Vocabulary is the basis of any language learning. To many Chinese non-English majors it is difficult to memorize English words. This paper applied associative method in presenting new words to them. It is found that associative method did receive a better result both in short-term and long-term retention of English words. Compared with the traditional way, associative method was more efficient in the retention of polysyllabic words, monosyllabic and disyllabic words. In addition, the differences were very significant. However, forgetting greatly influenced the long retention of English words. Therefore, teachers should encourage learners to review what they learned in class frequently, and learners themselves should participate actively in associative learning.