The only Swedish I know is "Danskjävlar!" via the angry Swedish doctor from Lars von Trier's Riget.

nest0r Wrote:The only Swedish I know is "Danskjävlar!" via the angry Swedish doctor from Lars von Trier's Riget.

I love that line. If you've seen the clip on youtube, you should know that all he says is ***** gold.

"Här, Danmark. Utskitet av kalk och vatten. Och där... Sverige. Hugget i granit. Dansk... jävlar... DANSKJÄVLAR!!!"

Ernst-Hugo ftw.

An excerpt from How to Learn Any Language by Barry Farber:

How does a farmhand feel the day the tractor arrives, after he’s plowed by hand for
thirty-one years? Undoubtedly the way I felt when, after decades of memorising foreign
vocabulary the old way, I suddenly discovered Harry Lorayne and his methods.
Harry Lorayne became well known some years ago as the world’s leading “memory
magician.” His feats of memory for names and faces, complex numbers, and hundreds of
objects he could repeat forward, backward, or in scrambled order enlivened many a late
night TV show.
Harry Lorayne was to be a guest on my WOR radio show one night to talk about his
book on improving memory. It was his seventeenth or eighteenth book on memory and,
as I was looking it over, I saw a short, almost hidden chapter entitled “Memorising
Foreign Language Vocabulary.”
I sped to that chapter and my language learning life changed completely from that
moment forward. I think I actually cried in rage at all the time I’d wasted attempting rote
memory of foreign words during the thirty-one years I had studied languages before I met
Harry Lorayne!
Let me invite you now to pay one last visit to the old way of learning foreign
language vocabulary before we wave it an untearful goodbye. Imagine facing a page
containing a hundred words in a foreign language. You only know eight or nine of them,
you have a test tomorrow morning at eight o’clock, and your roommate is playing the
radio too loud.
You sit there with your palms pressed over your ears repeating those unrelenting
syllables over and over, hoping enough of them will stick by dawn to give you a passing
grade.
Did you enjoy that kind of learning? Are you nostalgic for it? If so, enjoy the
recollection now. After the following pages you will never tackle new vocabulary that
way again.
In the fourth or fifth grade, when Miss Hobbs was teaching us the rudiments of
music, my class accomplished an amazing feat of memory in one flash (many of you probably had the same experience). The notes on the five line music staff, E, G, B, D, and
F, could easily be remembered with the help of a simple phrase, “Every Good Boy Does
Fine.” What’s more, we learned that the notes in the spaces between the lines were F, A,
C, and E, or, as we ten year olds guessed, the word “face.” Who could ask for anything
more?
Harry Lorayne teaches us we can ask for everything more! He teaches a system of
association – called mnemonics – that allows you to almost always bring forth any word
in conversation whenever you want it.
The way to capture and retain a new word in a foreign language is to sling a vivid
association around the word that makes it impossible to forget. Lasso the unfamiliar with
a lariat woven from the familiar.
We’ll now take a random assortment of words in various languages and
demonstrate how it works.
The Spanish word for “old” is viejo, pronounced vee-A-ho, the middle syllable
rhyming with “hay.” Imagine a Veterans Administration hospital – a VA hospital – that’s
so old and decrepit they have to tear it down and build a new one. Before they lay the
dynamite the crew foreman calls the contractor and tells him, “We don’t have to waste
dynamite on this VA hospital. It’s so old we can knock it over with a hoe!”
Got it? A VA hospital so old you can knock it over with a hoe. And that gives us
viejo. (Viejo is stressed on the next to last syllable: vi-E-jo; in our code, v-A-hoe.)
Readers of much skepticism and little faith will worry that spinning such an
involved yarn to capture one word is less productive than spending that same amount of
time simply repeating the word to yourself over and over again. Wrong. The yarn, like a
dream, takes much longer to tell or read than it does to imagine. And you’ll quickly see
for yourself how helpful the yarn is when it comes time to retrieve the word and use it.
As you continue now through further demonstrations of this technique, try to
challenge the examples. See if you can think of better ones. A “better” one is simply one
that works better for you.
We’re going to swing headlong now into dozens of sample “lassos,” associations
designed to rope your target word and bring it obediently to your feet, never again to part.
Ignore the fact that many of the examples that follow teach words in languages you’re not
trying to learn. Never mind, I tell you, never mind! Learn the system and you will use it
happily and effectively ever after in the language of your choice.
The French word for “anger” is colère, pronounced cole-AIR.
Strange, we associate anger with heat. We say “in the heat of anger”, but when
someone is angry at us, we say he’s “cold,” “chilly,” “giving us the cold shoulder.” It’s
not too much of a leap to imagine an angry person radiating his anger, spilling it off in all
directions, in the form of cold air. You hope he’s not angry, but when you enter his
office, you know your hopes were in vain because you can feel the colère, the “col’ air”
(cole’-AIR).
The Russian word for “house” is dom, pronounced dome. Imagine your amazement
upon landing in Moscow and seeing all the houses with dome type roofs. Or imagine
marveling at how domestic the Russian men are.
The Italian word for “chicken” is pollo, pronounced exactly like the English “polo”
(PO-lo). Imagine your Italian host urging you to join him for an unbelievable spectacle.
An Italian impresario with a gift for animal training has staged the world’s first polo match between teams of chickens! You’re thrilled that you’re going to be able to go back
to Gaffney, South Carolina, and tell your friends you saw chickens playing polo!
The Italian word for “wife” is moglie, pronounced MOLE-yay. Imagine you’re a man
about to get married and you get a friendly tip from an indiscreet clergyman that your
bride to be is known to have a strange animal as a pet and fully intends to bring that
animal into your home after the nuptials.
You’re torn! It’s too late to call off the marriage. All the relatives have been invited
and the paperwork is all in. Besides, you love her. You decide to barrel forward and hope
for the best.
As the organ plays and the preacher intones the vows, all you can think of is, “What
kind of animal is it? Is it a lion? Is it a tiger? Is it a slick and sneaky snake? A giraffe?”
When the two of you arrive at your threshold after the honeymoon, the suspense
ends. She brings forth a pleasant little cage containing a cute, furry little creature.
“This is my pet mole,” she says. “He’s going to live with us.”
You cry forth your relief. “Hooray!” you shout. “It’s only a mole. It’s only a mole!”
you cheer, “Yay!”
It’s only a mole-yay. Your wife’s secret animal is nothing more than a mole,
therefore, “Yay!” “Wife” equals MOLE-yay.

WAIT A MINUTE!

An enemy, a skeptic, even a queasy ally at this point could say, “Wait a minute. I’m
trying to learn a language. I’m not sure I want to walk around with a headful of images of
wives who keep moles, chickens that play polo, angry people emitting cold air, and VA
hospitals you can knock over with a hoe!”
You won’t! One beauty of the system is, the association that helps you capture the
word falls away and disintegrates. Once you’ve learned the words, the “crutch”
obligingly disappears.
A common form of the verb “to speak” in Hebrew is medaber, pronounced meda-
BEAR. There it is: you were walking through the newly planted forests of Israel and
suddenly you “med” a bear who could speak!
In Indonesian, “movie screen” is lajar, pronounced almost exactly like “liar” (LI-
ar). Easy. The man is rapidly winning the woman’s heart in the movie, but you don’t
wish him well because he’s such a lajar!
“Horse” in Russian, transliterated into English script, is lo-shod, pronounced almost
exactly like LAW-shod. You try to bring your own horse with you into the Soviet Union,
but at the border the Soviet customs officer tells you Sorry, he’d like to accommodate
you, but your horse doesn’t have horseshoes and, according to Soviet law, all horses must
be shod.
“Horse” equals LAW-shod.
The Greek word for “grape” in English transliteration is stafilya, pronounced sta-
FEEL-ya.
You’re in a Greek vineyard in the mountains near Albania. You see the most
luscious grape you’ve ever laid eyes on. As you reach for it, the air is split with a squeaky
voice screaming “Don’t touch me!” “I’m sorry,” you sputter, retreating in shock and shame. “I wasn’t going to eat you.
It was just to FEEL you (jus’ sta-FEEL-ya).”
Grape equals sta-FEEL-ya.
The Serbo-Croatian word for “lunch” is ru&ak, pronounced almost exactly like RUE-
chuck. You’re having lunch in a restaurant in Yugoslavia. The waiter overhears you
making a political remark he doesn’t appreciate, so he throws you out bodily. Never one
to go quietly, you pick yourself up out of the gutter, dust yourself off, and, just before
you head for the American Embassy to protest, you shake your first at the waiter through
the window and vow he’ll rue the day he chucked you out while you were having lunch.
“Lunch” equals RUE-chuck.
“Plate” in Indonesian is piring, pronounced exactly like the English “peering”
(PEER-ing).
Your Indonesian restaurant experience is a bit more pleasant than the one in
Yugoslavia. You walk in and find yourself suddenly becalmed by the serenity of the
dining room. All the Indonesians seem to have their heads bowed in prayer. You ask the
headwaiter if you’ve interrupted some sort of religious service.
“Not at all,” he assures you. “They’re not praying. We just got our new plates with
mirrored surfaces and they’re all peering at themselves to see how they look!”
“Plate” equals PEER-ing.
The Farsi word for “cheaper” transliterated into English is arzontar, pronounced
our-zone-TAR.
The hotel in Tehran is filled, but the clerk tells you it’s a warm night and he’d be
happy to rent you sleeping space on the roof. You’re delighted to learn you’re paying
only half what the other roof sleepers are paying, until you get to your designated spot on
the roof, at which point you exclaim to your spouse, “Now I see why our spot is cheaper.
All the other tourists are sleeping on those nice ceramic tiles. Our zone, the spot assigned
to us, however, is tar!”
“Cheaper” equals our-zone-TAR.
“Potato” in German is kartoffel, pronounced exactly like cart-AW-ful.
You buy potatoes from a cart and they turn out to be awful. “Potato” equals cart-
AW-ful.
Stop right here! Do you remember the Spanish word for “old?” Or the French word
for “anger,” the Italian word for “wife,” the Serbo-Croatian word for “lunch,” or the
Indonesian word for “movie screen?”
When we display this system of word capturing at seminars for the Learning
Annex, there’s a collective gasp when, after spelling out an association to capture the
tenth word, we suddenly stop and ask how many can recall word number one, four, and
so on. At no point did we suggest that the students try to recall the words used as
examples as we laid out the system. When they see that almost everybody recalls every
single one of them anyhow, the students realise this system contrasts well with the kind
of rote learning they’d tried earlier. One grateful participant exclaimed, “This system
teaches you words you’re not even trying to learn. The old way doesn’t teach you no
matter how hard you try!”

The Almosters
The skeptic has one shot left before he’s wiped out by the power of the method. He can,
at this point, say, “Hold it! Every word you’ve used to demonstrate the system so far falls
much too neatly into our lap – liar, mole-yay. It’s a setup. It’s not real. Very few words
will cooperate with the system once you tackle the real world!”
And he’s right! The words we’ve been subjecting to the memory system so far are
automatics. They fall right into your lap with self suggesting images. Only a small
percentage of words will fall into the system as facilely as the automatics. More, many
more than you imagine, will fit automatically into the system, but far from enough to
conquer another language. Never mind! Behind the words that fit neatly into the system
are many times that number of words that, while fitting nowhere nearly as neatly, can
nonetheless take you so close to the target word that true memory can easily complete the
job. We call those words almosters. Of our four groups – automatics, almosters,
toughies, and impossibles – the almosters make up by far the single biggest category.
Let’s demonstrate.

The Chinese word for “lobster” is transliterated as low-shah, pronounced very
much like LOAN-shark. If you imagine that lobster is so expensive you need a loan shark
to negotiate a lobster lunch, true memory will easily putt you from loan-shark to low-
shah.
Shrimp in Indonesian is gambiri, pronounced gam to rhyme with “Tom” followed
by “beery” (gam-BI-ri). You complain to your waiter in Indonesia that the chewing gum
he served you tastes awfully beery. He advises you it’s not chewing gum, it’s shrimp.
Your putt will take you from GUM-beery to GAM-beery.
The Serbo-Croatian word for “spoon” is kasika, pronounced KASH (to rhyme with
“gosh”)-ee-kah.
You want to get a spoon in Belgrade. They send you outside the hotel to a cash-
and-carry to get a spoon if you want one.
Or if you’re familiar with the Eastern grain called kasha (buckwheat groats), you
can imagine dipping you spoon into a bowl of kasha in the back seat of your car. True
memory will carry you from kasha-car to KASH-ee-ka.
“Spoon,” then, equals KASH-ee-ka.
The Italian word for “day” is giorno, pronounced JUR (as in “jury”)-no. You’re
eagerly awaiting the outcome of a legal action, but the jury has been tied up all day with
no verdict. Even stronger would be the notion of eagerly awaiting the outcome of the trial
and learning that the whole day went by without the jury even showing up! All day and
jury no.
“Day” equals JUR-no.
“Humid” in Farsi is martoob, pronounced mar (as in “marshal”)-TOOB (as in
“tube”). It’s so dry in Central Iran that in order to provide comfortable humidity in your
room, the maritime authorities arranged to bring water in through a tube.
True memory will easily let you lop off all but the first syllable of “maritime” and
change the vowel from the a as in “maritime” to a as in “marshal” so that humidity equals
mar-TOOB.
“Banana” in Indonesian is pisang, pronounced PEA-song, the second syllable
rhyming with the cong in “conga”. You’d long heard of jungle magic in the outer islands
of Indonesia, but you never really believed it until you went to the local grocer looking for bananas. You don’t see bananas anywhere. You ask if he has any bananas. Sure, he
says, plenty. “Excuse me,” you say, “I don’t see any.” Be patient, he begs you, until he
finishes with a customer.
When it’s your turn he asks you how many bananas you want. You reply, half a
dozen. He then takes six peas and sings them a mysterious little song. Before your
bewildered eyes, they turn into bananas! The peas that were sung to became bananas.
Your only putt is to make the final vowel sound like the o in “conga.”
So “banana” equals PEA-song.
The Spanish word for “to iron” is planchar, pronounced plan (to rhyme with
“Don”)-CHAR (as in “charcoal”). The hotel in Madrid has an excellent reputation, with
only a single and rather bizarre lapse. Apparently a maid with too much seniority to be
fired has a habit of leaving the iron on the backside of the trousers so long it leaves burn
marks the size of the iron itself smack across both buttocks.
You have no choice. Your pants need ironing and you’ve got to take your chances.
To improve your odds you gingerly approach the concierge and say, “ Excuse me, sir.
Could you please find out if the maid plans to iron these pants correctly or if she plans to
char them?” Your putt is to carry the plan sound from one rhyming with “tan” over to
one rhyming with “Don.”
“To iron” equals plan-CHAR.
The Indonesian word for “donkey” is keledai, pronounced almost exactly like “call
it a day” without the it. That’s what donkeys in hot climates are reputed to want to do
after carrying their loads, and that’s what we’ll do now with this particular series of
examples.

Un-American Sounds

So far we’ve shied away from words containing sounds that don’t exist in English. The
real world won’t be so protective.
“Un-American” sounds are exaggerated as an obstacle to progress in most
languages. I say that not because it’s unimportant to master the sounds correctly, but
because most of them will enter your repertoire automatically with practice. The trilled r
in Spanish, the French r that sounds as though it issues from inside the pituitary gland,
the half-sh half-guttural in German, the double consonant in Finnish, the many umlauted
u’s and a’s and o’s in the various European languages will all be explained in your
grammars, and better than explained on your cassettes: they’ll be pronounced.
Many languages carry so many markings and so many different kinds of markings
over and under certain of their letters you may be intimidated. Almost all of them are
empty threats; despite their sinister looking foreignness, they don’t convey any sounds
we don’t have in English.
The two dots over certain a’s in Swedish simply tell you that particular letter is
pronounced as the first a in “accurate.” Without the dots, it’s the a in “father.” There’s no
need to run from the Norwegian o with a line slicing diagonally down through it: the first
e sound in “Gertrude” is close enough. Languages with the double consonant spend far
too much time warning us Americans that this is something strange to us. It is not
strange. We have double consonants too, maybe not inside the same word, but definitely
inside the same phrase. We pronounce the last sound of the first word and the first sound of the last word in
“late train.” We don’t say “lay train.” So much for the frightening double consonant.
We’ll make no attempt here to teach you the “click” sounds of some of the
languages in South Africa or the larynx twisting sounds of the Georgian language spoken
in Soviet Georgia that actually sounds like paper ripping inside the speaker’s throat.
Those sounds are unrepeatable for most Americans and the languages in which they
appear are mercifully obscure.
There is really only one sound that doesn’t exist in English that we’re obliged to
learn well, and that’s the guttural common in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Dutch, and
several other languages.
Most textbooks are notoriously weak in conveying that sound. They know they’re
committing consumer fraud when, as they frequently do, they merely advise the
American student to “approximate the ch sound in the German name ‘Bach’ or the final
sound in the Scottish word ‘Loch.’”
However, “Bach” is not pronounced bak. “Loch” is not pronounced lock.
“Chanukah” is not pronounced Ha-na-ka. The trick is to learn how to make the real
sound.
The best method, though perhaps inelegant, is to imagine that you’re about to say
the plain old h sound, and suddenly you feel a terrible tickle in the middle of your throat.
The original h sound then becomes lost in all the other powerful things you now do.
Clear your throat violently to eject the irritant causing that tickle. You will then have the
“Chanukah” sound, the “Bach” sound, the “Loch” sound, the “chutzpah” sound.
That sound has no natural parents in the English language. It’s up for adoption.
Stop and think what image comes easily to your mind that can make you hear that sound.
Don’t be afraid to exaggerate it. Then tone it down. Dry it out. It will soon be as
serviceable and comfortable as the sounds you grew up with.

Gender

The Harry Lorayne method of remembering the gender of nouns in foreign languages
makes you feel downright foolish for not having thought of it yourself!
In some languages you have to remember the gender of nouns in order to adjust the
articles or the endings of the adjectives that go with them. All the Romance languages –
Spanish, French, Italian, Protugese, Romanian, etc. – have masculine and feminine
gender. Usually, but far from always, you can figure which is which by the word’s
ending: o for masculine, a for feminine. French, however, conceals gender clues with
noun endings as unrevealing as battlefield camouflage. German and Russian have
masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. The Scandinavian languages call their two noun
genders “common” and “neuter,” as does Dutch. Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian,
Hungarian, and Finnish, like English, have no noun genders.
How do we remember whether the French noun for “train,” also spelled train, is le
train (masculine) or la train (feminine)? It happens to be masculine, le train. Imagine not
merely a train that has no women passengers, but a train that doesn’t allow women
passengers! The men prefer it that way. In hot weather, when the air conditioning fails,
they sit around in their underwear. Feminists are outraged, but the Supreme court keeps
postponing the case. Men’s magazines litter the aisles. There are twice as many men’s rooms as necessary because there are no ladies’ rooms. Once the train screeched to a halt
between stations and an alarm sounded. It seems a band of militant women tried to board
the train and hijack it. They were eventually beaten back, before the men in the club car
even had to put their pants back on.
Le train; masculine.
The French word for “café” is le café; masculine. You could either confect another
all male scenario for a café similar to the one you did for the train. Or imagine a
masculine name emblazoned over the entrance – something like the Macho Café or the
Rambo Café.
Le café; masculine.
“Hour” in French is l’heure; feminine. Occasionally you get a gift like this one.
Heure is pronounced very much like her without the h.
L’heure; feminine.
“Nose” in French is le nez; masculine.
The members of which sex break their noses playing football and hockey, boxing,
wrestling, and fighting with wise guys who insult their dates?
Le nez; masculine.
“Night” in French is la nuit; feminine.
Who ever heard of a “man of the night?”
La nuit; feminine.
“Ticket” in French is le billet; masculine.
Always look for opportunities to incorporate a memory hook for the gender as you
capture the word itself. Billet is pronounced bee-yay, almost exactly like the letters B.A.
as in Bachelor of Arts. If “bachelor” doesn’t have a sufficiently strong male connotation
to you, imagine a giant male bumble bee buzzing around.
Le billet; masculine.
“Train station” in French is la gare; feminine.
Shall we imagine women waiting for their homebound commuting husbands at the
train station? Not a good idea. You may forget whether the waiting women or the
expected husbands are the star of the association. How about hundreds of women waiting
for one man, pouncing upon him and fighting over him as he unsuspectingly steps off the
train?
La gare; feminine.
“Church” in French is l’eglise; feminine.
Imagine an angry mob of French women storming a church in France, demanding
that women be allowed into the Catholic priesthood.
L’eglise; feminine.
Let this one be a lesson to you. “Mustache” in French is la moustache; feminine!
Imagine the circus lady with a mustache, or a new French wine that causes women
to grow mustaches, or a little girl asking her mother if she can ever have a mustache.
La moustache; feminine.
Some languages have neuter gender too. Try to come up with associations that
suggest icy impersonality.
“House” in German is das Haus; neuter.
Imagine a house so cold and unappealing it couldn’t have possibly been graced by
man or woman for years. No one lives there or would ever conceivably want to. Das Haus; neuter.
“Pen” in Russian is pero, pronounced pee-RAW. What could be more sexless than a
pea that’s raw?
Pero; neuter.

Reinforcement

You now have a brand new “closet,” a foreign language vocabulary memory system that
lets you hang up new words as if they were new clothes. The system just presented will
work even better for you if you keep a few tips in mind.
Every example given above is clean in word, deed, and thought. Every one could
have been presented from the stage in Yadkinville, North Carolina, YMCA during
Foreign Language Week. I refuse to do any dirty writing, so you have to do some dirty
thinking (if you will) to get maximum benefit from the system.
The more vivid, in fact, the more vulgar, your associations are, the more readily
they will probably come to mind. Feel free, in your mental imagery, to take clothes off.
Get people naked. Get everybody into bed, in the tub, swinging from vines, or making
nominating speeches immersed in bubbling Romanian mud. Get them wherever you need
them so that the association you want is readily retrievable. X-rated images come readily
to mind, even to the minds of nice people. Make your associative images lurid and
unforgettable.
We’ve refrained in our model examples from using names and places to buttress our
associations. In a book or a class, we can’t. Except for famous figures and places we all
know in common, names and places don’t mean the same things to everybody. As
individuals, however, we can haul off and use any and every proper name we know,
whether from our personal lives or from stage, screen, radio, video, song, literature, and
legend.
Does the foreign word demand the sound – or any part of the sound – of a Harry, an
Edna, a Philip, an Art, a Harold, a Doreen, a Billy, a Lance? If that name belongs to
someone you actually know, your associations will come to you more rapidly and last
longer.
Did you grow up around a Reidsville, a Colfax, a Burlington, a Charlotte, a Haw
River, or a Mt. Pisgah? Your associations with the foreign words can be enriched by
place names that sounds like or almost like your target words. You don’t actually have to
have those places in your biography, so long as you know them and can visualise them
and use them as lassos to haul in and hog tie similar sounding words. I’ve never been to
Nantucket, but when attacking the Indonesian word for “tired” (NAN-tuk), I imagine
getting so tired on my initial visit to Nantucket that I collapse into bed exhausted shortly
after lunch.
Yet another asset to you is the body of words you already know in another foreign
language, or even in the language you’re learning. Those who know many languages may
conquer a four syllable word by bringing in sounds from four different languages. This is
a classic case of the rich getting richer. Every new word you learn is one more potential
hook for grabbing still newer words.
Don’t fight to forge a winning association. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try
again. Then give up! Not all words can be forced into the system, and you’re better off not wasting good language learning time trying to mash an ill fitting shoe onto
Cinderella’s sister’s foot. Over ninety percent will fit, automatically, neatly, or after some
effort. The others, the holdouts, will have to be learned by old familiar rote learning.
Don’t forget: make your associations vivid, even if that means making them vulgar.
You’ll find that so many truly comical cartoons will dance through your head as
you craft your associative images, you’ll find yourself constantly having to explain
“What’s so funny?” to native speakers who wonder what’s so hilarious about those
ordinary words they’re teaching you in their language!

Tobberoth Wrote:

nest0r Wrote:The only Swedish I know is "Danskjävlar!" via the angry Swedish doctor from Lars von Trier's Riget.

I love that line. If you've seen the clip on youtube, you should know that all he says is ***** gold.

"Här, Danmark. Utskitet av kalk och vatten. Och där... Sverige. Hugget i granit. Dansk... jävlar... DANSKJÄVLAR!!!"

Ernst-Hugo ftw.

I watched Riget a few years ago and was very sad when I belatedly learned he died and basically the show with him. RIP.

I've never used this method, but I used similar technique years ago when I was still in school. I would take a list of 100 words (or so) and learn them ten at a time. However, I didn't write them as I reviewed.

I would make a list of words on a spreadsheet and sort them by the Language 2. Then I would copy the same list on the other half of the spreadsheet and sort them by Language 1.

Like this:
Column1 Language1/Column2 L2; Column3 L2/Column4 L1

Technically it's a little different from the Iverson method because he moves between L1 & L2 using the same group of words before moving on. But, I found it was the only way I could memorize large lists of vocab.

@Travis

Are you suggesting the Linkword?

kazelee Wrote:@Travis

Are you suggesting the Linkword?

No, what's Linkword? That's the only other "technique" if you can call it that, that I know of, some sort of mnemonic. That was from the book How to Learn Any Language. I can't see how it'd work for active vocabulary, but for passive I think it could. As far as I can tell there are unfortunately only 2 methods for large amounts of vocabulary learning:

1. Plain old memorising lists in some way (Iversen, or some other method like constant repetition).
2. Some sort of mnemonic.

I've seen a couple of audio programs. Vocabulearn which is just hundreds of words in this form: dog, inu, inu, cat, neko, neko ... etc
and another called Subliminal, which plays the English through the left ear, and the Japanese through the right at the same time, then repeats the Japanese. So:
dog/inu inu, cat/neko neko ... etc. I haven't tried either, but I can't believe they're that effective, but there are torrents of them available if you want to try.

travis Wrote:

kazelee Wrote:@Travis

Are you suggesting the Linkword?

No, what's Linkword? That's the only other "technique" if you can call it that, that I know of, some sort of mnemonic. That was from the book How to Learn Any Language. I can't see how it'd work for active vocabulary, but for passive I think it could. As far as I can tell there are unfortunately only 2 methods for large amounts of vocabulary learning:

1. Plain old memorising lists in some way (Iversen, or some other method like constant repetition).
2. Some sort of mnemonic.

I've seen a couple of audio programs. Vocabulearn which is just hundreds of words in this form: dog, inu, inu, cat, neko, neko ... etc
and another called Subliminal, which plays the English through the left ear, and the Japanese through the right at the same time, then repeats the Japanese. So:
dog/inu inu, cat/neko neko ... etc. I haven't tried either, but I can't believe they're that effective, but there are torrents of them available if you want to try.

Linkword is using a mnemonic sentence. Like "I'm sick and tired of him dog inu."

I've tried subliminal Japanese. I knew a lot of the vocab it covers already so I'm not sure how well it works. I had contemplated creating something similar to the subliminal technique for the Core 6000 on iKnow, but it was taking far too long just to get a couple of items done, and with no guarantee the method would work.

Yeah, it's basically that. He gives more long winded stories in that post, but similar idea. I think the best method for vocabulary is just reading. It may not be as efficient but it's not boring either. I'm not sure what I'll do when new words become too far between, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As for general vocabulary learning, the only thing that I'd be consistent with is sticking between 5-10 items. I think that's most peoples short term memory capacity. I've done some searching for vocabulary techniques for the past week, and the only ones I've come up with are Iversen and mnemonics. Often the mnemonic is suited to the person, like Alex's movie method works well if you know movies, but not too well if you don't.

Haha we used the "Iverson Method'' in my French and spanish classes.


Nobody became fluent or good from it. Its just a basic repetition exercise. I mean all the limits are still there such only having one to one word translations that don't cover the meaning or just isolating the learning process.

Just stick to Anki guys.

I think the Iverson Method is wise for getting new vocab into your short term memory, right as you are entering it into Anki. For example, this week I have had a couple vocab (e.g., 警察署) that never made it to my short term memory while sentence mining みんなの日本語. Every time I saw it in Anki, I would draw a blank. I will try this step for new vocab that are potentially challenging, but only on first exposure. I will let Anki do the rest.

Tobberoth Wrote:Oh, I thought Iversen was someone famous who had written a book or something, I had no idea it was some guy on a forum.

I'll also concur that the Swedish text/blog Mr. 'The Iverson Method'-guy wrote really was poor. Danish with Swedish words sprinkled on.

The nonpoint method:
1. Make shyte up
2. Name it [your name] + method
3. ???
4. Profit!

Also, English-to-Japanese when learning vocab? Isn't that a crutch we want to rid ourselves quicklyz?

Erubey Wrote:Just stick to Anki guys.

I'm sure there's no one abandoning anki for this method. I'm trying to learn about it to incorporate it into study flow.

When you see it, you'll shit bricks.

mentat_kgs Wrote:When you see it, you'll shit bricks.

Okay, I'll bite. See what?

Who said not to stick with Anki?

I've used this method consistently for two months and I find it very effective for getting new words in my head quickly.

The way I make my lists is "Kanji - Reading - English meaning", and primarily I focus on learning Kanji->Reading and roughly noting the meaning (the meaning will solidify from reading sentences later). My own pattern is that I write 14 words on each list and go through them in two lots of 7, going over those 7 until I remember all of them easily, followed by a pass through all 14 for a little recap and then move onto the next 14. I do this as fast as possible without pausing. That's it as far as I use this method.

The above averages to around 5 minutes for 14, so ~21 seconds per word. I then start to review the new sentences in Anki the following day and retention is usually very good. I posted some graphs before - my Anki stats noticeably improved since I started this method, and I figure it saves some time because I think struggling through new sentences and failing them several times adds up to more time than that.

bombpersons Wrote:So it's effectively using very small intervals to begin with (so that you learn the words short term), then using anki to learn them long term?

Yeah, basically that's it. The 'small intervals' that you get from going through lists of 5~7 at a time are just right for moving the words to short term memory.

vosmiura Wrote:

bombpersons Wrote:So it's effectively using very small intervals to begin with (so that you learn the words short term), then using anki to learn them long term?

Yeah, basically that's it. The 'small intervals' that you get from going through lists of 5~7 at a time are just right for moving the words to short term memory.

I have to disagree about the science behind this, regarding 'short term memory' and micro-intervals and whathaveyou, but it doesn't really matter if it works for you. ;p

I don't know what's the science, but I know that repeating single words over & over doesn't work well, and repeating larger lists seems to take longer, but I haven't tried it that scientifically.

Is "Danskjävlar!" the Swedish version of "KHAAAAAAN!"?

kazelee, a bit behind the times? we've been talking about iversen here for some months now

here's the first major thread on iversen's method, to my memory:

vosmiura Wrote:Here's a tip: learn all the new words before you start SRSing the sentences. It is not much fun to have a sentence with many new words and keep on failing them over & over. An easy way is just add all the new words to a list, and every time you get 6 or 7, spend time learning them (ala Iversen's method).

stevesayskanpai Wrote:vosmiura- what do you mean ala Iversen's method? I agree completely with what you say about spending some time learning the new words- very important.

mafried Wrote:stevesayskanpai, "Iversen's method" is basically what he described. Learn vocab by brute force pencil-and-paper review in batches of about a half-dozen or so. I think there's a page describing it on the HTLAL wiki. Except for what vosmiura described (good idea, btw), it's just the old-fashioned techniques for language learning with a new name.

ahibba Wrote:No. Iversen's method is not one of the old-fashioned techniques although it is based on one of them.

mafried Wrote:The "Iversen's method" is described here. To summarize: "memorize word lists in groups of 5-7." The grouping is the only thing 'new' here, otherwise that's exactly how I was taught German in a classroom setting, for example (plus some grammar instruction).

(EDIT: actually, the grouping thing is not new either, now that i think about it. back in german class that's exactly how we studied vocab for quizzes. there was about 30 words for each quiz, and we'd break that up into groups of about 5 or so to memorize, since that was more manageable. i just never thought anything of it at the time)

blackmacros Wrote:Phew I thought it was just me who thought the Iversen thing was nothing new.

Later I realized to my surprise that my study habits already resemble Iversen's method, and that I've been doing something similar for years. I then started to systematize it a make it a regular part of my routine. But more on that in a sec.

Those who dismiss Iversen's with "Just stick to Anki guys" are completely missing the point. Anki solves the problem of remembering things you have already learned. Iversen's method is a solution to the problem of how to learn things in the first place, before you put it into Anki. Here's a much more recent review/description of the method from yours truly:

mafried Wrote:The Iversen's method works, and I'll attest to that. I've been doing it for years, long before I even considered learning Japanese. As I do my reviews/study new cards, I keep a list of words that I failed to remember/don't know. When there are 6+ vocab on the list, I spend a few minutes coming up with or remembering mnemonics for them, then cross the six off the list. Eventually the card I failed will show up again and that'll be test of whether my mnemonic was good or not.

and my more complete description of how to use iversen's method to accelerate your studies:

mafried Wrote:So the Iversen's method is big on translating base language -> target language. I don't think I need to explain to anyone here the problems in doing this. In fact, the only part of "Iversen's method" I recommend at all is keeping a list of vocab you have trouble with, and learning in blocks of 5-7. In fact, in retrospect it's a pretty terrible method that just happens to have those two real gems embedded in it. But that is what I assumed you meant, in which case yes, "Iversen's method" has worked for me. Here's how:

During blocks of time devoted to "adding new cards" I do the following for each new sentence fact in anki:

1. Look up all grammar and vocabulary I don't understand.
2. Add vocabulary is to a running list.
3. Unsuspend card.
4. (Only) if list has reached 6 or more items, learn the first six vocab in bulk. I use mnemonic techniques mostly, and don't bother writing out vocab like Iversen recommends.
5. Move on to next fact.

When reviewing, I also add vocab I failed to remember to that list, but I wait to review those items until I move to an "adding new cards" chunk of time, even if the list grows past six vocab.

One more note: I don't bother with the multiple meanings of a vocab. I just learn what it means in the context of the sentence that I found it. The other meanings will come with time, and this simplifies things greatly.

I've been doing this off and on--when I really have to because the vocab load is overwhelming--for a long time (almost a decade with various languages) and it really works. Only recently I've systematized it and started learning ALL vocabulary in this manor, and that's taken it to a whole new level. I'd say my efficiency while learning/adding cards has increased to 2x or 3x what it was before.

EDIT: I should add the implementation details which I know someone will undoubtedly ask about. I keep the list as kanji - kana - english, where the english is the direct literal translation of that word for the sentence (if you've made the switch to J-J monolingual, I assume you could put a simple Japanese definition or notes or something instead). My "review" of this list is testing myself left-to-right (i.e, kanji->kana->english). Once I am confident that I have learned it I move on. When I finished all six I cover the kana and English columns, then close my eyes and for at least 15 seconds do/think about something else. Then I open my eyes again and, starting from the top, read down the kanji column trying to recall the conceptual meaning (and kanji readings) of each word. If I'm successful, I cross it off the list. If I fail, it gets added back onto the list for next time.

Also, I alternate between adding cards and reviewing the list. Even if I have 12 or more vocab on the list, I'll learn a card, review six, learn a card, review six, etc. until done. I do it because I find both activities hideously boring and it makes it the whole thing manageable. But maybe I'm mentioning it because maybe it does make a difference for you too.

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Tobberoth Wrote:Oh, I thought Iversen was someone famous who had written a book or something, I had no idea it was some guy on a forum.

Yeah, but not only that it's hardly original (and, in some circles, plain old common sense). It's stilly to be giving this forum guy credit... but we need to refer to it by some name. Any better ideas?

mafried Wrote:kazelee, a bit behind the times? we've been talking about iversen here for some months now

Forgot . But thanks for the help though. Perhaps I'll Iverson method the information this time around.

mafried Wrote:Yeah, but not only that it's hardly original (and, in some circles, plain old common sense). It's stilly to be giving this forum guy credit... but we need to refer to it by some name. Any better ideas?

People often just call them word lists.

yukamina Wrote:People often just call them word lists.

Hmm... "list method"?

Jarvik7 Wrote:Is "Danskjävlar!" the Swedish version of "KHAAAAAAN!"?

I guess you could say that, especially if KHAAAAAN means something like "***** VULCANS!!".