The goal of this research was to examine the effects of phonological familiarity and rehearsal method (vocal vs. subvocal) on novel word learning. In Experiment 1, English-speaking adults learned phonologically familiar novel words that followed English phonological structure. Participants learned half the words via vocal rehearsal (saying the novel word out loud) and half the words via subvocal rehearsal (saying the novel word silently). Results revealed retrieval advantages for vocally rehearsed novel words. In Experiment 2, English-speaking adults learned phonologically unfamiliar novel words that diverged from English phonological structure. Unlike in Experiment 1, results revealed retrieval advantages for novel words that were rehearsed subvocally. Together, findings suggest that the effect of the rehearsal strategy depends on the phonological structure of novel words, and that the two rehearsal types rely on somewhat distinct cognitive processes. (Contains 2 figures, 2 footnotes, and 1 table.)