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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5952 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 9 of 10 17 December 2010 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
This is a great idea, and if it weren't so time-consuming to do this for every new word I come across, I'd try to use it myself. I think that the nature of Japanese language (and Chinese too, I'd presume) with its characters is really helpful for this sort of thinking. I find that if I know the Japanese word, its kanji (along with their individual meanings), and the English meaning, I can remember the words quite well. For example, let's say I learn this Japanese word, 調味料 (chōmiryō), which means 'seasoning' or 'condiment.' The first thing I do is look at the Japanese pronunciation, saying it aloud or in my head. Then I look at the English to begin forming a link between the two words in my mind. Then, looking at the kanji, I can disassemble the word based on my knowledge of the characters' meanings: 調 - 'tune' 味 - 'flavor' 料 - 'fee' (it seems unrelated to the meaning of the word but I have noticed the frequent use of this character in words relating to cooking, like 料理, 'cuisine,' so I could possibly use this to remember it here) So... Something that "tunes the flavor of the cuisine" -- which is exactly what a seasoning or condiment is. And this could be applied to many different words: 生物学 (life + thing + study = biology), 植物園 (plant + thing + park = botanical garden), 冷蔵庫 (cool + storehouse + warehouse = refrigerator), 商店街 (make a deal + store + boulevard = shopping district/street), 小説 (small + rumor/explanation = novel/story), and many more. I think having the link between the English meaning and the kanji and between the kanji and the Japanese word in addition to the English-Japanese meanings is very useful because, like chelovek noted, it provides a stronger link between the two languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chelovek Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5897 days ago 413 posts - 461 votes 5 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 10 18 December 2010 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | ||
Good point, slymie. I didn't really mean to imply that breaking down every word would always lead you to a clear answer on its ultimate meaning. Sometimes a word can't be broken down, and sometimes a word's constituent parts are meaningless. Nonetheless, you can still usually find some type of explanation, even if that just means learning that the word sandwich comes from a Duke's name, or that кит (whale) is just the Russian version of the ancient Greek word for sea beast, kitos. By the way, I learned кит for the first time yesterday. The etymological dictionary said it came from kitos, which meant морское чудовище (sea beast). I then explored "чудовище" (beast, monster), which comes from "чудо", a word meaning "miracle" or "a wonder". In fact, the same word is used in the expression "a freak of nature". The -ище ending on the suffix signifies enormity, so from there it's quite clear that "monster" in Russian literally means "a great wonder (of nature)". That took about five minutes of casual reading with my dictionary and the computer, and I was able to recall all of that as though it were on the back of my hand. :) Granted, I can't yet vouch for long-term recall, but this is a level of understanding and confidence that I've yet to achieve with another learning method. Edited by chelovek on 18 December 2010 at 1:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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