I've had quite a bit of success with the sound association. Why don't I send you the exact method I use?

I think mnemonics or other memory techniques serve two purposes.  First, they provide a way to access something from memory when you are in a bind.  What if you wanted to say "carrot" in Japanese?  If you had some story that helped you remember all the names of the vegetables, you could probably remember it.  Secondly, making or using a mnemonic is a way to really make sure you are storing a word in your brain in the first place.  I could look at a kanji a thousand times but still forget it if I never really analyzed the pieces of it.  Same goes with words.  In this case, using the mnemonics does help you understand the word when it is spoken to you.

EDIT: In fact, a while back I had tried learning a few words with mnemonics, and indeed, the next time I heard them I was able to instantly recall them.  This probably relies on the quality of the mnemonic though, and I don't think it worked that well for ALL the vocab I learned that way.

alyks,
That would be great!  Thank you.

Last edited by danieldesu (2008 August 03, 5:47 pm)

Kids learn because they have to, not because they're brains are special. The mnemonics are supposed to fade away when you memorize the word. Just because a kid does it, doesn't mean it's the most effective way. Mnemonics are good for retention and don't get in the way down the road, because you forget the mnemonics as fast as you forget them for kanji.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JNGMEWEC
Edit: Author, Alyks

Last edited by alyks (2008 August 03, 5:27 pm)

JimmySeal, could you please not post in this thread?

Sorry to interrupt your brilliant observations, Dan.

danieldesu wrote:

How long did it take?  I am trying to get people to think in a different way.  As in, realize that it is possible to learn a language to a reasonable degree in 4-8 weeks.

I hope you get a lot of people to believe your unverified theory.

JimmySeal wrote:

I hope you get a lot of people to believe your unverified theory.

Like I said before, I am not trying to convince anyone of anything, I just wanted a discussion that can help me and possibly others come to a more solid conclusion about the methods that we have been using and to gain perspective about other possibilities.  Naysayers definitely play a role in discussions, and breaking down a naysayer's arguments is important in gaining perspective about your own opinion.  I am not saying you are wrong and I am right.  I am not saying my theory is verified.  If you believe your theory IS verified, then there should be no need for sarcastic comebacks.

Ok, you're right, I didn't do a great job of responding to all the things you said as I probably didn't understand all of it exactly.  Although I do believe I addressed the "takes too much brain processing power" part.  As far as the "why learn different than children" thing, there is not much to argue there, adult brains are more efficient and we can learn stuff faster than children.

There are some things I would appreciate if you could help me understand.  What do you mean "words are linear, but kanji are complex"?  Also, the number of words I was proposing to learn was not much more than the number of kanji we learn with RTK, so I am not sure I understand your "words are more numerous than kanji" argument.  Why do you say mnemonics will hurt?  Because they take too much time?  Because you are tied to another language?  If that is the case, I think Stuart Jay Raj shows that you can really learn a lot of words effectively by thinking of all the links in your mind to each word you hear, whether it be a cognate or a similar sounding word.

Sorry to snap, I just felt the sarcasm was a waste of time and did not add to the discussion.

P.S. I know the meaning of the word "verified." I am not sure how I misused it.  Please no more sarcasm.

Last edited by danieldesu (2008 August 03, 6:02 pm)

Your mnemonics and memory techniques won't be much help for Japanese.  People who use those techniques are usually learning European languages with lots of cognates.  Even the concepts in Japanese are just so foreign for English speakers that there is not really any easy translation for so many concepts.  So your method is (somewhat) doomed to (mild) failure.

Man, I love it when people get all riled up because you suggest deviating from AJATT.  Cracks me up every time.

I think what most people forget is that there's more than one way to skin a cat...   I started learning Japanese by more traditional methods... which meant a textbook and large vocabulary lists and a lot of rote memorization.  And I'm doing just fine.   If that makes more sense to your brain, then do it.  If you need mnemonics to help some words stick, then use them.

I think that starting out, you CAN learn words out of context, because they are simple, as has been mentioned before in this thread.  Language learning isn't so much about learning words and their equivalent translation in another language (although that's what you do to start), it's about learning the IDEA behind things we see around us, and how the other language conveys that same idea.  The ideas behind things like eat, drink, dog, cat, water, table, etc. are going to be fundamentally the same in any language.   Now, eventually you're going to get to a point where, yes, ideas don't exactly correspond or overlap, and you'll need context (or a good J-J dictionary) to help out. 

I think AJATT has it's merits.  It's a really good way to reinforce what you're studying, but I think people take it too literally.  Just because you decide to do something a little differently, or change things so that they work for you doesn't mean that they're wrong or a waste of time.  Secret language learning police aren't going to bust in and haul you away because they find you with a vocab list.  And, guys, I don't think he's saying learn every word ever in the Japanese language with a vocab list. He's just saying laying a bit of a foundation by getting the idea behind some vocabulary down before he dives into the sentence mining bit, because he thinks it might help him.  How is that so different from someone say like myself, who already has a working knowledge of the language before starting AJATT?

Starting out, I think a really big part of helping you learn the language is to build your passive vocabulary.  I'd argue that I probably know hundreds of words that I don't really understand the usage of, but if I hear them used in conversation or on the TV, I have an idea of what's going on. I just can't really effectively use them myself yet, but am I going to freak out and put a sentence in on the spot? Nah. I'll get there eventually.

Hi JimmySeal,
Thank you for clearing that stuff up.  I see what you are saying, and I agree with you and phauna about Stuart Jay Raj being able to pull from a much larger register of cognates/other words.  In fact, for him, learning another language is much different than our experience of learning Japanese, which is much different from our own native languages.  If I remember correctly, I was referring to a video of him on a talkshow here (kind of long but very interesting): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.  As for trying something productive, I tried contacting him to get more information about his vocab gathering methods, so if he replies we can see where that goes and see if he has some tips that will work for us as well.

I agree that kanji are inherently more difficult than words themselves, and I think it is probably too much for the brain to handle to HAVE to use a mnemonic for each word.  But I still think that there is the issue of people (me, specifically) never really learning a word long term unless I think about it as hard as possible, think about how it sounds, how if feels, what it reminds me of, etc, and making a mnemonic is a good way to put me through that process.  We will have to wait and see from Stujay if there are better/faster methods.

I also want to thank everyone for their opinions.  It may seem like this never really happens on message boards, but my opinion really is changing and developing as we discuss this topic, and that is always a positive thing.

EDIT: fixed a link

Last edited by danieldesu (2008 August 04, 12:20 am)

danieldesu, I agree with the fact that mnemonics help in learning vocabulary and have little or none side-effects. However, it seems to me that that I can use mnemonics whether I am learning the vocabulary in a sentence or outside of one. Why do you think it would be easier to learn vocabulary separately from sentences compared to learning them together with sentences?

JimmySeal wrote:

Sorry to interrupt your brilliant observations, Dan.

danieldesu wrote:

How long did it take?  I am trying to get people to think in a different way.  As in, realize that it is possible to learn a language to a reasonable degree in 4-8 weeks.

I hope you get a lot of people to believe your unverified theory.

Well, I entered a site called espanglish chat and had another window open with a spanish english dictionary website, and sat there chatting for a few hours a night a few days a week for about a couple of weeks. I was able to get to a point where I i was having very, uh, interesting conversations with people.

Then I stopped doing it and lost it all.

Does that count?

Seems like "chunking" is what most are doing when they learn sentences instead of going after single words.