I’m writing this article focusing on Japanese because that’s the language I have been learning, but the principles in this blog post and on the other blog posts can be applied to learning any language.

When I first started learning Japanese, I quickly realized that there was nothing familiar in the words that I was trying to learn when compared to my own language, English. This makes it incredibly difficult to remember new vocabulary when you are just starting out. You’ve basically got no way of remembering the new words.

Mnemonics is a way of linking things together in your mind in a way that helps you to remember things. This can be used in learning languages and has been used in the linkword method from Linkword Languages

It really helps you to remember languages. For example, if you were trying to learn Russian, the word for cow in Russian is Karova, so imagine “I ran my car over a cow”. The word will stick in your head.

Another example is, in Japanese the word for fish is Sakana, so imagine putting a Sack on A fish.

It works best when you visualize the description in your mind and aswell if you use funny and absurb things. This helps you to remember the word more easily.

For example, the word for Duck in Japanese is Ahiru. So, imagine A Duck becoming A Hero.

Using the linkword method is great, especially in the beginning. A lot of the words that you learn will be names of useful things like the train station and post office, taxi and food items when you are starting out, which is really useful if you are heading out soon to visit another country as it will help you to navigate restaurants and eating out.

You shouldn’t rely on it too much over the long term as it can become confusing if you only learn by using mnemonics,

but it’s a really great and fun way to start learning

and once you’ve read a lot of examples of these linkword mnemonics it becomes second nature to start making your own mnemonics up. This can be really useful because sometimes even if you have been learning languages for a long time, you can find that the odd word just doesn’t stick in your mind so applying a mnemonic in these situations is really helpful.

As well as the Linkword website, Edward Trimnell’s book Falling In Love With Carp is great for learning Japanese Vocabulary.

Why not give it a go and start your journey into learning a new language.