If I could get 1$ for every student that claims ‘copying’ vocabulary out is the only way to learn, I would be a millionaire by now.

But, once you’ve read this I am sure you will never go back to this miserable practice ever again!

Let’s face it, copying out vocabulary is

1. BORING!

2. Goes against the science of how our brains remember and store information.
   
   

Here is what I did to rebel against this practice that my Chinese teachers continually made me do as a college student.

1. Think about the function, not the meaning.

Every time I came across a new word, I didn’t rush to look it up in the dictionary and scribble it down.

Instead I slowed down and analysed the function that this word is fulfilling in this context.

Why is it better to understand the function and not the definition/meaning?

You see, meaning is relative and also very subjective, what a word means in Chinese could mean and imply something very different in English. Despite this, the definition could come up as the same in the dictionary. This is why a lot of people still sound very English when they speak Chinese.

Let’s take an example.

You came across this phrase and want to memorise “身上”

“你把错怪到我身上”

According to the dictionary 身上 means “on one’s body” but this makes no sense and doesn’t even explain what 身上 is doing in this sentence. If you don’t understand the function, you don’t see the importance of using this specific phrase in this sentence. No importance = no relevance = no memorisation.

The solution: Find more phrases with this word to understand the function. The best way to do this is to use a Chinese website called 造句 zaojv.com

别把事情都赖到我身上

我身上有照顾家庭的重担

希望寄托在青年身上

I notice that with 身上 we use words that are like “burdens/responsibilities” 事情, 重担, 希望. They must be shouldered/carried by the person in question who has 身上 after them.

^^ This is the difference between understanding function and writing down “meaning”

2. Context and interest.

It sounds obvious, but I know for a fact that as humans we always complicate things and overlook the simplest and most effective solutions.

This one method is something I devised myself and I have not seen other teachers talking about it.

We recall information when we encounter a cue that makes us think of this information.

EG) Smelling fried garlic can transport some people back to their childhood if their grandmother used to make a lot of delicious home-cooked food for them

Hearing the sound of an ice-cream truck can make someone think back to the time they got ice cream as a kid

Seeing someone who looks like an ex can make people recall a past relationship

You get the idea. You always need that cue to trigger the recall of information.

What can we use as our cue in language learning? Context + interest.

Solution: Encounter new words in situations that are more interesting than a textbook.

This could be

1. A Chinese book

2. A podcast

3. A C drama

4. A phone conversation

If you write down the new word, remember the situation in which you heard it. Where you laughing about some kind of cultural difference between China and your country? Were you talking about your fascination with China’s internet memes? Always create a link for your memory to trace back along. Words without any significance will enter one ear and leave the other!

That’s it for this week! I am committed to making language learning as logical and as simple as possible whilst helping you avoid the boring and traditional methods that are preached everywhere!