Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer Memory techniques for learning Italian Vocabulary: Harry Lorayne, etc?

I will be on a 5-week trip this summer to Italy. I want to speak the language as well, naturally, and fluently as possible. The steps I've taken so far are listening to Pimsleur Italian I audio tapes (which have a section at the end of each which involes pronunciation of written material) and PhotoReading an Italian-English English-Italian dictionary regularly.

However, once I get to Italy, I expect that there will be some new words that I want to know in order to communicate more effectively, so naturally, I'll look them up in a travel dictionary. Ideally, I'd simply look up a word I need and remember it perfectly from then on :-) However, this is not so realistic really because for some words it takes several repititions/reminders to solidify a new vocabulary word into my useable vocabulary.

I read through parts of a book by Harry Lorayne, called The Memory Book, I believe. However, I've really had limited success applying his technique of using ridiculous mental imagery to associate the meaning of a word with the English sound of a word. a) Coming up with an appropriate image sometimes consumes more of my time than simply reading it over and over again to remember by rote. And b) then, if I do come up with a clever image, sometimes it is too clever, and I remember part of the ridiculous image later, but it doesen't help me to tie the associated vocabulary word into quick, easily accessible useage.

Anyone who is familiar with memory techniques which are appropriate for quickly and effectively learning new words of a foreign language: What would you recommend that I try? Should I try Harry Lorayne's again, but with a different approach? Might it be worth my while to buy a different book of his that approaches the subject from a different angle? Am I hoping for too much to memorize vocabulary so quickly? Some guy wrote in a review to Amazon.com for one of Harry Lorayne's book geared for high school students saying that the techniques work very well for him and that he easily learns 300-400 new words per day. I certainly believe this is possible -- I just want to see clearly how :-)

Thanks!

-CameronJ

The easiest way to settle into the new language is don't stress it.

My brother didn't speak a word of German and only understood some of the basics when we went to stay with relatives in Germany. Took him about 3 weeks and he was conversing in the Language telling his own stories with ease. He did nothing to prepare.

When you encounter new words do what a PhototReader does... listen for meaning often the rest of the phrase willhelp you to uncover the meaning of the word. Then just use it in a sentence or phrase of your own as quickly as possible it makes it easier to remember the word when you use it haow it is generally used. Don't get too hooked up on new words so much as the words generally used in conversation repetition works far better than anything else.

When you listen for word in another language you will often notice some similarity to the Engish word and words from European languages. And if you've learned Spanaish you might find a similarilty or two in Italian.

While learning the language is great if you're only there for the summer have fun the mind was able to take care of learning your first language when you were a baby, it can help a lot now.

Alex

Thanks, Alex. That's a very reasonable response. I guess the reason I was so intent on accumulating new vocabulary words INSTANTLY is that it would be nice to learn for Italian this summer and then be able to apply to my Spanish class next year! Every so often we get vocabulary lists of 30-60 words and have to associate them with their corresponding synonyms and be quizzed on 15-25 of them.

It seems like so many people have had such success with Harry Lorayne's techniques that I figured there must be an easier, more efficient way to memorize vocab words; maybe yes, but it's not the best idea to get started on it for this trip, eh?

BTW, the Pimsleur tapes do teach you the language and new vocab words and then have you use them in context -- they use a graduated recall model of repetition to deeply instill the words into the listener's mind. And it works very well for me -- as long as I listen to the tapes sequentially, I remember the vocab and can use it to carry on conversations.

-CameronJ

Hi--
You might want to check the book "Accelerated Learning for the 21 Century" by Colin Rose. It has a technique for learning languages called the "Name Game"