Here’s a little info about me: I have been teaching English, Spanish and Portuguese for 20 years and one of the biggest difficulties students have shown is lack of vocabulary. Now what to do?

Well, making very long lists won’t help you. So here are some tips.

1. Contextualize!
When you come across a new word, like abuela [grandmother] you can write a short sentence related to one of your abuelas, something like this:

Mi abuela tiene los ojos azules. [My grandmother has blue eyes.] or Mis abuelas viven cerca de mi casa. [My grandmothers live near my house.]

Why not do the same with words like camisa [shirt], libro [book], coche, auto [car] and amigo [friend – masc.]?

2.Verbs!
If you’re learning verbs, and if you’ve been studying Spanish for some months and now the basic conjugations, a good technique is to take a verb, let’s say venir [to come] and write patterned sentences using the most common verb forms. Example:

Present
Vengo a la escuela a pie. [I come to school on foot.]
Estoy viniendo a la escuela a pie. [I’m coming to school on foot.]

Past
Vine a la escuela a pie. [I came to school on foot.]
He venido a la escuela a pie. [I have come to school on foot.]
Venía a la escula a pie. [I was coming / I used to come to school on foot.]

Future
Vendré a la escuela a pie. [I will come to school on foot.]
Voy a venir a la escuela a pie. [I’m going to come to school on foot.]

3. Read!
Yes, I have to insist that reading will only do you good. The more you read, the more vocabulary you learn and the less grammar you will need to study. I’m dead serious, people! Extensive reading (like reading a whole book) is a great way to keep seeing the same words in context so that at the end of the book, you will already know what they mean.

You’ll see! At first it will seem like it takes forever to go through a few sentences, but then it will get easier and easier. Start with easier texts, then move on to more difficult ones.

4. Write
At the end of each day, try to write a few sentences of what your day was like, what you did, who you met, your impressions on a certain topic you talked about. Keep writing and occasionally take the time to look up unknown words in the dictionary (using tip !).

These are just a few tips you might want to use to improve your vocabulary in Spanish. Do you use other techniques? Want to share them with us?

Want more free resources to learn Spanish? Check out the other goodies we offer to help make your language learning efforts a daily habit.