The experiment reported here evaluated the effectiveness of the mnemonic keyword method for foreign word acquisition. Of major concern was the effectiveness of the method for decreasing the interference effect. The experiment compared the imagery- or sentence-keyword method with an unconstrained control procedure using a Spanish vocabulary. Even in the interference paradigm the keyword method proved superior to the control condition. A closer analysis of the data revealed that the association strength of the stimulus terms had a more powerful effect, while the imagery value of the response terms did not affect performance. The results were interpreted as showing that the keyword method facilitated elaborate processing, regardless of whether imagery or verbal encoding was emphasized in the instruction.