The present study investigates the effects of pictorial and textual glosses and a combination thereof on incidental vocabulary growth of foreign language learners. Subjects from second‐semester German classes read a narrative text passage under one of three marginal gloss conditions: textual gloss (English translation); pictorial gloss; and text and pictures in the gloss. Subjects were tested on production as well as recognition of fourteen target words both immediately following and two weeks after the reading. Support was found for the hypothesis that subjects utilizing a combination of text and pictures in the gloss would outperform subjects under the other two gloss conditions on the recognition of target words on both short‐term memory and retention.