How to build English vocabulary?

Question

English learning tools

I took a TED video to study. In two weeks (2 hours every day) I memorized all the words, memorized the video itself. Several times I wrote the entire text of the video in English from memory. And I decided everything is fine, you can move on. After 3 or 4 months (I don’t remember exactly) I returned to this video. The video certainly seems familiar and I roughly remember its content, but 90% of the words and expressions have evaporated from my memory. It is clear that after spending another 6 hours, you can remember everything. And probably if you do this 5-10 times over the course of two years, the words will settle down firmly in your head. But the problem is that in order to have enough vocabulary to pass at a decent level in IELTS or TOEFL, there must be at least 1000 such videos. And what about this? In English courses, approximately 3-4 classroom lessons are allocated for each Unit of the Western curriculum. Each unit contains at least 100 new words. It seems to me simply impossible to put these words into long-term memory in 2 weeks for a person with average abilities. A maximum of 5% of words are repeated in the following units. There is no question of returning to the passed units many times. They say that in order for new words to fit in your head, you need to retell the text. Super - for 2-3 weeks they will keep within. What's next? The task of learning unfamiliar words infuriates me. Learn for how long? So how do you build vocabulary? What's next? The task of learning unfamiliar words infuriates me. Learn for how long? So how do you build vocabulary? What's next? The task of learning unfamiliar words infuriates me. Learn for how long? So how do you build vocabulary?

Answer 1

Vocabulary is something that is used on an ongoing basis. This is not something that is learned, but something that is used subconsciously. So practice and more practice. And better - colloquial

Answer 2

There's some bullshit here, to be honest. Foreign, unfortunately, was not taught at school. I used a bunch of lingualeo (at that time I didn’t find anything better) and forvo, I created a database of words with associations for a month, then I learned somewhere around 50-100 a day. It took no more than 12 hours of pure time in a day. I typed a couple of thousand words and went to Asia to rest. Of course, some of the words disappear, but not more than 5-10% per year.