It takes me a long time to learn a new word.

If you are used to studying a word and then feeling that you have “learned” it, doing real acquisition can feel slow. That is because when we study a word, we create a single connection between that word and a translation (or picture). Translating the word leaves us feeling that at least we can somewhat use the word. The problem is that one single connection is not only thin and flimsy, and therefore easily forgotten, but it’s also far from complete. Instead, when we acquire a word through exposing ourselves to experiences in which the word is used meaningfully, hundreds of connections are formed between the word and all the things we were aware of and feeling during those experiences. Those connections not only make our knowledge of the word a lot more durable, but they also give us a more complete understanding about how that word can be used in a sentence, when it’s appropriate to use it, its nuances, and its whole range of meanings. We explain this in more detail in our blog post The Nature of Words. As a consequence, you will never acquire 100% of any single word in one day. Instead, you will be acquiring 1% of 1000 different words that you’ve come in contact with that day. Also, you’ll be happy to know that the higher your level is, the faster you’ll be learning words. When you get better at the language, you’ll be more used to the sounds of the language, so you’ll be more likely to recognize the sounds that form each word. Your brain will have a much easier time remembering a word, since it will just have to put together the sounds that already exist in your head, instead of having to record the sound of each word as a completely new concept. Besides becoming familiar with the sounds of the language, you’ll also intuitively get used to what combinations of letters are likely to appear and which ones aren’t. That will make it even easier to learn new words. And it gets even better! Getting used to the commonly used prefixes, suffixes, and already having learned another word in the same word family will help your learning even more.