I'm just going to give everyone a heads up for any future posts if mine: I'm always playing around with ideas, most of which end up being pointless or retarded, but I like bouncing them off people anyway so please don't hate me lol.

So the latest idea is pretty simple and basically just combines a couple of memory techniques with iKnow to, in theory, speed up vocabulary acquisition tremendously.

I'm sure all of you are aware of the movie method for learning the Kanji readings. You basically take a movie and add in the readings/meanings into the scenes. Combining the readings with a visual image you are familiar with aids in memory. Now I haven't personally used this method for readings but I do know that it does in fact work as I at one time played around with a story method (I think it is called the roman room method) for learning vocabulary. By placing words in association with rooms and objects in my apartment and office I was able to learn about 250 new vocabulary words with nearly 90% recall (after one days time of not reviewing them) in a matter of just two days. However, this was before I had became aware of SRS type systems so without a systematic way to keep up with reviewing all of those words I basically dropped the idea.

But now we have iKnow with a 6,000 word vocabulary list, with audio, that works in a pseudo SRS fashion.

So the idea is to take each section of iKnow, which are broken down in roughly 200 word sections, and throw those vocabulary words into a movie using the linkword method. Linkwording is basically just associating the sound of the vocabulary word with an object you know. It is a quick and dirty way of remembering stuff fast. It's not great for real long term memory but since we'll be combing it with an SRS that won't matter. The SRS will take care of perfecting it long term while the link wording will let us throw the stuff into the SRS in huge heaps.

Linkwording example: The Japanese word for "Red" is "Akai". Your linkword phrase could simple be something like "A KIte is red". You simply imagine a red kite flying in the air. It doesn't matter if the sounds exactly matches up. It's just supposed to give you a big hint. It is a proven memory method that works.

Well now all you have to do is throw that link word into a movie. For instance let's pick "The Terminator". Reese appears out of the time displacement completely naked and holding "A kite that is red".

Ok so how would we use it with iKnow? Well as I said earlier iKnow is broken down into individual lessons of a couple hundred vocab words each. What I think you could do is essentially just assign one movie per entire lesson. If we go by an average movie length of 1hr and 40 minutes with a 200 word iKnow lesson that means you only have to place a vocabulary word every 30 seconds.

What I'm imagining is that you take one iKnow lesson vocab and sit down with it every night with the movie for that lesson and simply do 50 words, or roughly 25 minutes worth of the movie. We'll say an 1hr total with having to create the link words. Remember they should be quick and dirty so you should not be spending even 1 minute per link word image IMO. The next day do a quick review of your previous 50 words and then go on to the next part of the movie. Or heck better yet just start the movie over again, if you have time that is, and let it run full speed until you get to the next section as you review the previous words along the way.

At the end of 4 days you're through 200 words and should, in theory, be able to absolutely fly through the corresponding initial iKnow lessons for that section.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Wait maybe I'm an idiot. I'm now thinking I don't even need the movie part and could simply link word each list and leave it at that. I could link word an entire 200 word list in one day with ease. I might try this today or tomorrow and see what happens.

I think the movie just acts as another familiar layer to hold it all in place.

I curious to see the results of something like this.

The movie part is more useful in Alyks's method because it links everything in groups for readings. If you don't need that, it's less critical to add.

I started off trying Alyks's method, but found I didn't have the discipline to keep up with creating stories and thinking of the right movie, etc. Instead, I would sit down to do it, and get lost trying to decide which reading to tackle next and what movie to associate, etc. I did find my recall percentabge significantly higher with the movie method (always over 90%, instead of 70% with RTK normal), but that might also be because I would stall more often and stopped at a couple hundred characters (out of order, so some complex ones like DETACH, though). The other issue I had with it was that often characters show up in multiple readings and I found it confusing. I have a little knowledge of vocabulary anyways, so I pro'ly know 身長 and 長い without having to think about it very much.

Interesting idea for vocabulary, although I find that I don't have too much trouble remembering vocabulary - especially if I already know the kanji from RTK.

kazelee Wrote:I think the movie just acts as another familiar layer to hold it all in place.

I curious to see the results of something like this.

I haven't slept in about 24hrs and am currently at work for another 6hrs but I'm trying to mess around with it as we speak lol. I'm going to try the first lesson of iKnow just linkwording the vocabulary first without the movie and see how that works.

The biggest issue I foresee is how is iKnow is going to deal with me trying to go over 200 new words in a single day. Guess there is only one way to find out.

haplology Wrote:Interesting idea for vocabulary, although I find that I don't have too much trouble remembering vocabulary - especially if I already know the kanji from RTK.

I don't really have a problem with learning vocabulary either per say but if there is a way to make it even faster I want to figure it out. I want to find a way to eliminate the kind of blank feeling you have the very first time you see a completely new vocabulary word. Now that I've completed RTK1 I hate anything that feels remotely like old fashion rote memorization which is exactly what the initial reviews of new vocabulary feels like. Yes the Kanji provides me a big hint as what the word is supposed to MEAN but it doesn't really provide a huge memory boost on how to SAY it.

I want to be able to see a brand new vocab word right then and there have some sort of connection for it's reading and meaning.

I do something close to you. But I always use the same location for sonds. They are not really movies. For instance, for syou reading, I use a "rock show". I don't use a SRS to revise too, It is really not needed - it is so easy to remember.

activeaero Wrote:

haplology Wrote:Interesting idea for vocabulary, although I find that I don't have too much trouble remembering vocabulary - especially if I already know the kanji from RTK.

I don't really have a problem with learning vocabulary either per say but if there is a way to make it even faster I want to figure it out. I want to find a way to eliminate the kind of blank feeling you have the very first time you see a completely new vocabulary word. Now that I've completed RTK1 I hate anything that feels remotely like old fashion rote memorization which is exactly what the initial reviews of new vocabulary feels like. Yes the Kanji provides me a big hint as what the word is supposed to MEAN but it doesn't really provide a huge memory boost on how to SAY it.

I want to be able to see a brand new vocab word right then and there have some sort of connection for it's reading and meaning.

It comes automatically with experience. Let say you see the word 水中 for the first time. You have no connection and you have a hard time remembering it. I learned that word very late (I had passed JLPT2 before I ever saw it used) and it made perfect sense to me from the first time. It wouldn't have had to review or anything, I would remember it straight away since I know several words where 水 is pronounced すい and I know several words where 中 is pronounced ちゅう AND the meaning was obvious from the kanji. It was just a 1 look -> perfect understanding moment.

Simple example, but I'm sure it's the same when you know more words for every kanji. The knowledge of kanji combined with your experience with the readings.. it just clicks.

What is iKnow? Link?

From what I could gather from your original post, your idea was to use movies to tie together your vocab mnemonics?

I've screwed around with a whole lot of different mnemonics to remember all sorts of things, I wrote about it a little on my blog. It's true that location is very much helpful for remembering your mnemonics, but for vocab mnemonics it doesn't work with movies. Try instead to use the area you live in, it's easier than movies because it's real. But don't disregard the use of location, it's much more effective than just dry linkwording I've found. The only reason the onyomi were seperated by movies in the first place was to seperate the onyomi. Words don't need seperating unless you wanted to memorize words for a language with genders.

I personally agree completely with Tobberoth here and don't actually use mnemonics myself for Japanese (past the kanji), but go ahead and try it and report back.

@cloudstrife: http://www.iknow.co.jp

activeaero Wrote:The biggest issue I foresee is how is iKnow is going to deal with me trying to go over 200 new words in a single day. Guess there is only one way to find out.

Adding a lot in a day is no problem, it's the reviews that kill you. Furthermore each course is handled separately.

Also, I don't use mnemonics either. I just mentally picture what the word's meaning is and focus on the word and the kanji that make it up.