ABSTRACT Discusses the author’s keyword method, a mnemonic aid for vocabulary learning. According to this method, a foreign word is connected to its English translation by a chain of 2 links-similarity in sound (acoustic link) and a mental image of the interaction between the 2 words (imagery link). Experiments using Russian and Spanish vocabularies are described to illustrate that the keyword method produces significantly greater vocabulary recall than the rote-rehearsal method of second-language learning. Results also suggest that (a) providing the keywords for the S is better than having him generate his own keywords, (b) imagery instructions have a significant advantage over sentence-generation instructions when the keyword method is used, (c) the keyword method does not affect word retrieval times, and (d) the keyword method produces significantly better backward associations than the rote-rehearsal method. Problems in the application of the method are considered.