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Mnemonics: Good or Bad? | ||
Tags: Memory | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Akalabeth Groupie Canada Joined 5454 days ago 83 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 9 of 27 11 July 2010 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used mnemonics with Heisig to learn how to write the Kanji, and I'm confident I
wouldn't have been able to learn them as nearly as quickly without. Also, whenever I find multiple words whose pronunciations I keep confusing, I make a mnemonic to associate the pronunciation with the meaning, and after that point I tend to never get them confused again. As for overrelying on them (as recalling something with a mnemonic does tend to be a little slower than without) I've found that if you study the information in multiple contexts you will be able to remember the thing without the mnemonic. Since with language learning you should see any words you learn in multiple places, I haven't had much problem with using them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dolly Senior Member United States Joined 5725 days ago 191 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin | Message 10 of 27 11 July 2010 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mnemonics are great for lists, like the acronym "Keep pond clean or frogs get sick" for taxonomic ranks in zoology. But natural memory is adequate for learning vocabulary. Creating a mnemonic for every new word turns language learning into a Rube Goldberg machine.
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| feanarosurion Senior Member Canada Joined 5216 days ago 217 posts - 316 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish, Norwegian | Message 11 of 27 11 July 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
Sorry I should have clarified. I have tried them in the past, they didn't seem to help, only to get in the way, and I don't use them now anymore. Some excellent points so far though. Just for the record, I don't want to imply that mnemonics can't be a useful tool at all. If they work, great. But for me, they just seem to get in the way. That's my take on it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5262 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 12 of 27 12 July 2010 at 6:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I do if I have problems with it. Works fine for me.
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| patlajan Triglot Groupie United States Joined 7084 days ago 59 posts - 65 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Turkish Studies: German, Mandarin, French | Message 13 of 27 13 July 2010 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mnemonics have their uses: little rhymes for difficult or closely related words, for Chinese and Japanese writing systems, and one I use use in some languages is to tag one article with a musical note, i.e. La La... I think this over time increases the chances of my getting it correct in conversation. The books by Jerry Lucas and Harry Larayne are worth checking out for more on this subject.
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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4763 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 14 of 27 08 September 2011 at 4:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Prepositions in German (taking various cases) seem to be appropriate candidates for mnemonics:
http://www.learn-german-smarter.com/learn-German-preposition s.html Personally, I have problems remembering the mnemonics, but probably, that's just me. An alternative could be example sentences, but really, that's just another mnemonic isn't it? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5701 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 15 of 27 08 September 2011 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | ||
I can't remember mnemonics for language-related information either. Sample sentences are different, but only when I learn them with some kind of meaningful context. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jdmoncada Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4969 days ago 470 posts - 741 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 16 of 27 08 September 2011 at 7:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I use visual mnemonics to remember kanji and kana. It works for what I need it to do, but I don't rely heavily on it for other things. I am unclear as to how one would otherwise use mnemonics in language learning.
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