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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Jar-ptitsa Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 5890 days ago 980 posts - 1006 votes  Speaks: French*, Dutch, German | Message 25 of 73 04 April 2009 at 11:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Some people see colours in numbers, letters different things. For me those haven't colours, although music keys have colours. I think that it's like this, I mean you don't put those colours to the things.
I find this not abtrsact at all :-)My responses: 1. yes, when I learn a new word or phrase, I concentrate on it: discover the definition, spelling , if possible the pronunciation, and put it in some sentences, think about them in my head. 2. I know it after this procedure, but always after I encounter the new word 3 times, for exampel people or the TV say it, or read on the internet. 3. I learned only languages which are similar with my language, therefore I didn't have this problem. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6003 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 26 of 73 04 April 2009 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Ah, synaesthesia. That makes perfect sense. Luckily for you synaesthesia is commonly associated with an abnormally strong memory. Unfortunately for the rest of us, synaesthesia doesn't appear to be learnable. :-( 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5757 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 27 of 73 04 April 2009 at 3:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Apparently, we all have this ability when we are born, but most of us lose it very quickly as we get older. I learnt to read very quickly when I was a child, and I have a clear memory of seeing (at age 4-5) words beginning with J as yellow, F as purple, A as green, M as pink, and N as brown. I had a similar thing with numbers- but I can't do it now.
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| dltwlf18 Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5861 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Arabic (Written), Polish | Message 28 of 73 04 April 2009 at 6:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Personally I've found that starting off slow and reviewing requently early on in learning a language is important. I delibrately focuse on one gramar concept and just a few words a day early on, and then as I get bet better in a language I find picking up more and more words gets easier and easier. I think it's because my mind starts to pick up and understnad the patterns and basics of a language so learning new vocabulary gets to be easy after a while and I can learn many words a day.
I also find that if I review the same words a few times throughout the day and then reviewing those same words everyday the following 3 or 4 days makes them stick in my head easier as well and I rarely ever forget them. I usually dedicate at least one day a week to just reviewing as well. Also as I learned more languages it's become easier. The first language I set out to learn was German and even though it's relatively not that difficult for an English speaker to learn I really struggled for awhile. Now, however it seems like I have a much easier time learning more difficult languages like Arabic, Polish, and Farsi. The key really is to keep at at almost every day, I take days off on occasion but as long as you keep going at least 6 days a week, you'll find yourself improving. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6256 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 29 of 73 04 April 2009 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting, I never considered that people without synesthesia(I can never spell this word myself, let alone say it) may have had the ability before and have just lost it. For me, letters and numbers and music have colors. Japanese kana tend to have the same colors as their romaji counterparts. So I just transferred the same associations to the new script. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5915 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian | Message 30 of 73 04 April 2009 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'll try to give some examples to explain the process. 1. It depends on whether the word produces a texture, colour or feeling. It usually appears more or less straightaway though sometimes I have to 'look it over' before the association 'pops out'. If I'm drawn to the sound of it I'll repeat it in my head but otherwise I'll just look at it (in my head). For example the word 'busy' in English is kind of a dark almost black with streaks of purple kind of word. This is due to the letter 'b' being predominantly that colour. The word for busy in German is beschäftigt which luckily starts with the same letter giving it the same colour, though with a higher concentration of purple for some reason. It becomes a kind of 'colour cognate' making it easy to remember even though the words bear no resemblance apart from the first letter. Let's take a word that's completely unrelated like the German word for conceited/arrogant which is eingebildet. This word is concertina shaped and gives a squeezing sensation when I think it or say it. It also feels like a word that is running away from itself or almost runs out of letters. It has a beige colour because the letter 'e' is a sandy beige colour but I'm more drawn to the shape and feeling of it. 2. I'll see the association for a while as a link to the word but when I can kind of bypass the association and go straight to the word then I'll move on. 3. Yes, sometimes words take a while to reveal themselves, kind of like trying to talk to a very shy person. Eventually they open up. I find if I try to force it or remember a lot of words in a short space of time it's not as effective. I would describe it as having a relationship with a word. Similar to when you hear a piece of music and it reminds you of someone or something and all these colours and sounds and scenes come rushing back. It's that combination or involvement of senses that bring the words to life. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Dark_Sunshine Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5757 days ago 340 posts - 357 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 31 of 73 04 April 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I watched a documentary about it once; it said that babies are born synaesthetes, but that as we age and learn to talk, our brain 'compartmentalises' itself in order to assimilate and organise the overwhelming amounts of new information and experiences. Nobody knows why in some cases, it doesn't do this.
Apparently it can be a curse as well as a blessing- whilst some people might be extremely gifted musicians, linguists or mathematicians, others experience nasty tastes in the mouth or bad smells associated with particular sounds. A classic quote from this programme was one of the unlucky synaesthetes saying "I hate the name Derek- it tastes like earwax." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tommus Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 979 posts - 1688 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish | Message 32 of 73 04 April 2009 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks very much. This is all very interesting. Clearly the way I try to learn vocabulary is very different from these colours, shapes, textures and feelings. In your example with eingebildet, I can see the way you perceive the English word and the German word. But how do you put them together? Lets say the English word appears red and has a rough texture and the German word is beige and "squeezy" and is running away. How do you associate the two sets of colours/shapes/texture/etc? Aren't there other English words that are red with a rough texture? There are many memory systems based on associations and a standard list of hooks, such as 1=flag pole, 2=swan's neck, etc. But I don't think that is how these colour/shape/texture/etc. associations are working. I wonder if those of us that don't have these automatic colours/shapes/etc. could develop our own? Maybe a standard set of 26 colours; r=red, g=green, o=orange, etc. and then something for shape, texture, feeling and other sensations? Could short words be sharp, long words could be loud, words with a lot of vowels could be warm, others cold. Assuming we had enough characteristics to give most words a distinct signature, would that very much help our associations between the words of two languages? Maybe we would still be missing the ability to make the strong associations. Or maybe the associations would be much easier. I can envision a system where rabbit would instantly look red, square, cold and quiet. The Dutch word for rabbit is konijn. Maybe it would be k=krystal clear, oval, luke warm and musical. What is the association now? A red rabbit in a crystal vase in a cold musical place? Forgive my musings. But does anyone think there may be benefits from some kind of approach like this? A better, faster way to learn and retain vocabulary would be very appealing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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