A lot of people are seeking for some genius and easy way to boost their vocabulary at once. In this article I am listing several useful thought not magic ways to learn new words. Some of those will drive you nuts; the others will confuse your interlocutor. However, of course it is up to you to choose which one you prefer.

Axioms
 
Vocabulary can be either active or passive. Active vocabulary includes the words we use when talking or writing. The passive one includes words we know, but which we don't use. Passive vocabulary is generally several times bigger than the active one. The words we learn go to passive vocabulary first, then to the active one if we use them several times when talking or writing.

How many words should one know?

A native speaker with higher education should have about 17-18 thousand word in his passive vocabulary, and about 700 words in his active vocabulary.

How many words it is possible to learn a day (week, month)?

I could never manage to learn more than 15-20 words a day. I mean if I learned more I wouldn’t be able to remember their definition in one or two months after that. I think the best is to learn 15-20 new words every day except for the week ends and to review them then.

Where do I learn new words from?

 Never pick up new words from the lists like the most popular words or from the dictionary index. This is boring and ineffective. Instead pay attention to new words you come across when reading or watching movies. If you hear some of those words more than twice - look them up. Neglect bombastic words and expressions because you will hardly ever hear them again

Some of the common learning strategies

Flash cards: this is one of the most popular methods. All you need to do is to buy a block of paper and write the word itself on one side, and its translation with some example on the other one. Differently colored blocks can be even more useful. You can write different part of speech on differently colored blocks accordingly. You can put the cards together then and take them with you when going somewhere and to review them when you can. The main advantage is that you can review them in any random order.

Language games: you can play games like scrabble, crosswords, etc.

Mark them all: One day I discovered that I don't know the names of the most ordinary things like stool, pan, etc. So I put stickers with names written on them on every thing in my house. Every time when I was looking for something I had to read those stickers and remember the names. In a week or so it started to drive me nuts and I took them off (but before I made sure I remember them all).

Stories: this is another popular words learning method. You need to take ten new words and to write them on a sheet of paper. Then you have to make a little story using those words. This method will help you remember new word and review the words you already know.

Monkey see, monkey do: the idea of this method is to remember new words you hear when talking to somebody. Then you need to try to guess its meaning or ask your interlocutor and try to apply it in several minutes.

Follow-ups

Always pay attention to the word context.
If in a dictionary there are several definitions for some word, don't try to learn them all cause you will probably get confused.
Before looking a word up in a dictionary try to guess its meaning. If you guessed it right, you will most likely remember the word.
Learn the words you are interested in, instead of those "useful" ones.  
Remember that it is better to learn 3 words every day than 20 words once a week.