level so I can grasp the meaning first, then read the original sentence again.

Five Habits That Grew My Vocabulary Over the Years

Having the right tool helped a lot, but looking back over the past few years, these five daily habits are what truly built up my vocabulary:

1. Read What You Actually Care About

Interest is everything if you want to keep reading long-term. I stay away from dry textbooks and stick to things I genuinely want to read anyway: tech news, startup stories, engineering blog posts from teams like Anthropic, or English novels.

That is also why I built import tools into SentiaRead. Whether it is an EPUB or PDF ebook, a web article, or a podcast transcript, I pull it right into the app. Whatever you enjoy reading is the best study material you can find.

2. Pick Material at the Right Level

Do not start by tackling dense classics. If a book is too hard and you have to look up a dozen words on every page, you will burn out fast. The sweet spot is material where you already know around 90% of the words and only run into a handful of new ones. That way you can follow the story smoothly while picking up new vocabulary along the way.

3. Skip Rote Memorization and Meet Words Repeatedly Across Different Articles

When I run into a new word now, I just tap it to understand what it means in that sentence and keep reading. I do not try to memorize it on the spot.

Linguist Paul Nation's research shows that acquiring a new word through reading usually takes 5 to 16 encounters, ideally across different articles and situations, so your brain can build a flexible grasp of how the word works.

In SentiaRead, any word you look up is automatically saved to your vocabulary list along with the original sentence, and it gets highlighted whenever it shows up again in other books or articles. I love that little moment of recognition: seeing the same word light up in several different articles, thinking "oh, it is you again," and realizing after a few times that it has naturally stuck.

4. Review Rare Words Inside Short Stories

Some words simply do not show up often enough in daily reading, so you do forget them over time. Even when reviewing, though, I dislike flipping through dry flashcards. Instead, I generate a short, level-appropriate English passage woven from a batch of words due for review, meeting them again inside a real reading passage before checking whether I remember them. Every word I mark syncs across my phone, tablet, desktop app, e-ink reader, and Chrome extension.

5. Combine Reading with Listening

Alongside reading articles, I listen to English podcasts regularly. When I am unsure how a sentence sounds while reading, I play the audio to hear it spoken. When I listen to podcasts, I follow along with the synced transcript and tap any unfamiliar word on the fly. Pairing listening with reading builds a feel for the language much faster.

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At the end of the day, my biggest takeaway is simple: a large vocabulary does not come from forcing yourself through word lists. It comes from meeting, understanding, and gradually getting familiar with words across lots of real reading and listening. If memorizing word lists has never worked for you either, try setting the lists aside and starting with one article you actually want to read.