Remembering New Words from Books

In books I read, there are some words I don’t know but want to remember because I think I can use them in the future. To remember them, there are two things I do that work for me:

The first is to write them as a reminder on my phone so that every day I am reminded of a new word for one week. The second is to make sentences that I’m likely (even when just a little) to say in the future or to anyone.

Last week’s word was “taciturn”, which means tending not to speak a lot. When I got the reminder I make sentences in my head or out loud like:

  • I think I’m mostly a taciturn person.
  • Once when I was with my aunts and an uncle, all my aunts were talking but I didn’t say much. I just smiled or laughed when I needed to. My uncle noticed this and said maybe I’m thinking about a lot of things but I think I’m just taciturn.
  • I think being taciturn isn’t the same as being shy.

And so on. Making sentences that are related to me and people around me make it easier for me to remember words.