3 Jan 2012

Vocabulary study as interpretive dance

Submitted by Karl Hagen
Topic: 
You probably know about the visualization trick for learning new words: create a mnemonic device linking the sound of the word to its meaning. For example, to learn hirsute, you might picture a woman standing in a business suit. The suit has hairs poking out of it all over. You then tell yourself, "Her suit is hairy." And it isn't just memorable images that work. It turns out that gestures work too, even for abstract concepts where the notion of a mimetic gesture doesn't really apply. Hey, if you can turn your PhD into an interpretive dance, why not your vocabulary study too?
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