have finally completed the 26 letter palace for the Portuguese Language. With 1300 stations in total. So I can learn 50 words for each letter.
Now I don’t know what to do for learning the language itself. I don’t know how to approach it. I don’t have money to invest in a course. So I don’t want to spend money. So I can learn from free books, YouTube, online resources maybe. What would be your advice ?
So should I just use the basic language words of Portuguese to fill up those stations. Just to keep it simple. But then what good would those words be if the context of the word changes depending on the situation. Because you would have many of the same words but with different meanings.
Portuguese will have the same words but depending on the sounds of those same words they will mean different meanings if you say it in a different way. I hope this makes sense. So it can be quite complex approaching this language.
Anyway to keep it simple what would be your advice to approach a language first with basic methods taken into what I have said Into account. Could you tell me a simple step by step approach to fill my memory palace please.
I don’t see much value in the memory palace method for learning language. It seems more trouble than it’s worth so to speak.
I learned a fair amount of Spanish words (something like 300 a day) using the simple "what does the word sound like and make a logical/funny/horrific connection between that and the meaning.
for example:
arbol = tree, but in Dutch laguage:
ar = sled
bol = sphere (like a planet)
so I picture a glass sphere with inside a sled with a tree on it (like the decorative spheres they sell for christmas with artifical snow, when you shake it)
another example:
ordenador = computer
so, I imagine being inside a computer store and screaming “I don’t want an ordinary (sounds like ordenador) computer, I want a special one”.
If you use this method in combination with spaced repetition, at least for the vocabulary part of language learning, you will be much faster than the ordinary (love that word) people.
Good point, this is how many of us learn new vocabulary words in our native language. Link the word with the meaning, like the way to connect a name with a face of someone you just met.
I don’t see why a palace isn’t worth the effort though if you need to learn, say, a bunch of nouns in the foreign language for a class exam or the like. I would use a palace in that case.
Portuguese is one of those languages where the words are spoken very differently than the way they are written. It’s like the whole language is spoken like one big contraction. You can easily learn a few hundred words a week by word - sounds like - interact with meaning. The problem is that when you hear Brazilians speaking the very same words you just learned you will be shocked at how differently they are spoken together versus individually. It’s like in English when we say “can’t” instead of “cannot” except the whole language like that. I think the focus has to be on how they speak the words together and memorize the sounds of the words together. This is difficult because the contractions are not written. One exception is music. I often pick a cool sounding bossa nova song and memorize the first word of each line. And then go back and use PAO. Example: samba de orly
VIA(why?) meu irmao, PEGGE(peg) se avian, VOCE(voice) tem rasaog. You’ll memorize the whole song a few song a few minutes. Then go back and attach the words images with meanings. This method ensures that you understand how the words RUN together which is how the language is really spoken.
Learning the language is worth it because in no time you will back on the beach in Brazil with some of the most beautiful interesting and friendly folks in the world and speaking to them in Portuguese. There’s nothing like Brazil or Rio during carnival.
I have something that I completely forgot in my last post. Movies AND movie scripts. You can pick up the basic grammar anywhere. I Memorized the script of the movie Central Do Brazil. By the end of the first few scenes I had learned the most commonly used words as they are used. The script for the movie Central Do Brazil is probably on the internet. I bought it on the street in NYC. The DVD is also online. It’s a great film so it was easy to watch over and over. I found the dialogue easy to memorize because I knew what was coming next from having watched the movie. I used association “word-sounds like-meaning” and a palace to memorize the most important word of each sentence to memorize a scene quickly. Then I watched the scene over. then it just started to stick. I marked up the script. My DVD player could replay at half speed which helped. THEN I went to a Brazilian restaurant and found a waitress who would talk to me.
You’ll be good in two months and then back to Ipanema … and we both know what’s waiting for us there
I use languages to help me learn languages. My way probably is not best, but it is what I do. In school, in California, we did not have foreign language classes until we were teenagers and I felt stupid when my neighbors all spoke two languages and I only had one. I started French in school and noticed the sentence structure, words placement, was similar to the way my Spanish-speaking friends constructed sentences. I used this familiarity. I knew many old and rare words from looking in old dictionaries and this gave me similar words borrowed by my language to compare with new words in my French class. I progressed and took Spanish the next year. There were similarities, but I kept the learning separate by thinking in different accents as I studied homework for both classes. I took German the next year, again keeping the languages separate by thinking in different accents for each. The word order in German reminded me of the word order in Shakespeare, and I used this familiarity to help me learn. I didn’t use palace-techniques for the language learning, but it might work to build such a palace in its own language, possibly, where the images and numbers and words and sounds are all in whichever language.
I recently decided to try the free Duolingo app on my iPhone and the web version from Google. I had doubts at first, but I’m beginning to learn Dutch. If I can do that then you might want to try it, it’s like a game.
Remember the difficulty of the language and the approach for each language. Learning French, Chinese and Russian not easy at first using an unique approach, that is if you want to both write and understand grammar correctly, if the goal is just speech, then the same approach may be easier to apply.
Resources:
There may be a page online
Discord Groups for practice
I’m a Spanish native speaker, I learned English from school and listening to TED Talks and TV series (LEGIT), as you can see I can write relatively well because of the grammar knowledge from school and imitation from conversations and what I’ve read.
Have you tried Matteo Ricci’s advice on the matter? He learned Chinese with memory palaces, he speaks about using mixed reality memory palaces.
Anyways, for French (mostly any romance language) and Russian (also apply to languages with cases) I would use memory palaces to hold pronunciation rules, basic grammar rules (no need to go deep) and the first 600 words, then the rest is reading and memorizing vocabulary, if you can speak and and can form descriptive sentences, you’re ready to go into fluency.
First learn how the language works (Wikipedia)
Learn the Alphabet
Memorize all the pronunciation rules (easy in phonetic languages like Japanese and Korean)
Memorize basic grammar rules.*
Make a list of basic vocabulary less than 1000 words, memorize those first.
Make specific vocabulary (job, technical, internet jargon, relationship, descriptive)
Basic Grammar rules:
Be able to form, understand and say Tim Ferris 13 sentences in your target language:
The apple is red
It is John’s apple
I give John the apple
We give him the apple
He gives it to John
She gives it to him
I must give it to him
I want to give it to her
I’m going to know tomorrow
I can’t eat the apple
I have eaten the apple
Is the apple red?
The apples were red
Learn comparison, learn the future tense, learn enough grammar to describe objects and people (think about it).
Memorizing techniques to use: method of loci for rules, grammar and vocabulary, link word for each word, link system to learn multiple words in a day (50 words a day is enough, 1500 a month). After memorization, recall it 5-10 times, then practice Tim Ferris 13 sentences.
Application:
Link word: (French to English): pomme (word) links pom (pronunciation) links apple (meaning)
Link system: link word picture links with another link word picture in a story, or use a memory palace
There is a lot of EAD courses (kind of a online courses) of brazilian portuguese for foreigners offers by the best universities of Brazil like University of São Paulo or Federal University of Rio de Janeiro You can find this courses at the websites of this institutions. The government himself offers a online course of this nature, here the link for more information:
And Im brazilian and portuguese teacher, so if you need help with some of those obscure grammar rules of portuguese You can send me a message and i will [cry with you] try to help you.
Hi, dmaster! Congratulations on your project! I always find learning languages yields surprises and fun beyond expectations!
When I’ve worked with very good language teachers, they have done something I would call “short-term memory overload” (for lack of a better term). There may be a technical name for it in the literature on second-language teaching, but I haven’t found it yet.
The way what I’m calling “short-term memory overload” works is the teacher gives you a new word or concept and then works that into a long structure- a structure too long for you to hold in your short-term memory. In order to follow-through on the teacher’s demands, you have to work hard and concentrate. You are pushed out of your comfort zone, you are really challenged. My experience is, the new material is learned quickly and made more solid by use in these longer structures. After the lesson, you are very tired out.
I will invent an example in English, though I learned that as my first language.
Perhaps you can try to do something like this in Portuguese.
Let’s say the student has just learned how to ask and answer the question, “What time is it?”
Practice involves asking “What time is it?” or being asked “What time is it?” and answering that question at various times, based on printed clocks showing various times.
One answer is “It is one o’clock.” Another is “It is noon.”
Then it gets harder. “It’s four-thirty in the afternoon.”
“It’s ten minutes after nine pm in the evening”
“It’s five minutes before eight o’clock in the morning.”
And so on. This way, you are practicing numbers and syntax and pronunciation (this is spoken aloud), all at once and you are mastering a very useful set of vocabulary.
Similarly, you can learn names of items in shops. You are asked “How much does this [wallet] cost?” and have to answer “This wallet costs $60.” Then you can learn more complex structures such as “This wallet costs $20 less than that wallet.” If you are pushed to generate more and more complex structures, the word “wallet” will have to be stored in your long-term memory for you to be able to answer.
I hope this is useful for you, and if anyone has more insight into this method, I hope you will share it!
Best of luck!
Me too, Fuchsia. I would use a palace.
I think one benefit of a palace is you don’t need to link the words in the target language to words in your own language. Instead, you can link them directly to things or actions themselves. Wouldn’t this help you take out the extra step of translation? So you see a cup and just think “o copo”. You don’t think “cup” → “o copo”. Isn’t it better to learn to generate words in the target language more directly and quickly?
Another benefit is you can practice, you can review your memory palace, without any gadget or writing. Falling asleep or in the shower or waiting in line, you can go over it because it’s just in your head. This is a benefit which I think is often overlooked or underestimated. When you can review it anytime, anywhere without any gadget or notebook, it is really yours.
Do others feel that way about Memory Palaces?
Better than flashcards, IMO!
I think I will try making a memory palace in the language I’m working on, with just 10 nouns. Then once I have memorized them, I will go through them asking a question about each one. First, “What is the price of that ___?” and then answering. Second, “Whose ___ is that?” Third, “Where is that ___?” and so forth.
When I’ve deeply mastered these ten and talked about them, I can make another 10-item palace for another ten items, or just set them on the same loci as the first. Then I can talk about both sets, and say things like “The __ is next to the ___.” “The ___ is in front of the ___.” and so forth.
I think this will be more useful than creating ANKI flashcards because I will be visualizing the items and talking about them. I will not be going back and forth between English and the target language.
