The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship between Chinese MA students' depth of vocabulary knowledge, their use of L2 vocabulary learning strategy (VLS), and the types of L2 contact they encountered while studying abroad. 165 Chinese MA students from a British university participated in the study by filling out the questionnaire which comprised a measure of L2 contact (Freed, Dewey, Segalowitz, & Halter, 2004), a survey of vocabulary learning strategy (Gu, 2005), and a vocabulary test based on the Word Associates Format (WAF) (Read, 2000) used for measuring their vocabulary knowledge depth. Exploratory factor analysis yielded five types of VLS and five types of L2 contact. Results of stepwise regression analysis indicated that strategies related to contextual guessing and using a dictionary as well as L2 contact variables of reading and interacting in English were positive predictors of vocabulary knowledge depth. However, Pearson's correlation coefficients revealed no relationship between the vocabulary test results and the variables of either VLS or L2 contact. Implications of the findings suggested how advanced Chinese ESL learners could maximize their lexical gains by using VLS and engaging L2 contact while studying abroad.