Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
Something else you can do is make up absurd stories behind the words. Obviously if you do this for every word your head will explode with too much pointless information-- but it can be helpful for words that are hard for you to retain. For example, when I was in high school doing my first year of Japanese, we had to learn the word 地下鉄 (chikatetsu/subway)... for whatever reason. It was one of those words that I knew I wouldn't have to use in everyday conversation but studied it anyways because I would be tested on it. Luckily for me, a loud-mouthed guy (who was a senior on the baseball team, just taking the class to mess around and get an easy A in) kept repeating "chicken sandwich". The idea behind this is that they have "chicken sandwiches" at an American "healthy" fast food chain called "Subway". After I figured out what that guy was doing and I got what it meant, I never forgot it. I don't think I ever had any trouble whatsoever remembering that word. This is in spite of the fact that I didn't use it in conversation for years to come. So if you can come up with stupid little things like this for "hard words" then you can use that as a device to help you retain them. Every time you see or hear the word you'll think of your stupid device and you'll know what it is. Of course that does cause a slight delay (as in word-device-meaning vs word-meaning) it can be useful to get by with during your beginner years.
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1. IIRC from my high school days, this is called the "square peg round hole" method. Weird imagery enhances recall. It's a way to remember grocery lists, too. Suppose you need "fish, milk, printer paper."
Imagine your front door made out of a giant fish. Then you milk a fish's udders. Then milk spills out of the teets.
Then go to the grocery store and think of your front door (your front door should always be the first thing). You'll remember "oh yeah, made out of a big fish, then on and on."
2. This in particular is why I advocate intense kanji emphasis early on. 地下鉄 is trivial to remember if you already know the kanji for "earth" "under" and "iron." Sort of how learning a word like "hydrophobia" is easy if you know "hydro" is "water" and "phobia" is "fear" and if you know the symptoms of rabies.