What is the best way to remember English words where English is not the first language?

I can't agree more with you. I personally loathe the vocabulary books. For me, the learning procedure is pretty much like the one you described - only instead of reading English novels and news, I play the English version of games (Warcraft, StarCraft etc), go on English forums, and (more recently) try to keep up an English blog. This has been working pretty well for me. I guess it's the power of 'learning by immersion' over 'learning by memorization'. If you read, speak and write a language frequently enough, it'll be hard to forget it anyway.

Please check-out my book "English Bites! My Fullproof English Learning Formula" by Manish Gupta, published by Penguin Books India. My commissioning editor at Penguin believes (and I fully endorse her) that it is a unique guide to the language that will have you learning and laughing at the same time. It is the story of a man who goes from being  tongue-tied in school to becoming a smooth talking banker. Through a series of hilarious personal adventures and misadventures, the author provides easy solutions to problems faced by language learners. The author takes help from interesting anecdotes, jokes, illustrations & cartoons, advertisements, etymology, use of rhymes, alliterations, and even brand names to unravel the intricacies of the English vocabulary. Visit the Facebook Page of http://www.facebook.com/EnglishBitesBook to check out the book and how one can order it. eBook version is in pipeline. regards, Manish Gupta

Sure. Find a picture on google images that matches the word. Leave your own language out of it. When you look at the image, look at the word. If you can, use google translate so you can hear the word being said. So: see the image, see how it's written, hear it spoken. Again, leave your own language out of it. This is the way kids learn languages, and as an adult you can too. If your mind gets too restless and begins speaking in your own language, that is talking in your head and won't shut up, try this to get out of your left speaking brain and into your right noticing and seeing brain. Use a clock with a second hand. Stare at it. See how long you can go without the voice talking in your head. When you can do a minute, go to two minutes, then three. This may take a month or so. An other exercise that helps. Stare at your left hand. Using your right hand on a piece of paper where you can't see it draw every little wrinkle in your fingers and hands, tracing over them on the paper without looking. You will notice that the voice shuts up and you get very peaceful. That peaceful, noticing things without talking side of your brain is what you have to activate to learn English words by connecting them to a visual image and the sound, but without letting your native langue interfere....

When learning a language's vocabulary I've done my best to assign sounds with images rather than learning vocabulary lists and what they translate to in my home language. The translations come later once you have a grasp of the language you're learning.

Hello friend... So I am in the same shoes you are and what I always do is that I take the word apart and try to get the definition of its parts...For example the word autobiography, wgen taken apart, is auto meaning self, bio is life, and graph is to write. So when you put it together it means self life writing and that way you can remember the word. Hope I helped.

To learn something new (activity, word etc.), learn by making associations. To learn new words, learn them by associating with afew words you already know; and associating with a few sentences.Etymological associations are the best. Learn the root of these words, learn howthey were derived. As a bonus, etymological learning opens yourhorizons to the whole family of new words derived from the same root.Another association is learning with the synonyms. As you come across the newwords, learn the synonyms for these words. There's a very fair chanceyou might know one or more of them.Most importantly, learn by usage. Every new word you learn, understand how it's various forms are used in a sentence. This makes your learningmuch more concrete.It is now a well established fact that you cannot learn a word by looking at it once, unless you are gifted with an eidetic memory. Forthe common people like us, we need to read them once, twice, thrice,and many more times. A general thumb rule is that you have to get exposed to the word 4-7 times (tend to the higher side for the more complex words), distributed over 15 days. That drills the word intoyour sub-conscious mind. Make it a habit to recall these new words regularly. As you read any website or newspaper, try replacing thewords with the new set of words you've learnt.Last,and perhaps the best thing you can do is use this newly gained vocabulary as often as possible. You might, at times, soundoutlandish; that's fine. Remember, vocabulary is like Siri, the moreyou use, the better it gets.VocabSmith is a mobile app to improve vocabulary; for general vocabulary building, also for specialized exams like GRE. VocabSmith’sRST algorithm governs your exposure to the words, in a frequency determined to be the most optimized, as suggested by proven psychological research. The algorithm further aligns this revision on the user’s difficulty in learning the words – you find a word difficult, no problem, VocabSmith revises it more for you. This way,VocabSmith ensures that your time spent on the tool maximizes your retention of the words, and associate with word usages.It is available on iOS& Android platforms. Links are as below.1.iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vocabsmith-gre/id1100701943?ls=1&mt=82.Android:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.flipclass.vocabsmithgre