HOW TO LEARN LANGUAGES

When you are memorizing a large vocabulary, you need somewhere to store everything, a place where words can be accessed quickly and easily. There's nothing worse than having a head crammed full of information. It's not that there is too much (your brain can store far more information than most of us will ever need), it just isn't ordered properly or organized well.

Step 1:

Choose a familiar town. The perfect way to store basic vocabulary is by using a detailed mental map of a town or village. Think of the sort of words you will be learning: shop, church, garage, door, car, road, house, room, chair. A town can encompass all these everyday words.

Step 2:

Use your imagination and association. Let the foreign word suggest a key image to you. For example, the German for a 'plate' is 'teller'. Your key image might be of a bank teller. Concentrate on the phonetic sound of a foreign word, rather than the way it is spelt. If some of your associations produce words that don't quite match the correct pronunciation, don't worry. You can add the finishing touches of accent and emphasis later.

Step 3:

Place your key image in an appropriate location, suggested by the English. You are likely to find a plate in a restaurant, so think of a particular establishment you know in your chosen town.

Step 4:

Combining your key image and location, imagine a bank teller counting out piles of money on a large plate in the corner of the restaurant.

The advantage of using a mental map of your town as your filing system is that you can group various types of words together in different quarters or ghettos. Adjectives can all be put in the park, for example; action verbs (to run, to shout, to jump, to swim, and so on) can he found in and around the sports complex.

More importantly, however, it allows you to divide up words into their respective genders.