When you’re trying to learn a new word, here’s a tip.

Put it in a sentence.

If you’ve gone through a year of grammar, you could probably do it. You’re taught about 300 words. Put those words to good use when you’re learning new ones. You’ll develop a better hold on the ones you know and you’ll begin to  internalize the meaning of your new vocabulary at the same time.

When you first start, its difficult and you might have to look up words, but as you keep doing it, its gets easier and easier.

Over time, try to use the new words in multiple sentences.

With verbs, its good to trying it with different conjugations – try an present imperfective and try a past perfective, or perhaps change the person and number agreement. But as you change the verb’s morphology, keep the sentence itself the same. Just practice.

With nouns, try to put the word as the subject, object and then in a prepositional phrase. Again keep the sentences as similar as you can.

Finally, once you’ve got the hang of it, bring BDAG or Louw & Nida into the mix, try to use words in sentences along the lines of the difference means described by the lexica.

Go on; give it a try.