How to Use English to Learn Foreign Words

Learning lists of foreign words becomes easier with mnemonics.

Using English words to learn a foreign vocabulary by creating mnemonics not only makes the exercise more enjoyable and amusing, it also provides a lasting impression in the mind so that the learned foreign words are not easily forgotten. Mnemonics can take the form of rhymes or pictures and are frequently used in schools to help students remember important dates or commonly known facts such as the colors of the rainbow.

Instructions

1. Find a logical or literal meaning of the foreign word to be translated into English by deciding what English word the foreign word sounds like. Michael Tipper, in the article "How to Learn Foreign Words," uses the example of the German word "seife" which in English means soap. He points out that the word "seife" sounds like "siphon," so siphon becomes his logical connection.

2. Create a vivid mental image of the logical English word. In his example, Michael Tipper pictures a huge red siphon overflowing with gallons of soapy suds.

3. Add imagined sounds and smells to the logical translation to fix it firmly in mind. With the siphon example, whenever the word "seife" is heard, it triggers the image of the huge red siphon with all the soapy suds and the meaning of the foreign word is remembered.

Tips & Warnings

• Say the foreign word out loud and decide what it sounds like in English. The more literal the English is, the more powerful the memory pictures will be. Another example from Michael Tipper is for the French word "livre," meaning "book" in English. He suggests imagining an open book with raw liver on each page.

References

• Happy Child: How to Learn Foreign Words

Resources

• Memorista: What are Mnemonics?