8. Here’s a French Memory Trigger

1. New Year’s Resolution

Sticking to your New Year’s Resolution? Did you resolve to polish up any language skills? I hope that part of the NYR was to bolster that vocabulary!

2. Accent on the South of Spain

I was in Málaga about two weeks ago, in the South of Spain. I struck up a conversation with a local lady who explained why Málaga, is not a great place to learn good Spanish.

The locals drop the ‘s’ sound from the endings of any words so endowed, the result being that ‘dos’ is said ‘doh’, and buenos días is said bueno día! Furthermore for words such as ‘España’ (Spain), they say ‘Epaña!’ For the best Castillano accent she said students should go to Madrid, Valladolid or Segovia.

3. The familiar forms of you in Spanish

Speaking of Castillano one of the features of the Spanish spoken in Spain is the use of the ‘vosotros’ form of the word ‘you’ which is used when talking to two or more friends, or relatives, children. It is the plural form of tú.

Spanish verb tables show 6 verb conjugations including the ‘vosotros’ form but in Latin America only 5 verb conjugations are used, and the ‘vosotros’ form is not used. In Latin America ustedes is used to for all forms of you plural address.

4. Build your own Lesson

There is a function in the 200 Words a Day! course that allows you to build your own lesson or lessons, by choosing the words from the course that you select.

(1) Click on the Build a Lesson icon, the one with the bricks and the building trowel.

(2) You will have the choice to choose English words or the Foreign word.

(3) Click on the words that you wish to add to your lesson. You can choose as many words as you want for your own lesson, but in the Summary at the end of the lesson only the first 30 words and their respective pics will appear in the lesson summary at the end of the lesson. So we recommend keeping your own lessons to 30 words or less.

5. Rapid Mode

In the settings menu of the 200 Words a Day! courses you can select ‘Rapid Mode’ which allows you can play the lessons rapidly without the Memory Triggers being read aloud, and allowing you to speedily flick through the lessons.

This is great for a quick preview of a lesson, or a quick revise after learning a lesson, or before testing yourself.

6. Visualization

This is the power to imagine and see pictures or scenes ‘in the mind’s eye’. Children, in particular, have vivid and fertile imaginations.

Often you’ll find the quirkier, funnier, more outrageous these pictures are, the easier they are to remember. They can be used to lock things into your mind that one wants to remember.

Before each word in the 200 Words a Day! programme we have the word . . .imagine . . .to remind you to imagine the scene in your mind’s eye.

Laughter is a great stress reliever and takes a lot of the tedium out of learning. When you study the pictures in the 200 Words a Day! programmes, you may be in pleasantly surprised with a spot of humor to help enhance your ability to learn and recall foreign words.

All the great memory masters of the world teach us that the key to a good memory is being able to see and visualize things in your mind’s eye.

7. Here’s another Spanish word and Memory Trigger for you to enjoy.

algo (pronoun) = something.

Imagine saying to your friends on a scavenger hunt:

“If we ALL GO, we may find something!”

l’ambulance in French sounds like and is spelt like ambulance in English, so this is depicted by having an ambulance in the French colours red, white and blue.

But how do we know the gender?

We include a female character as the main character in the pic, which in this case is Florence Nightingale, the famous nurse, the ‘Lady with the Lamp’ who reminds us that the word is feminine.

Our special New Year's offer mentioned in our last newzine was very well received - we hope to hear from more of you re: your progress.

Doug R. from Utah had this to say:

How does the 200 Words a Day! method compare to any of those you've previously used?

I love the 200 Words a Day! method because I remember the words, the recall is incredible! I also like the idea that you learn how to spell the words as well (as you go), no other program gives me that.

When you started did you have any scepticism about achieving 200 words a day?

Some, but your method really works. Very impressed how easy it is to recall vocabulary. I also like the reviews (day after, week after, month after, etc). That seems to really reinforce my memory recall.

Which pictures do you like best/worst?

They all seem to work well. And those that don't I make up my own!

That’s it for this newzine. Happy vocab building.

Kevin Crocombe
Kevin@200words-a-day.com.

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