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Method of loci questions | ||
Tags: Memory | Vocabulary learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Faraday Senior Member United States Joined 6119 days ago 129 posts - 256 votes  Speaks: German* | Message 57 of 89 25 July 2011 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Cainntear, go meditate!
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 58 of 89 27 July 2011 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Om!
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| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5592 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 59 of 89 28 July 2011 at 5:25am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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From personal experience, mnemonics are a great tools to remember certain words. However,
I find it takes a lot of time to construct mnemonic devices to explain every new vocabulary word. 90% of the time I really don't need to use them; word lists and simple repetition are more than effective enough to learn and remember new words. I will resort to using mnemonics and method of loci for that last 10% of words that are hard to learn though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 60 of 89 28 July 2011 at 11:50am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I agree. That's my experience as well. It might be useful if you already have the memory skill developed. If not, it can be a waste of time. I think it is important to be very selective using these techniques. People, let's watch the memory experts using the loci method memorizing cards and their speed. Those are developed memory skills. World Record in Speed Cards: Simon Reinhard with 21.90 seconds: http://www.vimeo.com/12516465 Last record holder memorizing a desk of cards, Bend Pridmore: 24.97 seconds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_KlsQxf_UE By the way,Josh,I am waiting Ben's answer. Edited by slucido on 28 July 2011 at 11:53am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5321 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 61 of 89 28 July 2011 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
... which seems to be of little use for language learning or how else do you explain the fact that very few memory champions are also accomplished polyglots?
If you replace playing cards with words, this would mean that you could learn to memorize the correct order of 52 known, immutable 2 word collocations/binary facts. I seriously doubt that Simon Reinhard could perform the same trick in the same time-frame if he were given card decks with markings unknown to him, e.g. Tarot decks, decks used for role-playing games etc. When it comes to language learning the only positive effect of memory training seems to be that it enables practitioners to quicker come up with useful associations between unrelated items, which comes in handy for vocabulary learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| slucido Bilingual Diglot Senior Member Spain https://goo.gl/126Yv Joined 6676 days ago 1296 posts - 1781 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan* Studies: English | Message 62 of 89 28 July 2011 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
...Because they want to be memory champions and not accomplished polyglots...
So what?
Yes, if you have enough memory training. That's my point. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 63 of 89 28 July 2011 at 1:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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It is a long thread, and I'm not going to comment on everything in it. Instead just a few personal observations. I knew about both the loci method and the memory palace before this thread, but haven't used any of them systematically.
One important thing that isn't relevant for vocabulary learning is numerical order. Instead there is an alphabetical ordering, but first and foremost orderings based on linguistic criteria. One of my own rules of thumb is always to learn the components of a long word before or at the same time as the word itself. This also applies to endings. So instead of just learning понимать as something involving ponies and mats I would learn the word as a prefix 'по' plus a something-in-the-middle 'ним' plus an ending 'ать'. And while I was at it I would also learn its perfective companion понять, which differs from the imperfective one by having a shortened thing-in-the-middle consisting of just 'нь', where the 'ь' coalesces with 'a' to form 'я'. Or in other words, I try to place the new words in a linguistic structure. Besides I try to be more attentive while dealing with new words in general, for instance by repeating the sound of them silently or by imagining how they look in my own handwriting. It doesn't take long time and it helps me to remember the words - but isn't enough in itself (just as mere repetition isn't enough - or at least not smart enough). I have tried a method that has a distant resemblance with the loci method, namely to do my visual or aural repeat while looking at a picture or a book in my flat. Just looking at that object will then sometimes be enough to make the word pop up in my mind. But maybe even this isn't enough. Then I use real associations based on the meaning OR the sound (typically just a part of it). For instance I look in my dictionary and find the word нимать, 'take' (as I said: learn the parts of a long word before or at latest with the long word itself). OK, on + take, that reminds me of German 'nehmen', and then I suddenly remember an old Danish word for 'learning': "annamme". So my meaning-based association will in this case turn out to be its translation "annamme". If I don't quickly find some link of this kind then I may fall back on an association based on sound alone, but something that automatically includes the meaning will generally be better than something with an irrelevant meaning - and a funny (or indecent) irrelevant meaning will certainly be better than a boring one. Someone mentioned the word "comida" in Spanish. OK, "comida" is based on the participle of "comer" which I just as well can learn while I'm at it. But how do I remember the meaning of "comer" (or "comida")? Well, I could imagine somebody come running with a bib, spoon and a fork to get his supper. I don't need to include "-er" or "-ida" in the vision, the common element "com" is enough to remind me of the two Spanish words. Anything that is more complicated than this will take too much time and divert my attention from lingustical matters, and this generally includes 'silly stories' that try to cover each and everything about a word including its meaning. One of the things I like about my preferred expression "memory hook" is that it suggests that something small can be used to land big fish. Edited by Iversen on 28 July 2011 at 2:15pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5409 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 64 of 89 29 July 2011 at 8:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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As an outsider that hasn't used these techniques I do think that those of us who have found our own methods we like (including myself) tend to be dismissive of those that do things differently. To dismiss other methods allows us to carry on happily doing what we wanted to do anyway. We all have a vested interest in arguing against methods that are not our own.
There are very likely things we can learn from those that memorize things as a living to help us in our studies. To think otherwise is to be as arrogant as those amateurs that claim global warming doesn't exist, those that claim the earth is only a few thousand years old, or those that claim humans and dinosaurs co-existed. There is a SCIENCE to memorizing things that we as amateurs CANNOT immediately know. There are those that practice memory as a profession, and to dismiss them because we find following their practices inconvenient or difficult is an insult to the field of "memorization". Obviously as language learners we do more than pure memorization, but to say it is not a major part of what we do is deceitful. To claim the techniques we have all come up with on our own is the "best" way to learn and incorporate words or grammatical structures is insufferably naive. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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