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Text memorization and imitation

 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies Post Reply
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Sandy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5631 days ago

37 posts - 61 votes 

 
 Message 49 of 95
25 September 2010 at 11:34pm | IP Logged 
In the link below the author suggests the following method for learning a poem or some other text :

1.Go through the text line by line and memorize each line.
2.Next go through the text again and memorize two lines at a time.
3.Each time you go through the text increase the number of lines to be memorized by one.
4.By the time you have memorized 6 lines at a time the text will be memorized.

How to memorize a poem

In the following link you can find a program to try this method. You will need to read the instructions and watch the tutorial video before you start. I have loaded one small poem but my attempts to load larger poems have been unsuccessful. It's probably something I'm doing wrong. It all looks very good and if the developer could add sound to the program then it would be perfect for memorizing texts in foreign languages.

verbatim
3 persons have voted this message useful



greymatters
Newbie
United States
headinside.blogspot.
Joined 5176 days ago

1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 50 of 95
26 September 2010 at 1:05am | IP Logged 
Sandy - thank you for the link to my Verbatim program!

Thanks to notifications and questions like yours, I've just added a few important tips to both the manual and
Verbatim XML File Maker page.

They now read:

IMPORTANT NOTES:
* The filename you use for the xml file must consist of ONLY letters and numbers. Any other characters, such as
spaces and hyphens, will prevent the file from being accessed.

* Once you upload the file, test its accessibility by pasting the full file path in your browser. If you see anything
but the contents of your xml file, Verbatim will not be able to load the file.

Also, the file must end in the extension: .xml

I hope this helps!

The way I've always used the technique, the only sound involved should be your own voice (unrecorded)
repeating the words/phrases. Speaking as you're reading, and then speaking from memory is a major part of the
technique involved in the memorization phase, as it's engaging your brain actively (instead of passively).

If I've misunderstood your request for a sound feature, I'm willing to listen a fuller explanation of your idea. :)

Edited by greymatters on 26 September 2010 at 1:06am

1 person has voted this message useful



microsnout
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
Canada
microsnout.wordpress
Joined 5474 days ago

277 posts - 553 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 51 of 95
26 September 2010 at 1:21am | IP Logged 
s_allard wrote:

I must say that at this very moment there is a fabulous resource being created, unwittingly I may add, by the
Quebec government for learners of Québécois French. A commission of enquiry headed by former supreme court
justice, Michel Bastarache, is holding public hearings into allegations of political interference in the process of
appointing judges by the government.


Awesome! I have been listening to news reports of this on Radio-Canada but never even thought to look to see if
recordings with transcripts were being made available. Thanks for posting this! The talk at the beginning of the
first video seems very stiff and formal (i.e. far from conversational) but hopefully the "jousting" you refer to will
come later.

As you say, one can, by careful selection of resources, target the desired register and accent you seek. I would
have liked to find something like this two years ago, when it seemed everything I found came from France. Now
it is less important to find material with transcripts because I can usually create a transcript by listening carefully
several times to any missed words. Still it is nice to have this.    
1 person has voted this message useful



Splog
Diglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
anthonylauder.c
Joined 5672 days ago

1062 posts - 3263 votes 
Speaks: English*, Czech
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 52 of 95
26 September 2010 at 8:54am | IP Logged 
I am often inspired by the many people who have learned the Quran by heart. Not because
I have any particular religious interest, but because the muslim community has spent
centuries perfecting memorisation techniques

There is no "magic" here, but lots of practical advice that has proven to be effective
over hundreds of years. Here is my own summary of the advice in the above article:

- Make sure you are highly motivated, and if you are not work on developing your
motivation. Without motivation you will tire easily and not achieve your goal.
- The first step is to focus on correct prounciation. For this you really need a
teacher.
- Stick to a personal daily schedule, with a specific amount of text in mind, and make
it realistic to fulfill
- Completely memorise one section before moving on to the next. This builds discipline
and increases your ability to concentrate
- Each day, repeat that day's section of text for a few minutes many times throughout
the day, including early in the morning,
while waiting for things (e.g. bus, dentist), before going to sleep. These bite sized
chunks of time throughout the day are much easier to find and stick to than one long
study period, plus the spaced repetition helps fix the text in your memory.
- Try to "sing" the text to a melody as you read it. This makes the text more pleasing
to your ear, and improves memorization since you now associate the words with the
melody.
- Always use the same copy of the text, allowing its physical appearance to leave an
imprint on your mind.
- Understand what the text means, and form a mental image of the meaning while
reciting the text, as this increases memorisation.
- Form links between the sections as you move from one to another, both in connecting
their meanings and in how the tongue flows from one to another.
- Recite the memorised sections to other people who either already know the text by
heart or can follow along with a printed version. Have them alert you when you make
mistakes.
- Even the sections which you have already memorised can quickly evaporate from your
mind. Therefore, you have to keep reviewing things even when you think you already know
them to keep the in your memory.
- Look out for patterns in the text, since this increases attention and helps with
memorisation.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6014 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 53 of 95
26 September 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged 
Sandy wrote:
In the link below the author suggests the following method for learning a poem or some other text :

1.Go through the text line by line and memorize each line.
2.Next go through the text again and memorize two lines at a time.
3.Each time you go through the text increase the number of lines to be memorized by one.
4.By the time you have memorized 6 lines at a time the text will be memorized.

I'm not sure this is the best way.

People have been memorising songs and poems for years, and that's not exactly the way it's been done.

The way I used to memorise songs with a teacher (assuming a four-line verse or chorus):

1 Teacher says first line, I repeat.
2 Teacher says second line, I repeat.
1,2 Teacher says first line and second line together, I repeat.
3 Teacher says third line, I repeat.
4 Teacher says fourth line, I repeat.
3,4 Teacher says first line and second line together, I repeat.
1,2,3,4 Teacher says all four lines, I repeat.

Now if we had an 8-line verse, the sequence would continue:
5 - 6 - 5,6 - 7 - 8 - 7,8 - 5,6,7,8 - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

I prefer this to the proposed technique as it respects the structure of the poem while ensuring that every line gets practiced the same number of times. Breaking the structure means breaking the flow and breaking meaning, so I'm dubious of any advantage in the other method.

Of course, you have to adjust the pattern to suit other types of poem. If you have a verse like this>
1 ba dum de dum de dum de day
2 da doo de dah de doo be ray
3 fa foo fe fah fe foo fe foe
4 fa fum fe fum fe fuh fa hoe
5 ge gum ge gum ge goo ge gee
6 ge gum ge gum ge gum ga fee
You would go 1 - 2 - 1,2 - 3 - 4 - 3,4 - 5 - 6 - 5,6 - 1,2,3,4,5,6

Or
1 ba dum de dum de dum de day
2 da doo de dah de doo be ray
3    fa foo fe fah fe foe
4 ge gum ge gum ge goo ge gee
5 ge gum ge gum ge gum ga fee
6    fa fum fe fum fa hoe
Would be 1 - 2 - 3 - 1,2,3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 4,5,6 - 1,2,3,4,5,6
4 persons have voted this message useful



Cainntear
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
Joined 6014 days ago

4399 posts - 7687 votes 
Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh

 
 Message 54 of 95
26 September 2010 at 11:29am | IP Logged 
greymatters wrote:
The way I've always used the technique, the only sound involved should be your own voice (unrecorded)
repeating the words/phrases. Speaking as you're reading, and then speaking from memory is a major part of the
technique involved in the memorization phase, as it's engaging your brain actively (instead of passively).

If I've misunderstood your request for a sound feature, I'm willing to listen a fuller explanation of your idea. :)

The difference here is that you use the software to memorise stuff in a language you already know. The written form is therefore enough to evoke the sound in your head.

What we are discussing here is memorisation of pieces in an unfamiliar language as an aid to learning that language. For a learner, the written form isn't normally enough to evoke the sound of the language, hence Sandy looking for a program that offers sound.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Sandy
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 5631 days ago

37 posts - 61 votes 

 
 Message 55 of 95
26 September 2010 at 12:48pm | IP Logged 
Thanks Greymatters for that information.

Cainntear is right. Language learners would need the sounds so that they are not memorizing the speech in their own bad accents. Even for memorizing the poems in their languages it would be helpful to hear the poem read properly. When you hear the poem read by someone with a trained voice you are getting more out of the poem. For example, listen to Richard Burton reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in the link below and then listen to some of the other attempts you can find on the net. Burton's version is definitive. It will not be bettered. It inspired me to learn large chunks of the poem by heart and I think it has inspired many others to do the same. For someone learning English it would be a great way to hear English consonants pronounced properly. One of the best features of Burton's wonderful voice was the clear and distinctive sound of his consonants.

Richard Burton's Ancient Mariner

Greymatter, you also read your poems very well. For an English speaking learner of English poems your system is very good indeed, but it would also be very useful for language learners if each line of the poem or text to be learned also had an accompanying sound file. Language learners need to hear the sounds before they attempt to pronounce them.

Just imagine the difference hearing the following poem would make to a French learner. The poem could not be read properly unless it is heard first.

Chanson d'automne

You could have something similar to the file you import into Anki where each line has an optional sound file e.g. “my sentence 1 [sound:c:\dir\sound file 1.mp3]".


Cainntear's system might be an additional way of trying to learn poems. I will have a go at using the two methods.
1 person has voted this message useful



Andy E
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 7106 days ago

1651 posts - 1939 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

 
 Message 56 of 95
26 September 2010 at 2:01pm | IP Logged 
Cainntear wrote:
Sandy wrote:
In the link below the author suggests the following method for learning a poem or some other text :

1.Go through the text line by line and memorize each line.
2.Next go through the text again and memorize two lines at a time.
3.Each time you go through the text increase the number of lines to be memorized by one.
4.By the time you have memorized 6 lines at a time the text will be memorized.

I'm not sure this is the best way.

People have been memorising songs and poems for years, and that's not exactly the way it's been done.

The way I used to memorise songs with a teacher (assuming a four-line verse or chorus):

1 Teacher says first line, I repeat.
2 Teacher says second line, I repeat.
1,2 Teacher says first line and second line together, I repeat.
3 Teacher says third line, I repeat.
4 Teacher says fourth line, I repeat.
3,4 Teacher says first line and second line together, I repeat.
1,2,3,4 Teacher says all four lines, I repeat.

Now if we had an 8-line verse, the sequence would continue:
5 - 6 - 5,6 - 7 - 8 - 7,8 - 5,6,7,8 - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8

I prefer this to the proposed technique as it respects the structure of the poem while ensuring that every line gets practiced the same number of times. Breaking the structure means breaking the flow and breaking meaning, so I'm dubious of any advantage in the other method.


Well, the method mentioned by Sandy is pretty much the one I outlined in page 2 of this thread (indeed the 'How to Memorize a Poem' link is where I found it in the first place). My initial concern was something you've noted which is that not every line gets the same number of repetitions. However, this first memorisation method is only used prior to adding it to a SRS; from then on, the text should be repeated as a whole in response to the prompt. As well as this, the shadowing process ensures many further repetitions. So by the time the lesson is "done" the fact that initially line 1 is repeated 10 times whereas line 10 is done once, becomes much less of a factor. In addition, I'm not sure it has any adverse effect on the structure since the flow is always from beginning to the stopping-point and not picked up part-way through.

Whether or not it's the best method, I'm not sure - but a fortnight in, it certainly seems to work.


Edited by Andy E on 26 September 2010 at 2:02pm



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