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An event-related potential (ERP) study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of two learning methods for the acquisition of vocabulary in a foreign language (FL). In the semantic method, FL words were presented with pictures denoting their meaning and the learners practiced with a semantic categorization task (to indicate whether FL words were exemplars of a semantic category). In the lexical method, FL words were paired with their translation in the first language (L1) and the learners practiced with a letter-monitoring task (to indicate whether L1-FL words contained a grapheme). A translation task and a picture-naming task were used to evaluate FL acquisition. ERP modulations associated with semantic processing were more evident and broadly distributed in the semantic versus lexical learning group. The pattern of results suggests that a single session of semantic learning favors the establishment of connections between semantics and the words learned in a new language.
