Sep 6, 2026 · 7 min read
Twenty new words a week sounds like a lot until you do the arithmetic: it is five words a day, four days a week, about ten minutes of work per day. Keep that up for a year and you have added roughly a thousand words you can actually use, not just recognise. The plan below is the one this site is built around, and every step points at a free tool that does the boring part for you.
Vocabulary is not learned in one sitting. When you meet 100 words in a weekend marathon, most of them are gone within days because they were seen once, fluently, and never pulled back out of memory. When you learn five words a day instead, each word gets slept on, reviewed, and used before the next batch arrives. That rhythm matches how memory actually works: small, repeated reviews on a schedule beat one heroic session every time.
Choose five words a day from a theme you care about: food, travel, work, feelings. Words you meet again in your own life are words you will remember, so skip the random dictionary page and take five from a themed word list that matches what you read or talk about this week. One theme per week keeps the twenty words connected, and connected words are easier to recall than twenty unlinked strangers.
For each of the five words, read two or three example sentences, then write one sentence of your own using the word. The sentence does not have to be beautiful, it has to be yours. This forces you to handle the word the way you will in conversation, with its grammar and its company, instead of memorising a translation pair.
Re-reading your list is not testing. Testing is closing the notebook and pulling the word out of your head. A quick Flash Recall round or a Speed Recall round does exactly that: you see a meaning and have to recall the word before the timer runs out. Getting one wrong is not a failure, it is the signal that the word needs another look today.
Here is the part that keeps the plan alive: every word you miss in a game lands in your review deck automatically. The deck asks you to grade each card and spaces the next review — one day, three days, a week — so you never have to remember what to review or when. Open the deck when it says reviews are due, grade honestly, and the intervals stretch out by themselves.
Once a week, spend ten minutes on the whole batch: run the daily challenge and re-quiz the twenty words from memory. The words you recall instantly are done; the ones that wobble stay in the deck for another cycle. Then pick next week's theme and start again. That is the entire plan — five words, one sentence each, a game, a deck, and a weekly check.
Twenty words a week will not change your English in a day. It changes it in a month, and compounds in a year. Start today with five words, and let the games and the deck carry the schedule.
Yes, and it is a better target than most. Twenty words is only five per day across four study days, which takes about ten minutes a day. Complete beginners can start at ten to fifteen words per week and raise the number as review starts feeling easy.
The best words are the ones you will actually meet again: words from your job, your hobbies, or the books and videos you already enjoy. Ready-made themed lists are the fastest start, and picking five words from one theme at a time makes them easier to remember.
Review them on a schedule instead of once. A word that is successfully recalled after one day, then three, then a week, keeps stretching its review gap and moves toward a monthly check. Collect every missed word in one deck so nothing important slips away.
Games help because they force active recall: you see a meaning and have to produce or recognise the word under a little time pressure, which is closer to real conversation than re-reading a list. Short game rounds are also easy to repeat daily, and repetition is what moves a word into long-term memory.