How to organise Arabic vocabulary

Simple systems for collecting new words, keeping them in context and revisiting them with confidence.

Collect words in context

A word on its own is hard to recall. Write the word, then the sentence you met it in. The sentence gives your memory something to hold on to.

Give each page a job

Use one spread per theme rather than one long list. Food, travel, study, prayer. When you need a word you know roughly where it lives.

Leave room to come back

Keep the right-hand margin clear. That is where the plural, the verb form or the note you add three weeks later will go.

Review on a schedule

Revisit a page the next day, the next week, then the next month. Three passes is usually enough to move a word from recognition to recall.