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Interference L1 - L2 // Mnemonics | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5953 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 22 10 March 2009 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't doubt that mnemonics are effective when cramming for word-recall tests, but I don't think they're much good when trying to learn to use the words in a truly linguistic context -- if the mnemonic device becomes a word's learned context, then you're not making the association with words it frequently "bundles" with. Eg the verbs "light", "start", "extinguish" and "put out" bundle with "fire"; whereas you would only "light" and "put out" a candle (you might "extinguish", but not often); but you "switch" or "turn" "on" and "off" an electric light or electric heater. But in some languages they're all the same. If you go by mnemonics you aren't learning these bundles -- the context that several posters have already mentioned. So whether you are talking about mnemonics (like !LH@N) or just using images as prompts for learning vocabulary (as Earnie is), then you don't really have a choice but to fall back on L1 for these associations, because you're recalling the word outwith its linguistic context. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6763 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 10 of 22 10 March 2009 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had the feeling it helped me a lot -_^
Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6381 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 22 10 March 2009 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
Mnemonics are useful for originally learning words; they don't prevent you from forming new associations later. You simply don't have the right bundles for your L2 to start with, no matter how you initially learn the words - it still takes more exposure to realistic material to gain these bundles. Mnemonics are no better or worse than any other method which allows you to learn words that you haven't seen enough in context to properly bundle, in my opinion; at times, they're useful. Have you ever read "Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid" (specifically, the section where it illustrates how ideas are 'budded' off of prototypes, using the example of how a person's knowledge of a football player can grow from the 'prototype' idea of a football player, then become specialized as the person learns more about the specific player), or used a programming language with a prototyping-based object system? I'd argue that learning words is somewhat similar: you start with the word, then you learn to recognize it, optionally start getting ideas of its linguistic bundling, memorize it (intentionally or not), and then progressively get a better idea of how it's really bundled and used in the language in question. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6763 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 12 of 22 10 March 2009 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I always made the experience, that mnemonics helped me at first and then they just disappeared...of course the word stuck.
Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5953 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 22 11 March 2009 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
But the thing is it's really difficult to know whether the mnemonic really did help or not -- it's not always a repeatable experiment. I hear so many people praising mnemonics, but it all rings a bit hollow in my ears. Michel Thomas (yes, I know, him again, but this isn't complimentary, for once), for example, taught "faire" (French for "to do") by saying "it's a fair thing to do", and he is convinced that this helped his students remember the word, but in the Spanish course, there's no mnemonic at all for the equivalent word ("hacer") and the students don't have a problem remembering, so it looks (to me) like the value of the mnemonic in this case is entirely imaginary. In reality, I find that a lot of the mnemonics I'm given are of similarly imaginary value, and I'm more likely to remember the word itself and trigger the associated image than be able to reconstruct the image to trigger recall of the word -- that's back-to-front, and of no use. Now maybe I'm just a weirdo, or maybe everyone's different, but it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, other people are doing the same thing, and they're not actually using the mnemonic image to recall the word, but simply to prove to themselves that they know the word before they say it. So many times I've wanted to say something but been scared because I couldn't remember learning the word, and racked my brain to try and remember when and where I used it. This breaks up the flow of your thought and hence your speech. As you learn more words it takes longer and longer to search back and find the proof you need -- if you can find it. Eventually I had to learn to trust myself and say things I couldn't remember having learned. And you know what? I was normally right. My concern with mnemonics is therefore twofold: 1) They slow initial recall, in that you have to remember the mnemonic and reconstruct it before you can recall the word. 2) The learner develops a habit of being able to justify to himself why he knows a word or phrase, a habit which will not be counterproductive in real language use. Now I'm not saying that you are experiencing this second problem, but the fact that some people avoid falling into bad habits doesn't mean that the majority are safe. Some people never get past the "searching for words" stage -- they never learn to trust themselves, and I believe we shouldn't be promoting a technique that discourages self-trust and reliance on instinct, because fluency comes from instinct. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| !LH@N Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6763 days ago 487 posts - 531 votes Speaks: German, Turkish*, English Studies: Serbo-Croatian, Spanish | Message 14 of 22 11 March 2009 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think that mnemonics are good for jump-starting, that make you remember words at the beginning (to your first point: I prefer slow recall to no recall). Of course, you can't just have a whole bunch of weird images in your mind, trying to tell the waitress you want a chicken sandwich.
Now again, the experience I made was that mnemonics help me remember words at the first stage, until I have used the word enough to forget the mnemonic aid (I still remember the Indonesian word for cinema screen after reading Barry Farber's book so many years ago). Regards, Ilhan 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| VityaCo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 7023 days ago 79 posts - 86 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian*, English Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French | Message 15 of 22 22 March 2009 at 3:55am | IP Logged | |||||
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Dear Earnie.
I think, that we are all will be a better off if we look at the roots of a problem and tried to fix any problem in the most as possible natural way. On the planet Earth we have more than 6 Billion people and all can speak at least one language. Many of them tried and still do to learn the second language, but did not succeed. We learned the first one in the natural way with a proper pronunciation and never have a problem with the verbs, nouns, tens, and who knows what else. On average, to learn the first-mother language takes about 2 years minus a year spend as an infant. I have a very good article, that must be read by everybody who study a language. Here it is: http://norvig.com/21-days.html Edited by VityaCo on 22 March 2009 at 3:56am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 5953 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 22 22 March 2009 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think it's directly relevant -- he's talking about crafts, which are very conscious processes. I learnt to program at university, and it's nothing like learning to speak. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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