Tired of learning languages from tame textbooks? Some musings on second (and third, and fourth...) language learning from a geeky linguaphile.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Vocabulary in context

Most language pedagogy at least pays lip service to how you need to learn vocabulary in context and without translating from your native language. "hikouki means airplane" is not a great way to get a word to stick in your head. It's better to imagine an airplane, and, in your head, label it 'hikouki.' Better still if you can imagine yourself flying in an airplane, invoking the flight attendants giving you the safety spiel and the plane's vibrations and the kid in back of you kicking your seat, and know that that is a hikouki.

It works even better if you've got some kind of definite emotional response.

And that's why I find it really helpful to read novels. If you can't afford to get on a plane and spend a year overseas, then you can still wrap a fictional world around you. And if it has vivid images, and things going on that you really care about, then you pick up the words. One of the novels I've been reading in Spanish is the first of the Harry Potter books--and when I hear the word 'espejo' (mirror), in my mind I see Harry standing in front of the Mirror of Erised, the mirror that reflects what you want to see. When I hear 'cebolla' (onion), I think of the first scene in Like Water for Chocolate, which certainly uses onions vividly. And what this means is that when I hear the word, I don't think automatically of the English translation. I can think about what I'm hearing in terms of meaning and images, rather than just trying to translate it. And that, as far as I'm concerned, is a good thing.

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