Sound association method. Associations to the word “Sound Sound background sound letter associations

You are going on a business trip abroad or on a long-awaited vacation and suddenly realize with horror that your school knowledge of the English language has long been forgotten. Don't despair - even if there are only a few days left before departure, there is still a lot to be done!

As a rule, over the years, a person’s vocabulary becomes significantly impoverished if speaking skills are not constantly trained. How can you quickly expand your active vocabulary? There are various methods of learning English, one of which is the method of sound (or phonetic) associations when memorizing English words.

The main difference of this technique is that you do not need to memorize foreign words and their translations. It is important that when pronouncing a word, an association appears, an image that will push your memory to remember it, and later to reproduce it. The association method allows you to replenish your knowledge base by up to fifty words per day. How does it work?

There are many languages in the world, each of them has words or parts of them that are consonant with words from other languages. Some even have the same meaning: for example, "goose" in English means "goose" in Russian. By the same analogy, it is easy to remember that “tiger” is “tiger”, “secret” is “secret”, and “visit” means “to pay a visit, to visit”.

However, most words in English and Russian have different meanings, even though parts of words or even entire words sound the same. This similarity can be successfully used for memorization through associations. You just need to use your imagination, and then success in learning English is guaranteed. First of all, we recommend that you do not remember the translation of the word in your native language. It is much more effective to leave in memory the image that you associate with him. Before you begin your memorization work, make a list of English words on paper. Please note that they should be related to one topic, then they will be much easier to learn.

The next step is to select an association for each word - a consonant word in Russian. The easiest way to use two images at the first stage of memorization: a value image and a label image. The first image is the real meaning of the word, the second image is the association of the word or part of it with a Russian word that is similar in sound but completely different in meaning. For example: the English “creek” (translated as “bay, stream”) is consonant with the Russian “cry”. How to link these two words into one association? You need to come up with a plot. The brighter and more unconventional it is, the better the word will be remembered. It is advisable that you take a direct part in this plot.

So, let’s remember the word “creek”: I approached a stream, slipped and fell into the water, screaming loudly in fear. The more clearly you imagine this picture, mentally feeling the pain of falling and hearing a loud cry, the faster in the necessary situation your memory will tell you that “creek” is the very stream where you slipped. Don’t be afraid that you will have to remember “extra” information. The need for it will disappear as soon as the image-meaning is so ingrained in your memory that when you hear the word “creek” you remember only its immediate meaning, and not the fall and cry associated with it.

When creating stories, it is recommended to use the maximum number of active actions in them, increase the size of objects, come up with situations in which there is no logic - oddly enough, this method of building associations is the most effective. For example, to remember the word “fist,” imagine a giant pistachio that you smash with a tightly clenched fist. The word “ship” is easy to remember if you imagine a ship with huge spikes sticking out of it.

If you already know a certain number of English words, then the task of memorizing the next ones becomes much easier. There are many words in English that are made up of several others. Knowing the meaning of the constituent parts, you will easily understand the meaning of the whole word. Once you come up with a plot, you will quickly remember it. For example, "crushroom" means foyer. We break it down into parts: “crush” - “crush, crush”, “room” - “room”. The room where the stampede occurs. Here's a ready-made plot: I go into the foyer, and there are so many people in the room, everyone is crushing each other, pushing each other. Or another example: “lawsuit” - a trial. You already know that “law” is law, and “suit” is a suit. To a trial where the law is the main thing, you must come in a business suit.

As you can see, quite a bit of imagination and patience is required. Using the sound association method, you can learn up to 350 words in a week! Now an urgent business trip abroad will not take you by surprise, since you can prepare for it in just a few days by quickly and easily learning the necessary English words.

Time to figure out tenses, or how to master the English tense system.

Anyone who has studied English as a foreign language, and even more so those who have chosen the profession of teaching English at school, lyceum, gymnasium or university, knows that the greatest difficulty for speakers of Russian is the “tens” of the English verb. Indeed, if anyone who speaks Russian as a native language knows that there are three tenses, then what bewilderment should be caused by English grammars, which state that in this language there are not three or five tenses, but twelve. However, the presence of twelve tenses recorded in grammars as a fact very rarely raises a puzzled question in anyone: what other tenses are there in the English language, besides the present, past and future? Try to answer it! Does not work? Don't waste your time. Because, besides the three mentioned, there are no other times and cannot be. In no language in the world (and there are several thousand of them) the number of verb tenses expressed in special grammatical forms does not exceed the “magic” number “three”. There may be less than three. There are languages with only two forms of tenses (for example, “past”/“non-past”), there are languages without verb tenses at all, but there are no languages where there would be more than three of these tenses.

The name of any of the twelve English tenses begins with one of three words: Present, Past, Future. There are four kinds of present, four kinds of past and four kinds of future, which are known as Simple, Progressive, Perfect and Perfect Progressive. In Russian there is a similar picture, only there are fewer forms: one present (I am going), two past (I went/came) and two future (I will go/I will come). Strictly speaking, if we agree that there are 12 tenses in the English language, then we should talk about at least five tenses in Russian (in fact, there are even more). But for some reason we don't do this. Why? Yes, because we understand perfectly well that both went and came - forms of the past tense. Just as an English speaker understands that I work, I am working, I have worked and I have been working are all present tense forms.

The difficulties that English language learners encounter in mastering the grammatical forms of the verb (not only with the grammatical category of tenses, but also the passive voice) are caused by the fact that in the educational literature there is no clear theoretical understanding of the meanings and functions of verb forms, which would allow a simple explanation , what is their purpose. In other words, you need to understand well why such categories as tense, aspect, voice are needed in a language in order to clearly and simply explain the principles of functioning of the corresponding forms. This understanding provides a cognitive approach to language as a system for representing knowledge.

In accordance with this approach, any grammatical category serves to express and preserve certain knowledge in a language. Compared to the lexicon, grammar is a more abstract system, therefore the knowledge presented in it is universal in the sense that it is important for the normal functioning of society: it does not matter what language members of society communicate with each other. This means that grammatical categories, which have different expressions in different languages, differ little from each other in content. That is why translation from one language (for example, Russian) to another (for example, English) is possible.

Why are the categories of time and aspect needed? Using the category of time, a person divides the entire world around him into three spheres of experience: 1) experience directly included in the sphere of perceived and conscious reality, or the present (present from the Latin praesens - mo, which is before the senses); 2) experience, preserved as a memory of what has passed by our senses, or the past (past); 3) experience, which is predicted on the basis of existing knowledge, or the future (future). It is very important to understand here that, unlike the English language, in Russian there is no one-to-one correspondence between these concepts and the so-called forms of the verb. Consider the following situation as an example.

Dad went on a business trip some time ago. Vova is studying homework in her room, mom is preparing dinner in the kitchen. The doorbell rings. The boy opens the door and, upon seeing his father, joyfully announces: “Mom, dad has arrived!”

In any school (and not only school) grammar it will be indicated that he has arrived (in this case) - the perfect past tense form denotes an action that took place in the past and was completed at the time of speech. This is a traditional approach to which all speakers of Russian are accustomed (especially since this is knowledge that none of us ever uses in practice: after all, we all learned our native language, including grammar, in infancy, when we still had no idea neither about time, nor about aspect, nor about other subtleties of grammatical science). But when studying English as a foreign language, this approach no longer suits us, since it does not allow us to correlate what we know about our native language with what we find in a foreign language. The cognitive approach focuses on answering the question: “What exactly does the boy tell his mother?” In this case, his exclamation is interpreted as follows: “I see dad. Since some point in the past, I have not seen him, that is, he was not at home, since he went on a business trip. Now dad is here again, which means he has arrived ( logical inference based on the boy's background knowledge)." In other words, the meaning of the boy’s exclamation is: “Daddy is home again (I see him again).” But this is the present time. And in the English language, where the correspondence between tense concepts and tense forms of the verb is much more consistent than in Russian, the present tense form will, of course, be used. Another question is, which of the four possible: Simple, Progressive, Perfect or Perfect Progressive? And here a correct (i.e. cognitive) understanding of the species category comes to the rescue.

Using the category of type, a person differentiates knowledge by its source: we know about something because we saw (heard, felt, etc.) it ourselves, and we know about something because this knowledge was transmitted to us in ready-made (someone said, read about it, learned at school, etc. - the possibilities here are very diverse). This distinction is very important, and we take it into account on a subconscious level all the time in our daily activities. We are all well aware of the proverb “It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.” Its meaning is that what is seen with one’s own eyes, as a rule, is not questioned, while knowledge received from someone else’s hands is not always necessarily reliable. In this regard, look what happens if in the above situation the boy uses an imperfect one instead of the perfect form of the verb: “Mom, dad came!” Although formally this statement is grammatically correct, it cannot be used in our situation because that is not how they say it. But they don’t say that because the arrived form does not contain any indication that at the moment of the statement the boy sees his father, whereas the arrived form contains such an indication.

The difference between the Russian language and English is that in Russian this kind of semantic differences are very often conveyed not by special verb forms, but by context. Compare the following examples: Ivan smokes, despite doctors’ warnings; Look, Ivan is smoking again, despite the doctors’ warnings. In the first case, we are talking about what we know about Ivan, and it is not at all necessary that Ivan be before our eyes; he may even be in another city, even in another country. In the second case, we are talking about what we directly observe: this is directly indicated by the verb look. In English, everything is much simpler, because there these semantic differences are conveyed by special (specific) forms of the verb: Simple and Progressive, respectively. Note that the term view comes from the verb to see (which is etymologically related to the Latin videre - to see and the Greek eidos - that which is visible).

But so far we have talked about two types of knowledge, to which two types correspond: one knowledge has a definite source of information (for example, the boy in the example given), and the other has an indefinite source (for example, saying Ivan smokes, I do not make it clear how I know about this ). There are four forms of the English verb. Why so much?

Yes, because situations when we talk about what we directly observe can differ significantly, depending on what exactly we see (hear, etc.). When I say: Look, Ivan is smoking again, I have the opportunity to observe the smoking process itself (he holds a cigarette in his hand, brings it to his mouth, inhales the smoke and then releases it - an action, generally speaking, meaningless and harmful). But if mom, meeting Ivan, smells tobacco smoke emanating from his clothes and asks: Have you been smoking again?, she asks a question based on what she perceives at the moment of speech (in this case, through the olfactory organs), and this, of course, present time. But she does not observe the actual action of smoking; only certain signs are available to her perception, indicating that Ivan smoked. To express this cognitive meaning, the English language has its own special form of the verb - Perfect. This form is used when we compare what we see with what happened before (for example, in the morning Ivan didn’t smell, but now he smells like tobacco, which means he smoked). Finally, there may be cases when we talk about a directly observed action and at the same time compare what we see with what we saw at some moment (or at some moments) before. For example, I see that Ivan is smoking now, but I also saw him smoking before, throughout the day. In this case, two forms are combined that express different cognitive meanings, and we get the Perfect Progressive form, which is very disliked by many students, although in fact it is not simple, but very simple.

The explanations given (naturally, in a very brief form) of the cognitive content of English verb forms can be summarized in the form of a very simple algorithm that allows you to almost accurately select the correct form of the verb. (See the algorithm diagram.)

Figure - Algorithm for choosing the aspectual-tense verb form.

This algorithm, as an integral part of the methodology for teaching the grammatical forms of the English verb, is described in the textbook “English Verb. New Grammar for Everyone” (Kravchenko A. V. (ed.), Irkutsk, 1999).

Moreover, a cognitive approach to English tenses makes it possible to clearly see that there are no so-called exceptions regarding the use of verbs of various groups in certain grammatical forms. So, any verb (for example, see, know, remember, like, etc.) can be used in the Progressive form, you just need to know when this can and should be done, and when it cannot. The simple principle that determines the choice of passive or active voice in speech becomes clear; especially since this principle is exactly the same as in the Russian language.

In short, it turns out that there is nothing complex and incomprehensible in the system of grammatical forms of the English verb. As practice shows, a thinking person (no matter a schoolchild, student or adult) learns the meaning and functions of English tenses in a short time. The rest is a matter of technique, training students in using the forms themselves and automating the selection algorithm.

A. V. Kravchenko, Irkutsk

How to memorize foreign words using sound associations.

The method of phonetic (sound) associations (PPA) arose because in the most diverse languages of the world there are words or parts of words that sound the same, but have different meanings. In addition, in different languages there are words that have a common origin, but over time have acquired different meanings. Often people use this method without realizing that they are using it.

The first mentions of the effectiveness of using methods similar to MFA can be found in the literature of the end of the last century. In the 70s of our century, Stanford University professor R. Atkinson conducted a detailed study of the use of associations in the process of language acquisition. He and his colleagues had a group of Russian language students memorize words using the "Keyword method" while a control group memorized the same words using traditional methods. Atkinson’s “key words” are nothing more than words that are phonetic (sound) associations to memorized words, consonant words. Numerous experiments by Atkinson and his colleagues have proven the high effectiveness of this method of memorizing foreign words. The method of phonetic associations as a method of memorizing foreign words is becoming more and more popular in the world.

Now let’s take a closer look at what exactly the sound association method is. In order to remember a foreign word, you need to choose a consonant word for it, that is, a word that sounds similar in your native or well-known language. Then you need to compose a short plot from the consonant word and translation. For example, a consonant word for the English word look (onion) “to look” will be the Russian word “onion”. The plot could be like this: “I can’t WATCH when I cut “ONION.” The plot must be compiled so that the approximate sound of the word and its translation appear as if in one connection, and are not torn off from each other, that is, actually for memorization. A consonant word does not have to completely coincide with a foreign one, a consonant part is enough. For example: MESH (mesh) LOOP, CELL (network). The words “bag”, or “to interfere”, or “to linger” can be considered consonant - as you prefer . Depending on the chosen consonance, the plots can be as follows: “A LOOP prevents you from getting out” or “The bag was tied with a LOOP” or “Stuck in a LOOP.” It is important that the remaining (auxiliary) words in the plot are as neutral as possible, not evoking vivid images. there should be as few words as possible. This is necessary so that when remembering, you do not confuse them with the necessary ones, that is, with the words that you memorized. The necessary words (consonant word and translation word), on the contrary, must be highlighted in every possible way , focus on them. If you can’t make a semantic emphasis, then at least an intonation one.

Using MFA, you can memorize many words in one sitting. And most importantly, this method will help you get rid of endless repetitions of memorized words - you just need to select a sound association for the word once and create a plot. Specific examples will tell you more about the nuances of using this method. DIVONA means "FOOL" in Dari (the language spoken in Afghanistan). The closest sounding Russian word to the word "divona" is "sofa". The consonant word does not have to completely coincide with the foreign word being remembered, the main thing is that it can serve as a kind of key with the help of which we could find the necessary word in our memory. But it can serve as a key only if we compose a plot from these two words, so that the actualization of one word from the plot entails the recall of another. At the same time, as you already know, the more unusual and vivid the plot, the better it is remembered. For the words “sofa” and “fool” the plot could be like this: “The fool fell from the SOFA.” It is important to pronounce out loud both the memorized word and the consonant word. First of all, this must be done so that your memory, in its natural course, captures how the consonant word is similar to the one you remember and how it is different. As a rule, it is enough to say both words 2-3 times.

Here's another example: ARRESTO - STOP in Italian. The consonant word “arrest” (this is exactly the case when the memorized word and the consonant word have a common origin, but over time the meanings of these words have diverged). The simplest plot is this: At a STOP, someone was ARRESTED. Here it is better not to specify who specifically, so that during reproduction you do not confuse the memorized word with this extra word. In such cases, you can use pronouns, and when reviving the plot, imagine that the matter happened with some friend of yours, or even better with yourself. At the same time, if you make up a story about yourself: “I was arrested at a traffic stop,” then it will be easy to apply the co-sensation method to it to increase the efficiency of memorization.

Surely you will record the words, consonances and plots you remember on paper. In this case, do not be lazy to highlight on the letter the memorized word, the translation, and that part of the consonant word that resembles the memorized one. To do this, you can use different sizes, italics, underlining, etc. It also promotes better memory (due to the interaction of visual and auditory memory).

In general, the best effect in memorizing foreign words is achieved with the simultaneous use of MVVO and MFA.

Often, to memorize a foreign word, you have to select not one, but two consonant words. This is necessary when the word is quite long, and there is no similar word in the native language. In this case, the foreign word must be divided into two parts and a consonant word must be selected for each of its parts (words should be short if possible and contain as many common sounds as possible with the one being memorized). For example, for the English word NAPKIN (napkin) - NAPKIN, we select two consonant words: “NEPTUNE” (or “Fidget” or “N.E.P.”) and KINul. All that remains is to create a plot, for example, “NEPTUNE THROWN A NAPKIN at me.” Moreover, in the plot, the first and second consonant words must necessarily follow one after the other, and there should be no words between them. It's good if, when reviving the plot and presenting it as a still from a film, you use exaggeration of associations. For example, imagine that they threw a huge napkin at you, so huge that it covered your head. Do not forget to also use the method of co-sensations.

Some people, when choosing an association for this word, will prefer a longer, but also more phonetically accurate association made up of two words: FOUNTAIN and GETRAS. And the corresponding plot: “I forgot my leggings in the Fountain.” Another part of people will prefer the less phonetically accurate, but shorter association “bassoon” (here “a” is unstressed and almost “o” is heard) and the corresponding plot, made up of the words “forget” and “bassoon”.

It should be noted that this method is not without reason called phonetic or sound associations. It is necessary to select an association specifically for the sound, and not the spelling of the word (after all, in many languages the sound and spelling of words are very different). Therefore, first of all, even before selecting the consonance, make sure that you pronounce the word correctly. There are other methods for remembering the spelling of words.

It is also impossible not to say that due to purely anatomical differences in the pronunciation of sounds in different languages, the memorized word and the consonant word will never sound exactly the same, even if they seem to completely coincide, as is the case with the English word " look "and its Russian consonance "bow". It is enough to note that the sound “l” in Russian and English is pronounced completely differently. Therefore, pronunciation, strictly speaking, must be learned separately. The method of phonetic associations perfectly helps to remember the meanings of words. The method of phonetic associations is indispensable in conditions of lack of time: when preparing for an exam, for a tourist trip or business trip, that is, in any situation where you need to remember a large number of words in a short period of time. With its help, it is not difficult to memorize 30-50 words a day, which, you see, is not bad at all (that’s at least 11 thousand words a year). The most important thing is that this method allows you to avoid tedious cramming (which is simply impossible with traditional methods of learning foreign words) and can even turn memorizing foreign words into an exciting, creative process.

If you like this method and want to practice its application, you can try the following exercise. I hope you can appreciate the benefits of the association method. A little further you will find a variant of associations for the words from this exercise, as well as some comments on them.

Exercise: Here are words in different languages. Select sound associations for them and create stories to remember.

a) Here are 8 Italian words. They are read the same way as they are written. ARIA - AIR FAGOTTO - KNOT BURRO - OIL FRONTE - FOREHEAD GALERA - PRISON GARBATO - POLITE LAMPO - ZIPPER PANINO - BUN

b) Here are 8 English words with approximate transcription and translation. BULL (bul) - BULL CONCEAL (consil) - HIDE, CONCEAL NUZZLE (mazzle) - MUZZLE LIP (linden) - LIP DESERT (desert) - DESERT HILL (hill) - HILL SMASH (smash) - BREAK (to pieces) PIGEON (pidgin) ) - PIGEON.

If, for some reason, you have not yet been able to find sound associations for foreign words or have difficulties composing a plot, look at how this could be done.

a) Italian words: ARIA - AIR. “When you sing ARIA you take in a lot of air.” FAGOTTO - KNOT. "BASSON tied in a knot." (Such a plot must definitely be imagined.) BURRO - OIL. "BURENKA gives oil."/ "BURATino slipped on oil."/"Oil is BROWN in color." You can choose any of the proposed plots. Each has its own advantages. The first one is good because it is close to the “butter” theme. The second is the most dynamic and funny. The third is faceless, does not evoke vivid images and is unmemorable, in my opinion, but some may like it for its brevity. FRONTE - FOREIGN. “At the FRONT I was wounded in the forehead.” (Of course, in the Russian language there is also a similar word - “frontal”, but not everyone understands its meaning, especially since it means “front”, “frontal” (in medicine), but still not “forehead”.) GALERA - JAIL. “They sailed away from prison on GALLERKA,” or “On GALLERKA it was (scary, uncomfortable...) like in prison.” The word "galley" contains more identical sounds in a row with the one being remembered. But an avid theatergoer will most likely like it, which means the second plot will be better remembered. GARBATO - POLITE. The key word is “Humpbacked” (we actually pronounce it “gArbaty”). It’s difficult to come up with a vivid story with these words. However, such moralizing statements are possible: “We must be polite to HUMPBACKS.” Or: “All HUMPBACKS are polite.” And someone will not be lazy and compose a whole story so that the plot becomes brighter and better remembered: “The boy is tired of being polite and give up seats in transport. Then he pretended to be HUMPBACK, and the place is now being given up to him." Of course, there are too many unnecessary words, but the significant words are clearly highlighted. LAMPO - LIGHTNING. "The LAMP flashed like lightning." Or "The lightning shone for a very long time, like a LAMP." I prefer " The bun was lying on PiANINO." It’s much better if you imagine how it fell from him. And, of course, it’s very good if you learn to come up with more original stories to memorize foreign words, for example, this one: “PIANINO had to be fed buns from time to time ".

SOUND, noun. What is heard is perceived by the ear; high-frequency vibrations of air or other medium

SOUND, noun. Same as sound

SOUND, noun. Linguistic articulate element of human spoken speech

Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

SOUND, sound, m. 1. Rapid oscillatory movement of particles of air or other medium, perceived by the organ of hearing (physical). || everything generated by movement, vibration of something. and perceived by hearing, everything that causes auditory sensations. Sounds of voices. The sound of a song. The sound of a piano. The sound of a kiss. The sound of footsteps. Monotonous sounds of raindrops. The sounds of fun are painful to me. Lermontov. Sounds of coughing. 2. A tone of a certain pitch, as opposed to noise (music). Musical sound. The scale consists of 8 simple sounds. 3. Articulate element of spoken speech (linguistic). History of sounds of the Russian language. Alternation of sounds. Changing the sound "o" to "a". An empty sound - about something devoid of any content or meaning. In capitalist Europe, freedom, equality and fraternity have become empty words. Not a sound - about complete silence. I call him, but he doesn’t make a sound.

Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

SOUND, m. everything that the ear hears, that reaches the ear. | old garbage, scrap stones, rubbish. To sound, sound, make, make a hum, sound, ringing. This piano sounds especially good. Sound the rivet. The string sounded, sounded, only sounded, sounded and fell silent, did not sound. It would sound again. She sounded tired of me. Sounding Wed. condition according to verb. Sound, related to sound. Sound vibrations, waves. Sonorous, sonorous, loud, booming, sonorous, noisy sounding. Sonority g. state of being sonorous, or property of something being sonorous. Sound law, sound science, sound science cf. acoustics, the science of sounds, part of physics. A sound meter is a projectile for measuring sounds or the number of tremors of a sounding object. Sound mood Wed. okay, the mood of the sounds. Onomatopoeia cf. the action of someone who imitates any sounds: the similarity of a word, speech, speech, voice with some other sound. Thunder, crackling, whistling, onomatopoeic words. Sound concord cf. agreement, correspondence, mutual harmony of sounds.

Modern explanatory dictionary

SOUND, elastic waves propagating in gases, liquids and solids and perceived by the ear of humans and animals. A person hears sound with frequencies from 16 Hz to 20 kHz. Sound with frequencies up to 16 Hz is called infrasound; 2·104-109 Hz is called ultrasound, and 109-1013 Hz is called hypersound. The science of sounds is called acoustics.

SOUND, noun. What is heard is perceived by the ear; high-frequency vibrations of air or other medium

SOUND, noun. Same as sound

SOUND, noun. Linguistic articulate element of human spoken speech

Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Letters of the Arabic alphabet

Method of phonetic (sound) associations (MPA) is a method of memorization, which is based on selecting a foreign word that is consonant in one’s native or familiar language and then composing a small plot with these words that will allow one to connect these words in the mind.

With the fall of borders and other barriers between countries, the expansion of business ties and personal contacts, the opportunity to travel and meet people from different countries, methods of memorizing foreign words are increasingly of interest to scientists, as well as ordinary citizens. How easy it would be to learn foreign languages if a person could quickly and easily remember new words. All we had to do was add a little grammar and... voila - the language barrier would be a thing of the past. That is why teachers today not only teach linguistic material, but also teach students effective methods of memorizing new words. By the way, these methods are the same for all languages.

Story

The sound association method is based on the fact that different languages have words or parts of them that sound similar but have different meanings. In addition, in different languages there are words that have a common etymology, that is, origin, and therefore they are also similar to their foreign counterparts.

For the first time, this method began to be actively used in the last quarter of the 20th century. At this time, Stanford University professor R. Atkinson was engaged in a detailed study of the use of associations in the process of mastering a non-native language. As part of a group of scientists, he suggested that students who studied Russian as a foreign language memorize words using the keyword method. At the same time, the control group memorized words using traditional methods. “Key words” in Atkinson’s interpretation are phonetic associations to memorized words, that is, consonant words. Experiments conducted by Atkinson and his colleagues showed the high efficiency of this method of memorizing lexical items. The method of phonetic associations, which helps to memorize foreign words quickly, easily and for a long time, is becoming increasingly popular in the world.

How many Arabic language learners can boast of reading the Quran in the original?

Essence of the method

It is well known that information in most cases emerges in human memory associatively. In other words, our thoughts or some thing cause associations that turn the brain to certain areas of memory - a place where other information is stored. Sometimes it can be very interesting to trace the chain of associations that gave rise to current thoughts.

Let me give you an example from my own life. When I was still a schoolgirl and came to my grandmother, a young man invited me for a walk. At the meeting, he told me about Dale Carnegie's amazing book.

How can I remember this complex surname? – I asked my friend (there was nowhere and nothing to write it down). “Remember this,” the crow said “kar,” grabbed a valuable book in its beak and made “legs,” the interlocutor advised. And it worked! I didn't even need to write down the author's last name. The next day I arrived home, went to the library and took the book I needed.

Using the method of sound associations, we enable the brain to establish a connection between a foreign word and its Russian meaning (and vice versa), creating an “associative bridge” between them. Thanks to this help, our brain remembers and reproduces words easier, more efficiently and for a longer period of time, in contrast to memorization.

Let's see how this method works with a specific example. Let's say you have to memorize the Arabic word for toothbrush "fursha". To do this, you need, first of all, to find a word in the Russian language that sounds similar to the Arabic word “fursha”. Let it be the word "buffet". There is no need to be upset if (as in this example) you cannot find a very similar word. Frankly speaking, this is not always possible. However, this is not always necessary, since often our brain just needs a hint of how a word sounds, and it will independently give the correct answer, taking it from a certain memory cell. So, we found the Russian word “buffet”, which is consonant with the Arabic word “fursha”. It is this “buffet” that will become an associative bridge from the word “buffet” to its meaning “toothbrush”. To do this, we need to come up with a small plot that would involve both a buffet table and a toothbrush.

Actually, it's not difficult. Imagine how someone very carefully prepared for a conference and the subsequent buffet reception - he bought an expensive suit, eau de toilette, did his hair, but... forgot to brush his teeth with a toothbrush, and before that day he ate at a restaurant where he was fed chicken with garlic. And now this man breathes this garlic on everyone (and chewing gum doesn’t help get rid of the smell), and everyone around him wants to hand him a toothbrush instead of a business card.

It’s better to come up with bright, unusual stories - this way they are remembered much easier. You need to imagine this situation down to the smallest detail - as if you were filming a scene from a movie. Choose a suit and perfume, imagine the smell of garlic. After you have imagined this plot, believe me, when you hear the word “buffet”, your brain will immediately give you a vivid scene as a memory.

Here's how it works going forward. You come across the word [furshatun] in the text. Say it to yourself and remember what Russian consonant word you chose for it. Yeah, we remembered – “buffet table”. That's all - the meaning of the word "fursha" is "toothbrush".

It just seems like the process will be too long. In fact, after practicing the words, the words will be fixed in your consciousness, and you will instantly pull out the necessary images from your consciousness.

For those learning a foreign language, the following tips will not be superfluous.

Use your imagination and try to come up with unusual, vivid stories that will be easy to remember.

It is better to use short stories and use more actions in them with meanings that you need to remember.

Use both positive and negative emotions and images in remembering. For example, think of a boss you couldn't stand, and it will be very easy for you to remember the Arabic word for "boss, leader" [mudirun] - a real "asshole."

Change the size of objects and their colors.

Use names to memorize, and if you don’t have friends and relatives with such names, imagine that you have them. In this case, it will be much easier to remember the words: “nadin” – club (imagine that your good friend Nadya has her own club, where you can come completely freely and even participate in face control for fun), “marid” – sick (imagine some friend of mine, Marina, who eats kilograms of ice cream at any time of the year and then gets sick). The word "said" "master" will be easy to remember for those who watched the series "Clone" - that was the name of the husband of Zhadi, who was married to an unloved person. Considering that it was in Morocco, and the Muslim woman Zhadi was always dressed up in an abaya and hijab, the word “master” in relation to her husband is very appropriate. As for the word “karim”, “kind”, “generous”, even if you don’t know a single kind Karim, you can easily imagine him using your imagination. In addition, Muslims congratulate each other on the fast "Ramadan Kareem!" (Generous Ramadan).

Linguists advise using erotic motives when memorizing. They say that this way words are remembered much better.

Take part in these stories yourself as often as possible. Remember various funny incidents that happened to you, involve your friends, family and acquaintances.

Try to use not only visual images, but also smells and sounds. As many senses as possible should work to remember the plot.

Choose words that will fully correspond to those you remember. But if that doesn’t work, divide complex words into syllables. For example, the word "marhaba" "hello" can be remembered using the association of a holiday romance, when your friend Marina ("mar") met (that is, said hello) to her future "habibi" ("hub"). By the way, when memorizing, rely on already learned words of a foreign language. This will make the task much easier.

Examples

Let's take examples for learning Arabic using the method of sound associations.

The word article “dakala” - you can imagine how a journalist, before the advent of ballpoint pens, would “dip” a pen in ink and write an article (if you hear “makalatun”, then know that “tun” is the ending that is added to all feminine words , un – masculine in classical Arabic).

The "Mistar" - "Miss" line of the world (like the line) is so thin that it rattles its bones like a "tara".