One of my plans for this year is to enrich my vocabulary. My goal is 2000 words in each language (French, German, Japanese, and Italian).
Since I’m most comfortable with French, this is what I’ll tackle first. Here’s the list of the 2000 most used French words: Wiktionary: French Frequency Lists 1-2000. [After taking a closer look, I found this list to be marginally useful. A lot of the words are really the same words in different forms (different conjugations, nominalized verbs, etc.), and some of them, such as abbreviations, I don't find particularly useful right now. So, I'll mix in words/expressions from other sources as well.]
How am I going to memorize all these words? Well, since around New Year’s Day or so I learned about Dominic O’Brien, the memory champion. He, and other memory buffs, is using the “Journey Method” to memorize lists and mnemonics to associate words. I’ve been listening to his audio book “Quantum Memory Power,” and so far his memory tips work very well. I’ve also tried it to memorize some French vocabulary a few days ago, and everything still sticks. Of course it takes me a while to figure out the mnemonics to use for each word, but I think it’ll get easier with practice. So, that’s the plan.
I tried just using mnemonics earlier today to memorize some German words, and it didn’t work quite as well as combining it with the Journey Method. The problem is with the Journey Method, I can replay the scenes with ease in my head for practice. Plus the locations used in the journey serve as an additional association that can help trigger the words I’m learning.
Anyway, here are some links about the Journey Method (also called Method of Loci) and memory techniques for your information:
- Wikipedia: Method of Loci
- How to develop a perfect memory (limited preview of the book)
- How to develop a brilliant memory (limited preview of the book)
2 responses so far ↓
Zach // January 19, 2008 at 7:03 pm |
That’s a reasonable goal I think. It’s only 22 words per day, which is quite possible. I haven’t participated in any “memory conditioning,” but that audio book looks interesting and I might have to check it out. I could always use some more memorization ability.
Good luck!
olivz // January 21, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Thanks, Zach. I haven’t thought about it in terms of # of words per day, but about 22 words daily aren’t bad at all.