You learn and learn these words, but there is no sense! After a couple of days, everything is forgotten.
Take a scientific approach to memorization! We present to you three scientifically based methods that will allow you to quickly and permanently memorize foreign words.
HOW MANY WORDS DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
First, let's figure out how many words you need to learn in order to begin to understand most of a foreign speech, and even express your thoughts yourself. A five-year-old child living in an English-speaking country uses 4,000 - 5,000 words, and a university graduate uses about 20,000 words. However, a person studying English as a foreign language has a vocabulary of only 5,000 words, despite several years of study.
But there is good news too: vocabulary of 2,000 words is enough to understand 80% of foreign speech. The researchers came to this conclusion based on the analysis of the Brown Corpus. A linguistic corpus is a collection of texts on various topics.
Interestingly, after you have learned 2,000 words, replenishment of vocabulary for each additional 1,000 words allows you to increase the volume of understandable text by only 3-4%.
HOW TO QUICKLY REMEMBER A WORD?
The first question that interests everyone is how to quickly memorize foreign words?
Scientists have come to the conclusion that information is memorized faster, which has an emotional connotation... Accordingly, it is a good idea to study words through games, riddles, films. If you like the song - do not be lazy to look at the translation of incomprehensible words. These words will forever be associated with the song you like, which means they will leave an emotional mark in your memory.
An excellent welcome is mnemonics. Create colorful associations to help you remember even difficult to pronounce words. An example of use: the word weather is similar to the Russian word wind, we build a wind-weather pair in our head, we remember forever that weather is translated into weather. There are special reference books in which you can find various mnemonic techniques for memorizing English words. However, it is better to come up with such associations yourself, since our associations and emotions are strictly individual.
HOW DO YOU RAPIDLY FORGET A WORD?
So, you learned a couple of hundred words, but after a week, about ten of them remained in your memory. What is the problem? This is due to the existence of short-term and long-term memory. Mechanisms of short-term memory allow you to store information for 15-30 minutes, then, having noticed that this information is not used, the brain gets rid of it as if it is something unnecessary. How can we make the brain understand that we really need these words? The answer is repetition. Here, as with Pavlov's dog: the light comes on - saliva is released. However, it is released only after 5-10 repetitions of the chain food + light. If, when the light is turned on, you stop serving food, the association of the light bulb with food will be destroyed in the dog's brain, and saliva will cease to be released.
So how many times does a word need to be repeated for it to consistently move from short-term to long-term memory?
German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus developed the Forgetting Curve, which characterizes the amount of information lost over time in the absence of repetition. During the first 20 minutes after learning the words, we will already remember 60%, and within 1 hour we will lose more than 50% of the information. Then, over time, more and more information will be erased, and by day 3, only 20% of the information will remain in memory. Thus, if you miss at least one day in repetition, you cannot return forgotten words.
The conclusion is obvious: without repetition, nowhere... Use words in speech, invent stories using new words, play cards on your smartphone for at least a couple of minutes a day - all this will save the learned words. Otherwise, the time spent on their initial study will simply be wasted.
We suggest using the following repetition schedule:
- 10-15 minutes after learning words;
- After 50-60 minutes;
- The next day;
- After 1 day;
- After 2 days.
After that, most of the information will be fixed for life.
HOW TO EXPRESS THOUGHTS FASTER?
I really want foreign words to flow out of the mouth, without requiring excessive brain strain and a few minutes to formulate a phrase. There is an opportunity to accelerate the formation of foreign speech - this is the development of muscle memory. Muscles here mean the muscles of our articulatory apparatus. These muscles, like the muscles of the legs when riding a bicycle or the muscles of the pianist's fingers, have a memory that allows them to perform automated movements almost unconsciously.
In order for muscle memory to form, it is important when learning words to pronounce them aloud, making movements with your tongue and lips. It is also helpful to simultaneously represent the image of the subject being studied. Over time, you will no longer think about which word to pronounce - the muscles will do it automatically.
Thus, the correct organization of the brain's work to form short-term, long-term and muscle memory will allow you to quickly and permanently replenish your vocabulary.
Good luck with your learning!
photo tumblr.com
THREE SCIENTIFICALLY BASED METHODS THAT WORK
You learn and learn these words, but there is no sense! After a couple of days, everything is forgotten.
Take a scientific approach to memorization! We present to you three scientifically based methods that will allow you to quickly and permanently memorize foreign words.
HOW MANY WORDS DO YOU NEED TO KNOW?
First, let's figure out how many words you need to learn in order to begin to understand most of a foreign speech, and even express your thoughts yourself. A five-year-old child living in an English-speaking country uses 4,000 - 5,000 words, and a university graduate uses about 20,000 words. However, a person studying English as a foreign language has a vocabulary of only 5,000 words, despite several years of study.
But there is good news too: vocabulary of 2,000 words is enough to understand 80% of foreign speech. The researchers came to this conclusion based on the analysis of the Brown Corpus. A linguistic corpus is a collection of texts on various topics.
Interestingly, after you have learned 2,000 words, replenishment of vocabulary for each additional 1,000 words allows you to increase the volume of understandable text by only 3-4%.
HOW TO QUICKLY REMEMBER A WORD?
The first question that interests everyone is how to quickly memorize foreign words?
Scientists have come to the conclusion that information is memorized faster, which has an emotional connotation... Accordingly, it is a good idea to study words through games, riddles, films. If you like the song - do not be lazy to look at the translation of incomprehensible words. These words will forever be associated with the song you like, which means they will leave an emotional mark in your memory.
An excellent welcome is mnemonics. Create colorful associations to help you remember even difficult to pronounce words. An example of use: the word weather is similar to the Russian word wind, we build a wind-weather pair in our head, we forever remember that weather is translated into weather. There are special reference books in which you can find various mnemonic techniques for memorizing English words. However, it is better to come up with such associations yourself, since our associations and emotions are strictly individual.
HOW DO YOU RAPIDLY FORGET A WORD?
So, you learned a couple of hundred words, but after a week, about ten of them remained in your memory. What is the problem? This is due to the existence of short-term and long-term memory. Mechanisms of short-term memory allow you to store information for 15-30 minutes, then, having noticed that this information is not used, the brain gets rid of it as if it was something unnecessary. How can we make the brain understand that we really need these words? The answer is repetition. Here, as with Pavlov's dog: the light comes on - saliva is released. However, it is released only after 5-10 repetitions of the chain food + light. If, when the light is turned on, you stop serving food, the association of the light bulb with food will be destroyed in the dog's brain, and saliva will cease to be released.
So how many times does a word need to be repeated for it to consistently move from short-term to long-term memory?
German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus developed the Forgetting Curve, which characterizes the amount of information lost over time in the absence of repetition. During the first 20 minutes after learning the words, we will already remember 60%, and within 1 hour we will lose more than 50% of the information. Then, over time, more and more information will be erased, and by day 3, only 20% of the information will remain in memory. Thus, if you miss at least one day in repetition, you cannot return forgotten words.
The conclusion is obvious: without repetition, nowhere... Use words in speech, invent stories using new words, play cards on your smartphone for at least a couple of minutes a day - all this will save the learned words. Otherwise, the time spent on their initial study will simply be wasted.
We suggest using the following repetition schedule:
- 10-15 minutes after learning words;
- After 50-60 minutes;
- The next day;
- After 1 day;
- After 2 days.
After that, most of the information will be fixed for life.
HOW TO EXPRESS THOUGHTS FASTER?
I really want foreign words to flow out of the mouth, without requiring excessive brain strain and a few minutes to formulate a phrase. There is an opportunity to accelerate the formation of foreign speech - this is the development of muscle memory. Muscles here mean the muscles of our articulatory apparatus. These muscles, like the muscles of the legs when riding a bicycle or the muscles of the pianist's fingers, have a memory that allows them to perform automated movements almost unconsciously.
In order for muscle memory to form, it is important when learning words to pronounce them aloud, making movements with your tongue and lips. It is also helpful to simultaneously represent the image of the subject being studied. Over time, you will no longer think about which word to pronounce - the muscles will do it automatically.
Thus, the correct organization of the brain's work to form short-term, long-term and muscle memory will allow you to quickly and permanently replenish your vocabulary.
Good luck with your learning!
Not boring English for children and adults!
"To own another language means to own a second soul"
Charlemagne
The importance of knowing a foreign language in the modern world can hardly be overestimated. In order to travel, you must know the language of the country you are going to, or at least English. There are many foreign language resources on the Internet, the key to which is knowledge of the language. More and more often, when applying for a job, knowledge of one or even several foreign languages is required. And studying it contributes to the formation of new neural connections in the brain.
The main difficulty in mastering the language is the words. This article is designed to make this process much more interesting and easier.
If you are not already familiar with the basic principles of mnemonics,.
Method phonetic associations
This method is based on the consonance of the words of a foreign language and a native one. In order to memorize a word, you must find one that sounds similar in your native language.
For example: pillow [ˈpɪloʊ] translated from English is a pillow. The pronunciation of this word is very similar to the Russian word "saw". Imagine how the saw cuts the pillow from above, feathers start to fall, etc. (do not forget about the brightness of the image). Or the English word hang - to hang. It reminds me of the word "khan". Imagine how the khan hangs on the horizontal bar.
What about the word elephant? It is difficult to match a consonant word to him. But you can divide it into parts and pick up several words. For instance " Ele ctronic "(the one where the wolf catches eggs) and" fant hic ". We imagine how an elephant with its trunk holds "Electronics", half wrapped in a wrapper.
Let's look at a more complex example: suggest - suggest. We imagine Stalin holding a large open jar of jam over his head, a piece of cheese sticking out of it, and Joseph Vissarionovich is actively proposes buy this. We read the images in order (from top to bottom): sy R, dzhe m, St aline. It turned out to be something very reminiscent of suggest. Immediately remember the translation - to offer.
Important! When repeating words, be sure to pronounce the correct pronunciation of the word. Although you do not remember it exactly, but only approximately, you will still remember it with periodic repetition. You can repeat as follows: first you read a word in a foreign language, remember the phonetic association and name the translation, and after a while you will no longer need to imagine how Stalin sells jam every time, you can name the translation straightaway... If you want to communicate verbally, and not just be able to read and write, then this is exactly the effect you need to achieve. It's not that hard. With regular reading, automatism can come even without much effort on your part. But some words will not appear so often in the text, so they will have to be repeated separately (set aside time for this in your schedule).
Word formation
Study word formation in the selected language. How can you make an opposite in meaning from a familiar word (happy - happy, unhappy - unhappy), how to make an adjective or adverb from a noun (success, successful, successfully - success, successful and successful, respectively). Pay attention to words with two roots (snowball - snow + ball - snowball or snowball). Be sure to understand the shape-building prefixes and suffixes - this will make the process of learning a language much easier.
As you noticed, to memorize words, it is not at all necessary to highlight supporting images. But if you want, you can do it: create a memory palace with several corridors (one for a part of speech) and place images in it. Then you will have a complete dictionary of the target language in your head.
Bonus: memorizing new words in your native language
The process is similar to memorizing foreign words: we create a phonetic association, find an image for the semantic meaning of a word and connect it.
For example: an epigone is a follower of any artistic, scientific, etc. direction, devoid of creative originality and mechanically repeating someone's ideas. Phonetic associations: ep oleta, Yoke pb N Ikolaev. We can imagine Igor Nikolaev sitting at the table and copying something from one sheet of paper to another. He has huge epaulettes on his shoulders. Ready.
Now you don't have to cram a couple of dozen words for hours. The speed at which your vocabulary increases will increase and your desire to learn a language will increase, because quick learning success is very motivating. Don't put it on the back burner: learn 10-20 foreign words right now.
CHAPTER 0. For the lazy
I strongly recommend reading the entire article - it contains a lot of useful tips, examples, techniques for learning both English and any foreign words. But if you do not have the time or willpower (then your desire to learn a foreign language is called into question), then briefly about the zest of all that is described below.
The cornerstone in learning foreign words is mnemonic association method... It consists in the following sequence of actions: to the English word, first come up with a sound association in Russian, then come up with a scene, plot, story, a phrase with this association and the correct translation, remember this story. Within 2 days, repeat 4 times - remember in a chain:
eng. word => sound association => story=> translation.
If a person knows for sure that he invented or spied a sound association for a given word, then it will not be difficult for him to reproduce this scheme. After 4 repetitions, there will be no need for a chain. pair " eng. word => translation"will directly move to the long memory area of your brain (the translation itself, at the very first repetitions, lived only half an hour in the fast memory of the brain). Until that moment, only a story could get into long memory, especially if it is vivid and emotional. Sound association during repetition. was invented in a new way, the story with her participation was recalled, and the correct translation was already in the story.
1. There is an English word slave (slave, subordinate) and you need to learn it.
2. You come up with a Russian word that is consonant with English, for example, glory.
3. You come up with a short story or a phrase in which both the word-association and the translation appear: "Glory to the slaves - the builders of the Egyptian pyramids!"
4. You memorize a story (not necessarily by heart, but the meaning with key words), which is easier for our brain than memorizing a direct translation.
And a chain of associations formed in your brain " slave=> Glory => Glory to the slaves, the builders of the Egyptian pyramids! => slave. "More precisely: you are trying to remember only the story (if it is bright and emotional, then it is easy), and the sound association itself will pop up in your head when you need to translate the word, through the sound. association you remember the story, and through it - translation.
The method works in the opposite direction as well. That is, if you need to remember what "slave" is in English, then, knowing that you have a story with the word "slave", you will quickly remember it, take from it the sound association "glory", which will lead to English the word slave.
CHAPTER 1. Installation on technology
While potential polyglots do not know anything about the technique except for its purpose, they show not a hefty interest in it and demonstrate their readiness to start an assault on a foreign language tomorrow. But as soon as our story begins to present the essence of the most important principle, the mystery instantly evaporates, and they disappointedly declare that they have known this way of memorizing words for a long time without us (such a statement is made by 90 people who want to learn out of 100 who have learned the language using this method). Therefore, at the very first meeting, we always emphasize and frame the fact that the success of learning a language does not depend on the novelty of the principle, but on the ability to use it correctly.
To learn a language, you need to know not only the principle, but also the detailed TECHNOLOGY of its application.
The statement of the principle itself will take several lines. The rest of the work is devoted to describing the technology. In our opinion, if domestic pedagogical science paid more attention not to a meticulous search in the writings of the classics for evidence of the truth of their methods, but to carefully develop technologies, then all other methods of learning foreign languages (learning in a dream, sublimation methods of memorization, rhythmic memorization, etc.) would be, if not better, then at least as effective as our method. By this we want to emphasize that the method on which you decided to spend a pathologically inconvertible currency, time, does not lie outside of psychological science. It differs only in proven technology.
CHAPTER 2. Why children find language easier
The question of why children remember well both their native and foreign languages has not yet been unanimously resolved. The only thing psychologists have in common is recognition illogical thinking of children... Only at the age of three can we say that the sun is hiding behind a cloud, because it is very tired. At school, we will probably get two points for such a statement. We begin to think in cliches, hackneyed phrases and stereotypes. The evil spirit of illogical thinking is purposefully driven out of us. And after all this, we try to learn a foreign language and marvel at why our cluttered head works worse than in childhood.
Imagine a two-year-old child who needs to memorize a word in his native language for the first time, for example, a pencil and a similar word from a quasi-foreign language, for example, "abdrapapupa" (in fact, this word was invented by a computer). For a child it is absolutely all the same which one to remember. He is ready to imprint in his memory even both words at once, since memorization occurs as a result of the formation of a conditional connection between these new words and the old ones that the child has already learned: "pencil - paper", "pencil - table", etc., " abdrapappupa - paper ", abdrapappupa - table" etc. These two connections compete, since they have the same age, and therefore, strength; they do not erase each other. At the same time, there is no rational explanation for these connections. The child does not seek to form a logical chain between the old and the new, he simply puts them side by side.
Now let's return from childhood and try to memorize a list of foreign words. We usually do this in two ways. Either through rational or mechanical communication. In the first method, we begin, consciously or unconsciously, to explain to ourselves that "abdrapappupa" is what they draw on paper, trying in this way to form a rational connection abdrapappupa-paper. But how do such attempts end in most cases? If we do not have a unique natural memory, then the most common forgetting occurs. At the same time, we work with a steam locomotive efficiency of 20%. The fact is that the connection between the abdrapappup and the paper that we are trying to form is easily replaced by the old, and hence the stronger, pencil-paper connection in the native language. This is the service our adult, serious, logical thinking renders us. If we are trying to mechanically memorize a translation, that is, forcibly force our memory to form a connection between an abdrapappupa and a pencil (we learn from the list as in school), then due to the limited volume of our short-term memory, which can store from 2 to 26 units of information, it happens fast saturation, which leads to the cessation of memorization, fatigue and aversion to a foreign language. In addition, old ties continue to have a displacing effect. Thus, logical si-methods of memorization are more likely to lead to the emergence of a negative attitude towards languages than to mastery of them.
Now, after a detailed description of the two deadlocks, our task is immensely simplified. We can only find in the tangled maze of all kinds of memorization methods a method that would be distinguished by the absence of the usual logic, but since the main task of the authors is to convince discerning readers not of the novelty of the method, but of the need for strict adherence to certain rules, then on a long way to the basic principle of memorization they put another obstacle is the chapter on memory.
CHAPTER 3. Memory
We would love to omit this chapter. However, everyone is so tired of unfounded statements about the superior qualities of this or that phenomenon in our life that now, for every pound of an obvious fact, we will certainly demand a fat supplement from an objective theory. That is why, fearing to seem unsubstantiated to lovers of foreign languages, we present theoretical and empirical data revealed by domestic and foreign psychologists in the field of memory.
At one time, psychology divided human memory into three blocks: touch register, short-term and long-term memory.
The main function of the sensor register is to extend the duration of a short-term signal for its successful processing by the brain. For example, a finger prick with a needle lasts much longer than a direct impact of the needle. Sensory regisgram is able to memorize very large amounts of information, much more than a person can analyze, that is, this type of memory does not have selectivity. Therefore, it is not of great interest to us.
The next block is much more important for us - short-term memory... It is she who takes on the blows that pupils and students are exposed to in foreign language classes. It is her that a person rapes, trying to mechanically memorize huge amounts of information.
In 1954, the Lloyd and Margaret Petersons conducted a very simple experiment, which, however, produced surprising results. They asked the subjects to memorize only 3 letters, and after 18 seconds reproduce them. This experiment seems completely insignificant.
Meanwhile, it turned out that the subjects could not remember these 3 letters. What's the matter? Everything is very simple: during these 18 seconds, the subjects were engaged in mental work: they had to count down in threes at a fast pace. When counting down in threes, the subject starts with an arbitrarily named three-digit number, for example 487. Then he must aloud name the numbers obtained by subtracting 3 from the previous number, 487, 484, 481, 478, etc. But even this, in general, simple work prevented them from remembering three letters. This simple experiment illustrates the main property of short-term memory: it has a very small capacity (from 2 to 26 units, according to other experiments) and a very short life (20 to 30 seconds). But at the same time, it is not very sensitive to the length of the unit. We can memorize 7 letters or even 7 phrases with equal ease.
The described experiments lead us to believe that:
1. The amount of information memorized at a time should be strictly limited. Even a small increase in it leads to partial or complete forgetting.
2. After the process of assimilating information, there must be a pause, during which it is necessary to unload the brain from mental work as much as possible.
3. It is necessary to make the unit of information as long as possible; word-by-word memorization is a wasteful use of our memory.
There are at least a dozen theories that explain the positive the effect of a pause on the memorization of information... The most successful, in our opinion, substantiation of Müller and Pilzeker (1900) is that during a pause there is an unconscious repetition of the material. If the repetition period is more than 20-30 seconds, that is, there is too much information, then after a while some of it is erased. It is the presence of such a process as unconscious repetition that significantly increases the lifetime of information in short-term memory (up to 24-30 hours). It is this process that prevents us from realizing the extremely small power of this type of memory, as a result of which we mercilessly load it beyond measure.
Remember! Unconscious repetition occurs only if the brain is no longer loaded with any information..
This process is disrupted even if you keep repeating the words you just learned with the supposedly noble purpose of strengthening them even more in your memory. No further consolidation occurs, since you are not able, with all your desire, to consciously repeat for some time 10-15 words in 20 seconds - the lifetime of short-term memory. By repetition, you interrupt the natural memorization cycle.
A completely natural question arises, what are the boundaries of the pause, during which the perception of any information with its subsequent processing is undesirable. At the same time, we repeat, it is undesirable to perceive even learned words!
In 1913, Pieron answered this question. He asked the subjects to memorize a series of 18 meaningless syllables (to exclude the influence of past experience). Then he investigated how many times the subjects had to repeat the same series at different intervals in order to restore forgotten syllables in their short-term memory. We present its data in the following table:
As you can see, if you start repeating a series of syllables 30 seconds after the first memorization, you have 14! once to refer to its content before they are remembered again. But if the repetitions are resumed after 10 minutes, during which we will not receive any information, then their number will be only 4 (it should be noted that these numbers refer to meaningless material; when memorizing words that have a meaning, the absolute number of their repetitions is less , but the proportions are approximately the same).
In a period of time from 10 minutes to 24 hours, processes stabilize and information in short-term memory ceases to depend on external factors. Consequently, during this period, it is possible both to study new information and to repeat the old one. After 24 hours, the number of repetitions required begins to increase and reaches 8 after 48 hours. This means that mnemonic processes begin to lose their energy. Therefore, every 24 hours it is necessary to repeat the previously learned words (which, however, is known without experiments).
Let's draw brief conclusions:
1. After memorizing the next portion of words, you need to pause for at least 10 minutes, during which your thoughts will not be burdened with serious mental work.
2. After 10 minutes, the words can be repeated again, and after 24 hours, the words must be repeated. Otherwise, you will have to exert twice as much effort to remember them again.
We, of course, understand that everything written here and below is known to most readers. But to our great regret, such knowledge does not in the least interfere with teachers of foreign languages at schools and universities. They operate according to the principle that our training system obliges: even if it is bad, but according to the program. As a result, we leave educational institutions programmed to the ends of our hair, and if foreign languages do not yet cause nervous seizures in us, we begin to learn them on our own using the same methods that we adopted from our older comrades.
Therefore, we have a big request: be sure to read this chapter to the end, so that in the future our technology does not seem absurd to you.
Pieron's experiments show how long we should rest, that is, how often we should repeat words. But they tell us absolutely nothing about how many repetitions there should be that would allow us to translate words from short-term to long-term memory. Jost's experiments in 1987 show that with mechanical memorization, the number of such repetitions reaches 20-30 times. In our case, the number of repetitions, distributed in a special way, for the average person is 4 times.
Now let's look at another phenomenon of short-term memory, perfectly understood and known by everyone, but nevertheless ignored by the majority with Asian tenacity.
Everyone knows very well that the more the elements of the memorized material are similar to each other, the more efforts must be made to memorize them, the more homogeneous the elements, the more difficult they are to assimilate... So why do we all make up lists of words, albeit different in meaning, but homogeneous in form, and teach, teach! What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you remember the translation of a word on the list? Naturally, the location of this word on a piece of paper. Do not be proud of this, it does not in the least speak about the positive features of your memory. She simply does not have the opportunity to cling to something more essential, more characteristic of the given word. The word list is too uniform. From here follows the global, like all the previous, conclusion:
Each word must necessarily have a distinctive set of labels. It is necessary to deprive the monotony of all the words in the list, and then they will begin to be memorized involuntarily, without our participation. How to achieve this? We do not claim that we were able to achieve the ideal in our method, but we, perhaps, managed to get closer to this requirement.
Now let's move on to long-term memory... Despite the fact that the phenomenon of memory is studied in all domestic and foreign areas of psychology (psychotypes of activity, cognitive psychology, behaviorism, etc., etc.), no plausible explanation has been proposed for the transition of information from short-term memory to long-term memory. The situation with the knowledge of this mechanism is even worse among lovers of foreign languages, since most of them are familiar with only one of the factors of such a transition - with periodic relentless repetition. While we are sure that you personally do not belong to this majority, we nevertheless risk drawing your attention a little longer to some of the phenomena of long-term memory.
1. In 1973, Standing published the results of his generally uncomplicated experiments. The subjects were shown 11,000 slides, after a month they were presented mixed with others and asked to identify. Subjects remembered the slides and gave correct answers 73% of the time! This suggests that the images of the slides from the first presentation have penetrated into long-term memory. Therefore, when memorizing words, one must use not only repetition, but also bright, colorful, interesting, plot pictures, which are best cut from the Krokodil magazine. (Again, we understand that such a conclusion is not a revelation to anyone. But if you have met at least one person who deliberately used this principle when learning a language, we would be very surprised.
2. Probably, all of us, lovers of languages, are tirelessly looking for a method in which words would be remembered by themselves. One of the authors, at one time experiencing the enormous influence of such an illusory dream, hung in his office about 10 sheets of paper with large written words in the hope that they would constantly fall into the field of vision and (after all, the drop is hammering a stone) will be involuntarily remembered. Although the idea turned out to be hopelessly unpromising, the natural desire to make life easier for yourself while learning the language remained. So, is it not possible to give the process of memorization a certain amount of involuntariness and, consequently, to facilitate and accelerate it? Try to remember, if you have experience of independent language learning, times when some words were memorized without any effort on your part. Have you analyzed these situations? After all, if it were possible to single out something common inherent in them, we could very effectively manage the processes of memorization, or, at least, not make mistakes like the one described above.
Involuntary memorization means that there is some force that makes our brain work regardless of our desire. What generates this power? Is it possible to create it artificially? The answer to these questions was found by Soviet psychologists A.A. Smirnov, and P.I. Zinchenko.
In 1945, Smirnov conducted a very simple study. He asked several subjects, two hours after the start of the work day, to recall their journey from home to work. Let us give one such description as an example. “I remember first of all the moment of exiting the metro. What exactly? How did I think that I had to get out of the car in order to take the desired position as soon as possible and go as soon as possible, because I was late. I was driving, I remember, in the last car. I had to enter the crowd. Previously, the audience, leaving, walked along the entire width of the apron. Now, to ensure the passage of those entering, people were placed, turning the crowd from the edge of the apron. The further path falls out. I do not remember anything at all. There is only a vague memory of how I reached the gates of the university. I didn’t notice anything. I don’t remember what I was thinking. When I entered the gate, I noticed: someone was standing. I don’t remember who it was: a man or a woman. I don’t remember anything else. "
What is characteristic of this story and others like it? First of all, the subject's memories are much more related to what he did than to what he thought. Even in those cases when thoughts are recalled, they are nevertheless associated with the actions of the subject. But the subjects do a lot of things. Which of them is involuntary memorization associated with? With those that contribute or hinder the achievement of the subject's goal. In 1945, everyone had one most important goal - when they came to work, so only that which influenced the speed of moving along the street was involuntarily remembered. It would seem that this extremely simple conclusion should in itself underlie the study of a foreign language! But that doesn't happen. What goal did the teacher set for us in the classroom? Remember a word. But this is the goal! How, then, will a word be involuntarily memorized, if memorization itself is the goal ?! The more we focus our efforts on memorizing words, the less involuntary, the more volitional efforts, the more violence we commit to our memory.
Memorizing words should not be the goal in learning a foreign language.
Memorization should only be an action leading to the achievement of a goal.
Two questions arise at once:
What should be this goal?
What should be done with?
We will answer the first question in the chapter on memorization technology. The second question was answered by the experiments of the Soviet psychologist P.I. Zienko. In his experiments, differing like all others in apparent simplicity, the subjects were divided into two groups. The first of them was a picture of various objects and was asked to classify according to the first letters of their names (for example, I put together pictures for the letter A, then B, etc.). The second group received the same pictures, but classified them according to the meaning of the objects depicted (for example, they put together first pictures with furniture, then with animals, etc.).
After the experiment, both groups had to recall the pictures with which they worked. As you may have guessed, the second group performed better. This happened because in the first case the meaning of the picture, despite the fact that it was understood and passed by the subjects through consciousness (after all, they had to select the first letter), was not included directly in the goal - in the classification. In the second case, the subjects were also clearly aware of the sound composition of the name and the meaning of the picture, but only the meaning was directly included in the goal. This leads us to the idea that the goal should directly include both the meaning of the word and its sound.
To achieve the goal, which we will formulate a little later, it is imperative to manipulate both meaning and pronunciation. This will lead to the fact that a foreign word will be memorized with a great deal of involuntarily.
Unfortunately, in schools and universities, this principle is violated as traffic rules - by everyone and everywhere. Language learning becomes excruciating, focused cramming.
3. Anyone who has encountered psychology is familiar with the concept installations(not to be confused with party attitudes). This term refers to the readiness of a person to act in a very specific way. For example, graduates develop an orientation toward continuing their studies or an orientation toward work; you have a very strong foreign language mindset, etc. Attitudes make our life easier. Thanks to them, we do most of the actions automatically and do not waste time thinking. For example, in the morning we made a decision to wash: the corresponding attitude, developed throughout our life, is turned on, and all actions begin to be performed automatically (we are little aware of them). As soon as you finish washing your face, the unit turns off and you make a new decision - to have breakfast. Another setting is turned on and the actions are performed automatically again (provided that the refrigerator has everything you need to complete this act).
If you had a mindset for morning exercises, then the latter would not have caused you a gloomy mood even in the evening, but would have been performed automatically, like washing your face.
How are installations created? Unfortunately, the answer to this question is unknown when it will appear. Therefore, we cannot give detailed explanations, despite the thick tomes written by psychologists. But in order to somehow mitigate the current situation, we will describe an experiment that will allow us to realize a phenomenon that is very useful for learning a foreign language.
The subjects, as in the previous experiment, were divided into two groups. They were read the same text, but the first group was told that they would test it the next day, and the other group was told that they would do the same in a week. In fact, the test of knowledge of the text was carried out only two weeks later in both groups. The subjects of the second group showed better results. In this experiment, we can clearly see the action and influence of the set created in the subjects by the experimental situation.
Therefore, sitting down to study the next portion of words, try to convince yourself and sincerely believe that you are learning the language in order to remember all your life. The command "I remember these words for a long time" given to myself before the start of classes may seem insignificant even after describing the experiment with the attitude. We fully admit this and do not insist that it will provide you one hundred percent success. But we would like to remind you that earlier the function of attunement to any activity (including school lessons) was performed by prayer. The warriors did not pray before the battle because they were obliged to do so by the dominant ideology. Prayer set them up for deeds. "Our Father", read before lunch or lesson, calmed, put aside all worries, promoted better assimilation of food and knowledge. Reading such an attuning prayer before learning a dozen or so words, perhaps, should not be. But when it comes to thousands, then the little thing turns into a significant factor. If the creation of the appropriate attitude allows you to memorize at least one more for every ten words, then for every thousand you will make a profit of one hundred words. There is no need to miss the benefit.
4. We have to get acquainted with one more, rather well-known fact, and then nothing will prevent us from knowing how and in which method all the above requirements and observations can be simultaneously taken into account.
This last fact is that our brain is not able to perceive static... Try to look closely at an object without moving your eyes or head. This simple task will become impossible after 2-3 minutes - the object will begin to "dissolve", will leave your field of vision, you will no longer see it. The same thing happens with a monotonous sound (for example, the noise of a forest, the noise of cars, etc.). But if we cannot perceive non-dynamic phenomena, then what can we say about our memory, which is connected with the external world through perception and sensations! Everything that is not able to perform movement or is not associated with movement associatively is instantly erased from our memory. To prove this fact, we, of course, have in store the results of a very simple experiment. The subjects on the movie screen were shown faces of a different nationality, shot in full face (as you know, without the appropriate habit, representatives of another nation at first seem to all look the same). If the image was dynamic, that is, the person smiled, frowned, moved his eyes, sniffed, etc., then later his photograph was easily recognized by the subjects among others. If the person's face was motionless, then the number of correct answers dropped sharply. This suggests that a static, motionless image very quickly "disappears" from memory. From this we will make the last, but no less important than all the previous ones, conclusion: all images used to memorize foreign words must be dynamic!
There must be movement in everything.
This concludes the chapter on the peculiarities of our memory. We are quite aware that the memory model, consisting of the 3 described systems, is not the best and only possible (we could start from the level model, from the sign theory of memory by L.S.Vygotsky, etc.), but in comparison with others it is the most developed and technologically advanced.
Now we would like to express our gratitude to everyone for their patience and move on to the presentation of the technology of learning a foreign language, which will allow you to learn 20-30 (and if you wish, much more) words per hour. True, this does not mean that you will learn 480-600 words in a day. Therefore, during the day, it is advisable to learn (of course, if you have a lot of free time) no more than 100 words. In addition, we do not recommend immediately switching to this method abruptly. First, try to learn the language in a way that is familiar to you, partly using ours as an aid in memorizing especially difficult words. Such a smooth transition will allow you to better understand the advantages and disadvantages of the method, more successfully adapt the technology for yourself.
CHAPTER 4. Technology structure
In this chapter, we describe the structure of the accelerated word learning technology. But it will seem unconvincing to you if you have not read the previous chapter. Before we try to collect all the requirements and observations described above in one method, let's remember them.
1. Success in learning languages does not depend on knowledge of a particular method, but on the ability to use the technology developed on its basis.
2. Don't torture your memory, don't learn the language mechanically.
3. Our memory is capable of receiving from 2 to 26 units of information in one sitting.
4. When learning a language, one should not rely on habit, on generally accepted logic, on the standard perception of the world.
5. Short-term memory lasts no more than 30 seconds.
6. Information is retained in short-term memory for much longer than 30 seconds due to unconscious circulation.
7. After studying a portion of words, a 10-minute break is required.
8. You need to learn the words only before the first playback (when you can repeat the entire list at least once). Don't waste time with unnecessary repetition.
9. You need to repeat the words once in the interval from 10 minutes to 24-30 hours.
10. A unit of memorized information should be as long as possible (a block of words or a phrase). Those who teach or force to learn single words should be punished for wasting time and memory on an especially large scale.
11. To deprive the list of words of monotony, it is necessary to give each word some kind of bright label.
12. The word is transferred into long-term memory not so much through repetition, but with the help of plot pictures.
13. We easily do what is done involuntarily, in addition to our participation. Words will be memorized involuntarily if memorization is not the goal of our activity. Mental operations with the meaning and pronunciation of a word should be directly included in the goal.
14. Before memorizing, you need to tune in to the lesson. Our psyche has inertia. She cannot change overnight from cooking cutlets to learning the language.
15. Memorized information should contain dynamic elements or be associated with them. Otherwise, it is erased without a trace.
Now that we have everything in front of our eyes, we can concentrate on the thesis " Memorization should not be the goal". In some methods, this requirement is met. For example, in the rhythmic method, the main goal is not to memorize a word, but to repeat it in a certain rhythm to the melody (remember, especially those who are fond of foreign bands, how easy it is to memorize the words of songs without understanding them completely). In the sublimation method, in which a person is influenced with a supra-threshold speed of perception, the goal is also not memorization, but the ability to focus on reproduction, etc. (all these and other methods can be found in special literature). But these methods are disadvantageous -but differ in the complexity of equipment and technology, which cannot yet be used independently at home (We hope that in the near future our academic science and practice will finally pay serious attention to them.) Memorization as a goal is also absent in the method based on imitation For example, students are given the task of setting the table and a dictionary of necessary words is given. This imitation, arising under the influence of the target, makes it possible to memorize words very effectively. But this method requires high pedagogical skill of the teacher, his rich imagination. In addition, the method does not have a rigid structure.
We propose mental manipulation of words as a goal: to choose a Russian word that is similar in sound to a foreign word. For example: sleeve (sleeve, English) - plum, etc. But in this case, we operate only with the sound of the word, and the goal should directly include its meaning, translation. To fulfill this requirement, let's add a translation to the formed pair of words:
sleeve - plum - sleeve
tongue - dance - tongue
and think about how we now formulate a goal so that it does not coincide with memorizing words. Remember the experiment that proves that the image (picture) is located in most cases in long-term memory? So you have to work with images. But our images have only the words of their native language. The meaning of a foreign word receives an image only through its analogue in Russian (or in your native language). This leads us to the idea that when memorizing it is necessary to use only the words of the native language, that is, plum - sleeve, tsunami - language. As a goal, we will choose the solution to the problem of finding a possible relationship between words in each pair. But before solving this problem, let us recall two more requirements: the absence of generally accepted logic and the presence of dynamics in the elements of information. This suggests that the relationship between the words of a couple should be unusual, illogical, firstly, and dynamic, that is, contain movement, secondly. In our case, this is very easy to do. Imagine a saleswoman in a store weighing plums and putting them into an empty sleeve. Pay attention to the word "present". The attitude should not only be pronounced (at later stages, pronouncing generally becomes redundant), but precisely represented, since this allows you to bypass short-term unreliable memory and work immediately in long-term memory.
Pronunciation, according to some experimental data of cognitive psychology, is primarily associated with short-term memory, so we use it only at the initial stages, if figurative thinking is not sufficiently developed.
In addition, pay attention to the dynamics again: the saleswoman weighs and pours. It is necessary to imagine how plums roll into the sleeve, how you take it from the hands of a saleswoman, etc. It would be a big mistake to try to limit ourselves to the idea of plums lying motionless in the hand. With the formation of several thousand such non-dynamic structures, our static one will disappear like smoke.
The unusual relationship between words is a very bright, emotionally charged label. Each word in the list becomes individual, distinct from the others.
Although the dynamic structure is stored in memory for almost unlimited time, we need it like a hammer when driving a nail for a painting. We hammered a nail into the wall (memorized the association of the two words) and put the hammer aside. Now we will do what we did all this work for (in the future, as your skills develop, association will take you no more than 3-5 seconds). We tried to remember the word sleev. Thanks to the similar sound, we quickly pass from this word to the Russian "plum". This connection is stored in short-term memory, and it is she who constitutes the weakest link in the chain. The number of these links as units of information should not exceed 26 units in a portion of words (the number of structures can be unlimited; this discrepancy is further taken into account in the technology). The word "plum" due to the rigidity of the invented structure will lead us to the translation - "sleeve". Thus, our main efforts are focused not on memorizing words, but on creating structure. You can see for yourself how effectively involuntary memorization begins to work in our case.
As the classes conducted with foreign language learners have shown, all such operations cause difficulties at the first stages, aggravated by seeming far-fetchedness, frivolity, etc. Many in the process of associating begin to experience discomfort from the fact that others are listening carefully to their "nonsense". In fact, the ability to quickly compose such "stupidity" speaks of your non-standard, creative mind. This method is good at least because even if you fail to learn a language with it (which is unlikely), your creative thinking will significantly improve. You will begin to see things in a new light for you. Many subjects become sarcastic and malicious, because they suddenly discover the ambiguity of our speech. This method is especially useful for inventors and scientists (as well as procurers) as an exercise in thinking flexibility.
Association is a creative process. That is why we strongly insisted on pre-setting. Unfortunately, the majority understands the setting as the formation of an order (it was not for nothing that M.M.Zhvatsetsky said that our life is also a soldier's). In fact, it is better to start with phrases of this form:
"I really want to learn the language. I will try. I will try very hard. I want to memorize words. My thinking is very flexible ..." etc.
And such phrases-orders as "I must learn the language" and others are better not to apply. Our entire psyche is already exhausted by demands and orders. It immediately creates an unconscious opposition. This is especially necessary to remember if you are setting up students or schoolchildren who, even without your instructions, have long been discouraged from learning foreign languages. It would be very helpful to start the association in the same setting, with the same actions. Try some unobtrusive traditions. Remember how in the pre-revolutionary school children read prayer not before lessons. There is no need to deny their experience. It wasn't all that bad then.
So, we have come up with a structure for a foreign word. We made it unusual, dynamic and imaginative. But when studying, especially at first, one figurative representation, as a rule, is not enough. We were taught to control our speech rather than images. (Remember the contemptuous "Dreamers!"). Therefore, after a while, which is clearly not enough for the structure to fulfill its function and only after that it disappears, the images begin to merge, wear off, become dirty. This is because the image of a word, as a rule, does not have any binding. The word can be used with different connotations, in different contexts. It is influenced by other words and changes its meaning depending on the environment. Therefore, at first words are best combined in groups of 7-10 words in each based on one meaningful images with concentrated meaning. In school textbooks, we can also find pictures. But they all have no concentrated meaning. For example, a pioneer stands against the backdrop of a school. This picture does not have a definite clearly expressed memorable meaning. Therefore, she easily merges with others like her. It is best to take pictures from humorous magazines. If there are words under the picture (speech of the participants or the name), then they must be left with the picture in order to maintain a single meaning and meaning.
The cut-out picture is best pasted on a punched card or in a notebook. Next to it, write a triad of words (foreign - similar in sound - translation). The images and structure are easy to remember, so they should not be recorded in writing. Images, provided that they have a clear non-ordinary meaning, immediately penetrate into long-term memory in most cases. Thanks to this, even a few years later, we can mentally examine it with all the details and recall those 7-10 words that we learned with its help. This block memorization system avoids "swimming" words in different contexts. In addition, the block of words contained in the picture represents one unit of information. Therefore, in one sitting (in one lesson) it is possible to assimilate from 2 to 26 pictures without damage to memory, as a result of which we condense information 7-10 times, that is, we increase the natural possibilities of our memory by 7-10 times! Later, when the basis of a foreign language is studied, words can be studied directly from the dictionary. You open the first page, take a word, form a structure, make a note with a pencil (write down a word that sounds similar; this is necessary as a safety net, since there is little hope for short-term memory) and the word remains in your head for the rest of your life. However, with this method, the density of information decreases and you can memorize no more than 25 words in one lesson. But this disadvantage can be compensated for by increasing the number of lessons, which must follow each other with a break of at least 10-15 minutes.
Learning a language using pictures also benefits from the fact that you do not have to waste time on repetition, since this can be done on the way to work or home, in line, on the bus, etc. It is enough just to remember the picture and "select" all words with structures from it. Agree that this is absolutely impossible if the words are in a list. You will furiously wrinkle your forehead and remember which word you should have memorized, but you will never do it until you glance at the list There is only one way out - to learn with the help of pictures!
Studying the first 3-4 thousand words, you will have to repeat them several times in order to fix them in the contractual memory and get rid of the structure that was performing its function. At the fifth thousand, as a rule, a special feeling arises - confidence in one's memory, and a word with the help of this method begins to be memorized from the first presentation. But do not despair if this does not happen at the sixth or tenth thousand, this is not related to intellectual abilities. At first repetition better organized like this:
The first time - after 10-20 minutes (but it is quite acceptable also after two to three hours and even after 12 hours) after the mental creation of structures; in this case, you need to look either at the Russian translation or at a foreign word and reproduce the entire structure, even if it seems to you that you can already do without it; in the future, the first repetition can be omitted and go directly to the second after 24 hours.
The second time - the next day after 24-30 hours; if it was possible to reproduce not all the structures created by you or the teacher, then they are repeated again the next day; when repeating, it is better to look only at the picture, looking for the necessary words on it.
If it was not possible to remember and repeat all the structures for the third time, they should be postponed until the final repetition of all structures of a given portion of words, which is carried out after 1-5 months (optimally 2-3 months). Do not be afraid of such a period. You will be able to remember the words after one or two years, even if you have never met them during this period. This is one of the essential advantages of the method: when studying a language, we can not be afraid that it will be completely forgotten from long disuse.
The last repetition is fundamental and decisive. All your great work will be done in vain if you don't take this final step. In most cases, after 1-6 months, students have a very vague memory of structures if they have not encountered their corresponding fundamentals during this period. This is due to the interference of structures, due to the natural processes of forgetting, aggravated by non-observance of the described technology, even in the smallest details (dynamism, illogicality, imagery, periods of rest and memorization, settings, etc.). Therefore, it is better to break the last repetition into two parts: the first day - remember the structure from our notes; on the second day - we repeat them, looking only at the pictures (and if, according to the dictionary, we only look at the translation or a foreign word).
If during the last repetition you immediately remembered the translation of the word, then you do not need to restore the entire structure. She fulfilled her function and died. In general, you should have a new sensation for you, when from the depths of your consciousness, even against your will, in response to a word in your native language, its translation will "emerge". This is accompanied by a feeling of mild confusion, confusion, insecurity. But once you've made sure that only the word you want to "pops up" and not a random word, it will pass.
If a lot of time has passed between learning a language (7-8 thousand words are enough for this) and its active use (from one to 3-4 years), then words can again be forgotten. But this forgetting is fundamentally different from forgetting during mechanical (school) memorization, when words are erased without a trace. In our case, words do not disappear from memory for good, but as if they pass into the subconscious ("preserved"), from which we can very quickly extract them by looking at the records. For such a repetition, for every thousand words without much stress, about a day is spent (including breaks). Agree that there is hardly another technique that allows you to restore knowledge at such a speed.
On average, at the initial stage, for all operations to memorize one word, including all repetitions, creating a structure, searching for equivalents, writing in a dictionary or in a notebook, etc. it takes 2-3 minutes. In the future (especially when learning a second language), the time will be reduced to 30-60 seconds. If you have a teacher who knows a foreign language well and this method, then the speed easily increases to 100 words per hour (all numbers are verified experimentally). The optimal composition of a group with a teacher is 10-12 people.
If you have a distrust of these numbers, then, before discarding the technique aside, conduct an experiment: learn 10-20 words in this way and draw your final conclusions no earlier than a month later.
CHAPTER 5. Examples
Here we will give examples and features of the technology found in practice.
Let's try to learn three words in English:
chess - (to scratch) - chess
beard - (berdanka) - beard
nose - (toe) - nose
1.chess. Imagine flea-sized chess pieces running quickly through your body. Naturally, you start to itch. It is necessary to present this situation in as much detail as possible (at first it is better to close your eyes; if you are studying with schoolchildren, it is recommended to give them the command: "Close your eyes and imagine that ..."). Note. The structure formed is dynamic and does not coincide with our previous experience. At first glance, one might think of a structure like this: you take a chess piece and scratch the place, for example, of a bite with it. But this situation does not contradict our experience at all. Therefore, in the presence of several dozen more similar structures, it will be erased.
2.beard. Imagine a gun of the Berdan system, which instead of a butt has a black-black thick beard fluttering in the wind (and not just sticking out !!!).
3. nose. Very often there are words that sound similar to the translation. Do not hope that such a match will allow you to memorize effectively. In most cases, the fact of a similar sound disappears from your head and you are left without a clue. It is imperative to find an intermediate word. In our case, "sock". Imagine that instead of a nose at someone of your friends, a dirty, unpleasantly smelling sock suddenly began to grow. 99 times out of 100, you will probably remember this structure.
We must strive for each object used in the structure to receive as many epithets and colorful characteristics as possible. This will once again make the structure different from others. It also avoids the "horse surname" effect. The point is that we understand the meaning of a thing through generalization, reduction to a more general one.
For example, what is a jacket? We can say that these are sleeves, pockets, lapels, etc. But such an understanding will be similar to the feeling of an elephant by the blind, that is, it will be fragmentary and far from the truth. Therefore, in our thinking, the jacket is reduced to several classes: men's dress, light clothes, business clothes, etc., that is, the concept of a jacket is generalized. This leads to the fact that a word that does not have vivid characteristics can be unconsciously replaced by a wider class, our brain, against our will, will carry out a generalization operation. Many students, having not sufficiently worked through the image, remember perfectly well that, for example, instead of a nose, some kind of clothing grows, but they absolutely cannot remember which one. This leads us to the conclusion that in the structure it is necessary to use not the first word that comes across (meaning a word that is similar in sound), but the one that you know well, which you often use, the shades of which you know. Unfortunately, only specific nouns (and not all) and some verbs (for example, scratch, bite, draw, etc.) have this property. Abstract nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. in most cases do not have a figurative representation. In the early stages, this causes difficulties, which often lead to disappointment in the methodology. You can avoid this by creatively using the techniques described below.
1. How do you include an abstract noun, such as gamble, in the structure? The problem is that it does not evoke specific images for most students. As an intermediate word (similar in sound) we use the word "Hamlet" (the first 3 and the last 2 letters match). In the word "adventure", select the first 4 letters "avan", add "c". It turns out "advance". This word already has a quite definite image: a line at the cash register, the rustle of money (recently printed), the voice of an accountant: "Sign here," and so on. Therefore, our memory is quite able to cope with such a simple task as compiling and memorizing a structure of two words "Hamlet" and "advance". You probably already have it. Imagine Hamlet, who received an advance payment of 70 Soviet rubles for reading his monologue "To be or not to be ..." on stage.
When we are presented with the word gamble, our memory will automatically associate it with "Hamlet", and it, in turn, with "advance payment", which will lead us to "gamble". There is no need to be afraid of this seeming cumbersomeness. You don't know your brain. He is able to quickly learn and more complex operations.
Thus, the technique consists in the transition from an abstract word to a concrete one on a phonetic basis.2. Another way to move to a specific word from an abstract one is to try to replace one or two letters in it. For example, swindle is a scam. We know very well what a scam is, but it's hard to imagine a specific image of it. Let's replace the first letter "a" with "c". The result is a "sphere". Swindle resembles a "pig" (matches 4 letters, that's enough). Imagine how small glass spheres are placed in a pig's feeder, which it cracks with great appetite. The word swindle could also be replaced by the word "windsurfing". Try to make your own structures from this word and "sphere".
3. If the described techniques did not help, then you can mentally draw up a plot picture that does not coincide with our experience. For example: disgrace - disgrace.
Disgrace resembles the combination of two words at once: "disk" and "grace". So that these two words do not fall apart in our memory, imagine a gramophone on which a black disc rotates rapidly. A breathless Leontyev runs along the disk in the opposite direction to the rotation and gasping for breath shouts: "Signorita Grazia!"
Most likely, you do not have a specific image of "ugliness" (although the whole world around you can act as it). Imagine this picture: a large red carrot with long tops says to a small carrot standing in front of it and looking down at it with its tops cut in the latest fashion: "Disgrace!" Replay this scene in your mind several times. Put yourself in the shoes of one or the other and the word "ugliness" will be strongly associated with the word "carrot".
Now imagine that Leontyev is not just running across the disc, but also jumping over the barriers formed by large carrots.
Again, we would like to ask you not to fall into despair from the "impassable stupidity" that you may see here. Despite all the frivolity, this method works. In addition, learning a language on your own or in the classroom becomes an entertaining process. In a class or student group, there is usually incessant laughter, which in itself contributes to memorization.4. In English (and other) languages, verbs with post-verbal particles are common. A limited small number of these particles form a huge number of meanings of the same verb. This leads to monotony and confusion in the head.
To avoid this, a specific word, similar in sound, is assigned to each particle.
For instance:out - spiderLet's imagine that we need to remember the verb bring uр - to educate. Bring resembles a "brigantine". All verbs, if possible, are translated into the corresponding nouns. "To educate" will turn into a "educator" who, probably, has a specific image for everyone. This is a man with a stern face who threatens everyone with his finger.
up - trap
to - ax
Now let's build the structure. Imagine a brigantine sailing away from the pier, with a huge trap hanging instead of a snow-white sail. Between the teeth of the trap, the teacher stands with his last strength, his jaws clenched like an atlas. He keeps wagging his finger at you.5. Similarly, adjectives and adverbs are translated into nouns. If this cannot be done, then you can try to use stereotypical phrases. For example: convincing - convincing.
Convincing resembles two words: "horse" and "wine". To prevent the words from falling apart, let's combine them in a structure. Imagine a horse with bottles of wine sticking out instead of ears, and he wiggles them when flies hog on them.
"Convincing" is hardcoded and the phrase "convincing example" is included. Now imagine a horse standing at a blackboard, solving an example and scratching a bottle-ear with a hoof.6. In the previous example, another example was simultaneously used - a pun. An example can be understood in two ways - as a behavior and as a mathematical problem. Use the game as often as possible. To do this, you can use an explanatory dictionary, which indicates all the possible meanings of words in different contexts.
However, there is another version of the word play. For example: tire - to get bored. The word tire resembles a dash. The verb "bored" can be understood not only in the generally accepted sense, but also as "collecting something in a heap", "piling up in a heap", etc. Therefore, it can be easily translated into the noun "heap", which has an image. Imagine how you collect scattered dashes from the field (short sticks that fell out of the lines of a book when you took it carelessly from the shelf) and stack or sweep them in a heap.
We have described only a small part of the tricks for you. When you start learning a language on your own, you can easily expand their list, choose the most effective ones in your opinion.
In conclusion, we would like to dwell on the time factor. With large amounts of information stored, every second saved becomes significant. You can gain significant amounts of time by eliminating unnecessary repetitions. Remember that repetition of words, started immediately after they have been memorized (after 30-60 seconds), leads to a deterioration in memorization and wastes time. You can also save time at the stage of creating the structure. Some students cannot concentrate, set themselves up and spend ten minutes thinking about finding the right word and connection. This greatly inhibits the creative process, erases the previously learned words, since the unconscious cycle of short-term memory is interrupted. The lesson is a sprint distance, it cannot be run with interruptions and hard thoughts. First, try to come up with structures in a competitive situation: which of two or more people who have undertaken to study a language with you will come up with more such structures in the same time. Downtime should be avoided by all means.
If you still have an insurmountable difficulty, then it is better to skip the word and return to it a little later (after one or two days).
As a rule, in this case, the desired words are found immediately. Before starting classes, it is useful to tune in with a few phrases: "I have little time. I want to think very quickly. Finding the right words and associations will not cause me any difficulties." Another setting option is that the person you are holding is waiting for you in the next room. But you will be able to talk to him only after you have learned the planned lesson. Try it and see that this contrived situation really makes you work harder. It is also helpful to time your mental activities. Make sure that one word out of 20 on the list has an average of no more than 3 minutes, including all types of repetition. Strive to constantly squeeze this time. If you are a teacher, then getting the students, that is, another person, to work quickly is much more difficult than for yourself. In this case, it is useful to force future polyglots to do some quick work before the lesson, for example, quickly and quickly squat (but this can get tired) or quickly copy the teacher's actions, which are not physically difficult. For this, a simulator consisting of 10 bulbs is very useful, which the teacher lights up in random order at a fast pace. The task of the students is to have time to touch the lit light bulb. Rapid movements that do not cause fatigue bring our entire body at the physiological and mental level to a state where all operations begin to be performed at an increased speed. You can intensify the activity in the tuning process using another exercise that directly works on memorizing words. Students find themselves in a competitive situation: they are asked to name the translation of the word suggested by the teacher as soon as possible (who is faster). However, this exercise does not lead to physical activity.
Another effective way to save time is to study all synonyms of a given word in a foreign language at the same time.
For example: recruit, enlist
Let's turn "recruit" into the word "willow".
Recruit resembles "recreation", enlist - "broom, leaf".
Imagine that the entrance to the recreation is littered with willow branches. You take a broom made of sheets of paper, wave it, and the branches of the willow fly away.
The number of synonyms, of course, can significantly exceed the number two. The more synonyms of a foreign language you include in one structure, the higher the density of information, the greater the amount of provided memory, the greater the likelihood that none of them will be forgotten, the higher the speed of memorization.
This concludes the presentation of the methodology. We would like to emphasize once again that we do not seek to attribute the authorship of this method to ourselves. You have probably heard and read about it. The only thing we see our merit in is a detailed presentation of the technology and an attempt to convince you that it is quite possible to learn a language in a few months, even with a complete lack of appropriate abilities. We wish us a successful study!
ANNEX 1
0 things to remember when learning a foreign language in a structured way:
1. Remember that only the dynamic structure is well remembered.
2. The main objects in the structure must be in a relationship that does not coincide with your past experience.
3. The main objects of the structure, as well as the connection between them, should have a colorful rich image in contrast to other, secondary objects of this structure.
4. Remember that the possibilities of our memory are limited: at one time (one lesson) you can learn no more than 20-25 words, and when compaction of information no more than 100 words. The number of lessons per day is limited by the necessary rest periods for our memory.
5. Condense information: use pictures and blocks of synonyms.
6. Translate abstract nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives into concrete images.
7. Do not forget that 50% of success lies in the ability to set yourself up.
8. Remember not to fill your head with any thoughts immediately after you finish learning words.
9. Use a rational repetition system. Save time.
10. Don't jump into a gallop: start with five words a day.
11. Don't lose your notes, they will be useful to you.
12. Use the structured method along with the classical methods of memorization, this will allow you to identify for yourself its advantages and disadvantages.
13. Remember, the function of the method is to expand the possibilities of your memory, and not to create in you a stable desire to learn a foreign language. Desire is your problem.
These and others mnemonic associations in our database... Add your associations, use strangers!
We have been learning English all our lives, we know the rules, but still we cannot competently answer a foreigner and watch the series in the original without suffering. Why is that?
We decided to look into this injustice and found a way to better learn foreign words. There is a universal memorization formula proposed by the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus. And it works.
Why do we forget
The brain protects us from overload and constantly gets rid of unnecessary information. That is why all the new words that we learn first fall into short-term rather than long-term memory. If they are not repeated and not used, they are forgotten.
Ebbinghaus's “Forgetting Curve” shows that within 1 hour after memorization, we forget more than half of the information. And after a week we remember only 20%.
How to remember everything
To keep new words from getting out of your head, you need to try to "put" them into long-term memory. In this case, memorization is ineffective, since the brain does not have time to quickly comprehend the information and build strong associative connections. To remember longer, it is better to stretch the memorization process for several days, or even weeks. In this case, it is enough to repeat once.
You can practice spaced repetition using homemade flashcards or special apps like Anki (Android, iOS) and SuperMemo (Android, iOS)
12 more secrets of memorizing new words
- Teach mindfully... Meaningful material is memorized 9 times faster.
- Decide on a list of words you need to keep the conversation going... There are only about 300-400 of them. Remember them first.
- Please note that the words at the beginning and at the end of the list are better remembered("Edge effect").
- Shift your attention from one topic to another. Know that similar memories mix(the principle of interference) and turn into a "mess".
- Learn the opposite... If you remember day, then consider night as well. Antonyms are remembered faster and easier.
- Build your "palaces of memory"... The essence of the method is that you need to associate memorized words with a specific place. For example, as you walk around the room, associate new words with individual details in the interior. Repeat several times and leave the room. After that, restore the room in your memory and at the same time the words learned with its prompts.
- Use the word-nails technique... The essence of the method is to attach a word to be learned to a word already known for memorization. So when you think of “nail,” you can think of another word as well. For example, in the counting room: “One, two, three, four, let's count the holes in the cheese”, the words “four” and “in the cheese” are related to each other.
- Associate new words with those you already know... For example, the word heel can be remembered by remembering Achilles and his Achilles heel. And the word look can be learned by remembering how difficult it is to look when you are cutting an onion.
- Compose stories... If you need to memorize words in a specific order, try arranging them into an impromptu story. It is important that all words are related to each other according to the plot.
- Use a voice recorder. Say the words to the recording, and then listen to them several times. This method is especially suitable for those who are better at listening to information.
- Animate and visualize. Use facial expressions when exploring emotions. Move as you learn sports vocabulary. In this way, you also use muscle memory.
- Do not learn the language from vocabulary and school textbooks. If you love Game of Thrones, try learning words from this show. It's much more interesting this way.
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