MEMORY SYSTEMS FOR LANGUAGES

When hearing the word 'language', some tend to think only of
foreign languages. Seldom do they stop to think that the term
includes their own tongue! The title of this chapter conse-
quently refers to English as well as to other languages!
As I mentioned in my book Speed Reading vocabulary is
considered to be the most important single factor not only in
the development of efficient reading but also in academic and
business success. This is not surprising when one realises that
the size of one's vocabulary is usually an indication of the
depth of one's knowledge.
Since vocabulary is the basic building block of language, it
it desirable and necessary to develop methods of learning and
remembering words more easily. One of the better ways of
accomplishing this aim is to learn the prefixes (letters, syllables
or words recurring before root words) the suffixes (letters,
syllables or words recurring at the end of root words) and the
roots (words from which others are derived) that occur most
frequently in the language you are attempting to learn. A
comprehensive list of these appears in the vocabulary chapters
of my book Speed Reading.
Here are some more tips on how to improve your word
memory:
1. Browse through a good dictionary, studying the ways in
which the prefixes, suffixes and roots of the language are used.
Whenever possible, use association to strengthen your recall.
2. Introduce a fixed number of new words into your
vocabulary everyday. New words are retained only if the
principle of repetitions as explained earlier, is practised. Use
your new words in context and as many times as possible after
you have initially learned them.
3. Consciously look for new words in the language. This
directing of your attention, known as 'mental set', leaves the
'hooks' of your memory more open to catch new linguistic
fish!
These are general learning aids to assist your memory in
acquiring knowledge of a language. They may be applied to
English, as a means for improving your present vocabulary, or
to any foreign languages you are beginning to learn.
Having established a general foundation for learning words,
let us be more specific in the remembering of particular words.
As with other memory systems the key word is association. In
the context of language-learning it is well to associate sounds,
images and similarities, using the fact that certain languages
are grouped in 'families' and have words that are related.
To give you an idea of this linking method, I shall consider
a few words from English, French, Latin and German.
In English we want to remember the word 'vertigo' which
means dizziness or giddiness, and in which a person feels as if
he or surrounding objects are turning around. To imprint this
word on the memory we associate the sound of it with the
phrase 'where to go?' which is the kind of question you would
ask if you felt that all surrounding objects were rotating about
you! Two words which many people confuse in the English
language are: 'acrophobia', which is a morbid fear of heights,
and 'agoraphobia' which is a morbid fear of open spaces. The
distinction can be firmly established if you associate the 'aero'
in acrophobia with acrobat (a person who performs at great
height!) and the 'agora' from agoraphobia with agriculture,
bringing to mind images of large flat fields (though the Greek
word actually means marketplace!).
Foreign languages are more 'approachable' when one
realises that they form groups. Virtually all European lan-
guages (with the exception of Finnish, Hungarian and Basque)
are part of the Indo-European group, and consequently
contain a number of words which are similar in both sound
and meaning. For example the words for father: German
'vater', Latin 'pater', French 'pere', Italian and Spanish
'padre'.
A knowledge of Latin is of enormous help in understanding
all the Romance languages, in which many of the words are
similar. The Latin word for 'love' is 'amor'. Related to 'love'
in the English language is the word 'amorous' which means
inclined to love; in love; and of or pertaining to love—the
links are obvious. Similarly we have the Latin word for 'god':
'Deus'. In English the words Deity and Deify mean respect-
ively 'divine status; a god; the Creator' and 'to make a god of.
French was derived from the vulgar speech of the Roman
legionaries, who called a head 'testa', a crockery shard, hence
'tete', and the shoulder 'spatular', a small spade, hence
'epaule', etc. About fifty per cent of ordinary English speech is
derived either directly from Latin (+ Greek) or by way of
Norman French, leading to many direct analogies between
French and English.
As well as language similarities based on language grouping,
foreign words can be remembered in a manner similar to that
explained for remembering English words. As we are discuss-
ing French, the following two examples are appropriate: In
French the word for 'book' is 'livre'. This can be remembered
more readily if you think of the first four letters of the word
'Library' which is a place where books are classified and
studied. The-French word for 'pen' is 'plume' which in
English refers td a bird's feather, especially a large one used for
ornament. This immediately brings to mind the quill pen
used widely before the invention of the steel nib, fountain pen
and biro. The link-chain 'plume—feather—quill—pen' will
make the remembering of the French word a simple task.
Apart from the Latin, Greek, and French, the rest of
English is largely Anglo-Saxon, going back to German, giving
rise to countless words that are virtually the same in German
and English—glass, grass, will, hand, arm, bank, halt, wolf, etc.
while others are closely related, light (licht), night (nacht),
book (buch), stick (stock) and follow (folgen).
Learning languages, both our own and those of other
people's, need not be the frustrating and depressing experience
it so often is. It is simply a matter of organising the informa-
tion you have to learn in such a way as to enable your memory
to 'hook on' to every available scrap of information!
The methods outlined in this chapter should give you a solid
basis for becoming more proficient in the various languages,
and for enjoying the process of becoming more efficient.