|
127
USE YOUR MEMORY
the key word is association. In the context of language learning, it is
well to associate sounds, images and similarities, using the fact
that certain languages are grouped in 'families' and have words
that are related.
To give you an idea of this linking method, I shall consider a few
words from English, French, Latin and German. In English, you
want to remember the word vertigo, which means 'dizziness' or
'giddiness', and in which a person feels as if surrounding objects
were turning around. To imprint this word on the memory you
associate the sound of it with the phrase where to go? which is the
kind of question you would ask if you felt that all surrounding
objects were rotating about you.
Two words that many people confuse in the English language
are acrophobia, which is a morbid fear of heights, and agoraphobia, a
morbid fear of open spaces. The distinction can be firmly estab-
lished if you associate the aero in acrophobia with acrobat (a person
who performs at great height) and the agora in agoraphobia with
agriculture, bringing to mind images of open fields (though the
Greek word agora actually means 'marketplace').
Foreign languages are more approachable when one realises
that they form groups. Practically all European languages (with
the exception of Finnish, Hungarian and Basque) are part of the
Indo-European group, and consequently they contain a number
of words similar in both sound and meaning. For example, the
words forfather. German, Voter; Latin,pater; French, pere; Italian
and Spanish, padre. A knowledge of Latin is of enormous help in
understanding all the Romance languages, in which many of the
words are similar. The Latin word for love is amor. Related to love
in the English language is the word amorous, which means
'inclined to love; in love; and of, or pertaining to, love'. The links
are obvious. Similarly, you have the Latin word for God: Deus. In
English, the words deity and deify mean, respectively, 'divine
status; a god; the Creator' and 'to make a god of.
French was derived from the speech of the Roman
legionnaires, who called the head testa, hence tete, and the arm
brachium, hence bras, etc. About 50 per cent of ordinary English
speech is derived from Latin (plus Greek) either directly or by way
of Norman French, leading to many direct similarities between
French and English.
In addition to similarities based on language grouping, foreign
words can be remembered in a manner not unlike that explained
for remembering English words. Since we are discussing French,
the following two examples are appropriate: in French, the word
128
MEMORY SYSTEMS FOR VOCABULARY AND LANGUAGE
for book is livre. This can be remembered more readily if you think
of the first four letters of the word library, which is a place where
books are classified and studied. The French word for pen is
plume, which in English refers to a bird's feather, especially a large
one used for ornament. This immediately brings to mind the quill
pen used widely before the invention of the steel nib, fountain pen
and ball-point pen. The link-chain plume-feather-quill-pen will
make remembering the French word a simple task.
Apart from Latin, Greek and French, the rest of English is
largely Anglo-Saxon, going back to German, giving rise to count-
less words that are the same in German and English - will, hand,
arm, bank, halt, wolf, etc., whereas others are closely related: light
(Licht), night (Nacht), book (Buch), stick (Stock), ship (Schiff) and
house (Haus).
Learning languages, both our own and those of other people,
need not be the frustrating and depressing experience it so often
is. It is simply a matter of organising the information you want to
learn in such a way as to enable your memory to 'hook on' to every
available scrap of information.
One way to get a head start in learning a language is to realise
that in most languages, 50 per cent of all conversation is made up
of only 100 words. If you apply the Major System to the memori-
sation of these 100 basic words, you are already 50 per cent of the
way toward being able to understand the basic conversation of any
native speaker.
For your convenience, the 100 basic words in the English
language are listed overleaf. You will find that if you compare
them with their counterparts in, say, French, German, Swedish,
etc., nearly 50 per cent of these are almost the same as in English,
with only minor variations in the accent and accentuation of the
words.
129
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
