A question I get asked all the time is
"Luca how can you memorize so many words across so many languages?" And my simple
answer is: "I build a word spider web", and in this video, I'm going to give you the
tools to create it, to maintain it, and to make it stronger. If I say the word "game"
what is the very first thing that comes to your mind?
Probably something associated with "play" - playing games - but the reality is
that "game" has many other meanings. For example, you can say "I was huntin
g game",
meaning "I was hunting wild animals" or "Are you game?" - like "are you down?, do you want to do something?". So this goes to show that many words have multiple
meanings and functions according to their context and what gives them meaning? Context, that is, surrounding words. So, whenever you find a word that you don't
know in a foreign language, always make sure that you either take the sentence
in which that word is embedded and you copy it somewhere on your notebook, for
example, o
r you create your own sentence in which you embed that word. A very
common mistake is for example to take all these words that you don't know from
a text and simply put it on a list. But isolated words are not as strong as
words in context, embedded in sentences. Always remember that as a first rule. A simple yet very effective way to
memorize and learn new words is to listen while reading. Think about it for
a second: you can for example read a text as a beginner material or you can have
podcas
ts with scripts or movies with subtitles. The most important thing is
that you listen while reading or reading while listening. If you just listen to
the language without subtitles or a script, you will not see the written word,
you will probably not understand if you don't have a good level. On the other
hand, if you just read a text, you will not see and hear how the language is
spoken, so you will miss out on the spoken language. The easiest solution? Read
while listening as much as you can.
When you read a text in a foreign language
there's a very high chance that you're going to stumble upon a lot of words
that you don't know. A very common reaction is to try to strike and
underline and look up every single word that appears on the text. I don't think
that this is an efficient way to deal with it. A much more efficient way is to
focus just on the words that are RELEVANT for you. Let me give you an
example: if you're an engineer, words such as "tile" or "pillar" will probably be mu
ch
more interesting and relevant to you than if you were a doctor for example,
and for a doctor some other words might be more interesting, and anyway, the brain
discards a lot of words that it deems not important. So just focus on ONE THIRD
of the unknown words that you find in the text because the brain will remember
those words if they're relevant for you. Heart, elephant and sand. If you think
about it, these simple words have a constellation of elements around them.
For example you can say
"(see) pink elephants" or "the elephant in the room", "to draw a
line in the sand", "at the heart of the matter" "golden heart", and so on and so forth. This goes to show that the brain creates big
networks of associated elements and this is how you can use your brain in order
to start learning new words. Every new piece of information you can link it to
old pieces of information, so always make sure that you look at words from this
perspective and think "how can I associate this new piece of in
formation
to the other pieces of information?" in the network that I have talked about. And
this is the "word spiderweb" I was talking about at the beginning of this video. Some languages have notoriously long
words. Let's take the German word "Freundschaftsbezeigung" which means "display of
friendship" but if you think about it, the first reaction is to get scared by he
length of this word, but then when looking closely, you will realize that
this word is made of "Freundschaft" - - friendship -
and "Bezeigung" -
or "Bezeigungen" - display, displays of". This makes the word easier to retain,
easier to pronounce, and easier to remember. So get into the habit of
looking at words as made of smaller parts. If you learn how these smaller
parts make longer words, things will get much easier in terms of everything. Romans used to say "Repetita juvant", which means "repeating helps" and that's true, and that's what we do at college
university, at school: we tend to repeat things over and ove
r, but repeating
things in the very same way in which we had been exposed to the very first time
is not actually a very efficient way of dealing with texts. Let me give you a
metaphor: imagine that you have to conquer a castle - that is, conquering the
language - if you always attack it through the main door, the defendants will
realize your tactics and your strategy and it will be easier to defend the
castle. If, instead, you attack the castle from multiple angles, you are more likely
to win th
e battle. To give you a very concrete example, if you listen while
reading the text the very first time that you got exposed to it, three or four days
down the line, do things differently maybe just listen to the text, or just
read it, or listen to it in the target language while reading it in your own
native language. Whatever is different is relevant and
it makes a big difference in the way our brain retains information because we're
adding VARIETY to it. Novelty and repetition is a fantastic
combination to
retain words, texts, and whatever you want. "Verba volant sed scripta manent", "spoken words fly while written words stay" another wise quote from the wise Romans. Why is this so relevant 2,000 years ago as it is now? It's because words that are
spoken, they just fly around the air and you need a system in place to catch them. So
always make sure that you have a device, a note-taking device - be it your mobile
phone or your notebook - to catch these words and these sentences on t
he fly. You
can do it everywhere. You can do it while you're sitting and you're trying to
learn the language, and you can do it while you're talking to your friends in
a bar, you can do it even while walking and you come up with a word that you
want to know the meaning of in a foreign language. Whatever it is, just
make sure that you have a notebook that you can fit in your pocket
and you can carry it with you at all times. And another tip is when you mark
words or sentences, always make sure th
at you mark the PLACE and the TIME where
this happened, because it's going to give you a very clear reference in time and
space for your episodic memory. It makes a huge difference if you get into the
habit of doing this every single day. This video contains a lot of information
and I've condensed it for the sake of brevity and clarity. If you want to know
more, you can click on the link in the description box below and you will be
able to read a very extensive article about this very same topic
. So here you
have it. These are the seven tools to create and strengthen your "word
spider web". All you need to do now is to get out there and catch as many "word
flies" as possible.
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