Improving memory for foreign language vocabulary_其他

Improving memory for foreign language vocabulary

For language learning he states our ability to make connections – to join one jungle path to the next - is the key to its improvement. He has adopted what he calls mind maps to assist with memory and creativity whereby one idea or word is then expanded to its next idea or word and on and on until the picture resembles something like a red eye that has lots of other lines coming out from the center.

My wife who is Chinese and has taught English for several years and now works as a translator for government has a good ability to remember new words and when I asked for her advice she said first she likes to learn the sound of the word, the phonetics, then she likes to learn the components of the word, the root, prefix and suffix (e.g. 'dis' and 'ease' for 'disease') and then she likes to connect these words to other words she has previously learnt (e.g. a serious disease, heart disease etc).

The beauty of Buzan is his belief and optimism in the brain's potential. A common myth, which he challenges as false, is the idea that as we get old our memory gets worse. A complaint post graduates often make saying that the English they studied as an undergrad has now been lost. Buzan however says this knowledge has just not been exercised – that it is still present just that the connections; the brain paths have not been cleared as frequently as they should have been.

I think when it comes to learning vocabulary – the key is actually frequent use and exposure. Be it via flash cards, writing it down a hundred times, screaming it out at the top of your lungs like Li Yang's Crazy English – ideally what will occur is a connection made between a previously learnt word, or emotion to the new word that is sought to be learnt. Then ideally a connection from that new word just learnt to an even newer word – and so the jungle path gets more expansive.