Hooked on Mnemonics
There’s a piece in the latest Christian Science Monitor (I know, I
know, but they run good articles!) on a new software program called
the Linkword Method, whose interactive approach to teaching foreign
languages is based on the mnemonic device.
In “How I ‘learned’ Spanish in a weekend by free association,” Thomas
describes the process:
On arriving at the Linkword website, I was met by thrilling
proclamations, money-back guarantees, and a bevy of testimonials
singing the praises of a simple system based on mnemonic devices,
invented by one Dr. Michael M. Gruneberg - who, it says, “has spent a
significant portion of his life studying human memory’. “The Linkword
Method,” it explains, “is based on the principle that the human mind
much more easily remembers data attached to spatial, personal, or
otherwise meaningful information than that occurring in meaningless
sequences or basic repetition.”
It claims that 300,000 people worldwide have used it successfully.
Next comes a simple example: the Russian word for “juice” is “sok.”
Picture yourself, it instructs, drinking juice out of a sock. Hold the
miniscenario in your mind’s eye for 10 seconds. Et voilà - the word
is allegedly locked into your mind.
She goes on to give some examples of how it works:
Moments later, I’m in the thick of it, imagining a cat eating a
gateau (gato), a cow vacuuming its field (vaca) and a monkey wearing
a monocle (mono). Though I feel a little silly, this is actually quite
fun. I forge ahead, speeding through vocabulary, working my way
through various tests - which, unlike school, seem effortless to
answer.
It might sound a bit far-fetched, but when I think back to all the
foreign vocabulary I’ve tried to shove into my brain, the words I
remember best are the ones for which I made up wacky association
devices. The price for the Linkword Method starts at $79.99 - steep,
but maybe worth it.
