How to Master Successfully Any Language of the World 14
standing in a stall. Or a Russian word “stakan”, a (drinking) glass, may be re-made up as
“stuck cun(ning)”. But mnemonic has its drawback. When using it too much, you may
start getting lost in all those images. And you cannot speak swiftly. So, use mnemonics
only in the beginning and only with words that seem to be too difficult to memorize them
otherwise. And once you can do without mnemonic, do without it.
Objects, situations, qualities or any other meanings never come alone. Thinking of a
swimming pool nearly always includes thinking also of water, humidity, people dressed
in bathing suits, swimming, jumping, sounds of splashes and other things which appear
most commonly in a swimming pool and which it is generally associated with. In order to
be memorized easier, new words should be related to one another, too. This is the issue of
“topics”. Words introduced during some certain unit of learning should be related in their
meanings as closely as possible to one specific situation or issue.
This does not mean in any way, that words introduced should be somehow related
grammatically! Introducing NEW words according to their grammatical features will
confuse you and will cause you unnecessary hardships. Classifying a word according to
its grammatical features should be done only after the word’s meaning is learnt and the
word is properly practiced and memorized. This is good for grammar learning – not for
words learning. You would rarely think of a goose in association with a tooth. Yet, after
both words are memorized and attached each one to its proper situations, they may and
should be grouped grammatically: goose – geese, tooth – teeth.
This is true about word formation, too. You should never introduce new words related
only by their word formation similarities. Meanings of those simple words which are a
part of a complex one will most probably be unrelated. So they should be well known
before. Example: You already know the words education, population, illumination,
invention. THEN you may learn at once the words educate, invent, populate, and
illuminate.
This is true about learning words by the ABC. Many people get that weird idea, that once
you’ve learnt the dictionary by heart, you might know “all the language”. That is false. A
dictionary is the most useful tool, when you want to clarify a meaning of a word. But you
should never try to learn dictionary pages by heart. For one single and sufficient reason:
Words grouped by alphabet are mostly unrelated in their meanings.
Word Importance – Meaning’s Frequency
Data in this section relate closely to Levels, but due to its importance by itself, I’ll
describe it separately.
Copyright © 2012 Dmitry Slomov. All rights reserved.
Dmitry Slomov is a language learning consultant, a tutor and the author of the Russian Language Course – Lessons with Dmitry
Contact Dmitry at: http://www.courseofrussian.com/en/contact.html
