Hack your dictionary | Взломай свой словарь

What do you do with your handwritten dictionary?
Or do you use cards?
Maybe even write lines of words?
I tried it, hands get tired but mind is free and pretty blank like after a good meditation.
Is it effective?
Here is one tip for you. 
Let's turn to true hacker in the world of foreign words. And the dictionary you write lesson by lesson will turn to your land. You will be the owner of constantly developing land, the owner whose influence area grows wide. 
Look attentively, I will tell this only once and you decide what to do with that knowledge.

Words are homeless when you just write them in a list as it is given in most of students books. Words need context to live in your head for long. That's why you should work on it in a different way. When you find a new word, there comes lots of opportunities to create context. First of all, understand the meaning. Add associations. Then go make word combinations. You can find some in the printed dictionaries, but the better you do it yourself. Write as much word combinations as you can. Add your associations to that word. Then make sentences with that word. Try to be creative, but don't forget about real life situations. Add dialogues. Let's watch how it works. There were given vocabularies for two lessons in the previous posts (1) and (2). Let's make examples based on those words you've learnt already.

Follow the way:

WORD => TRANSLATION => ASSOCIATIONS => WORD COMBINATIONS => PHRASES => DIALOGUES

Word: мама

Translation (add all languages you know):
mother (English), mutter (Deutch), мати (Ukrainian), 어머니 (Korean), мама (Moldavian)

Associations: 
дом,
дома,
фото (words from the 1st lesson)
+ завтрак,
комната,
моя,
твоя,
хорошая,
там,
тут
сумка
кот
молоко
рыба (words from the 2nd lesson)

Word combinations: 
мама дома,
комната мамы,
фото мамы,
мама на фото,
мама тут,
мама там,
моя мама,
твоя мама

Sentences:
Это мама.
Это моя мама.
Это твоя мама?
Твоя мама хорошая.
Тут комната мамы.
Это фото мамы.
Мама дома? Да.
Мама: Завтра утром холодно.

Dialogues: 

1.
- Это кто?
- Это мама.
- Твоя мама?
- Да, моя мама.

2.
- Мама дома?
- Да, она дома.

You can use many ways to do that work with any word. I mean, writing vocabulary is also art. You can draw mindmaps or make infographics, or create tables... Anything is great when you give context to your words. Don't forget to repeat while writing and read it once again when you finish. The most simple way IMHO is to just write every new word on a new page and add details.

I highly recommend to do it especially with those words which seem hard to learn for you.

What is your favorite way to deal with new words? Share it in the comments below.