Been trying @metivier’s foreign language vocab memory places. Anyone put irregular verbs in them? How do you handle it?
In Latin, there are a lot of words that have very different spellings based on tense/voice/mood.
For instance, these are all one word: auferō, auferre, abstulī, ablātus. They each mean some variation of “carry away/remove”. It’s kind of maddening.
So should you cram them into one station? Have a separate station for each?
How do you handle this?
Thanks!
There are a few ways you can handle declension and conjugation.
One is to use the Pillar Technique with nominative, genitive, dative lined up on one side, accusative, ablative, vocative on the other.
You can usually get in at least first and second person on each Pillar.
I feel there’s a problem in thinking that all declensions (or conjugations) are “one” word, however.
You’re not wrong, but that’s not always helpful when applying memory techniques.
Rather, if a particular rendering requires it, pop it off in an alphabetical Memory Palace (as I teach) and then add a phrase. Then run substitutions based on your current level of knowledge, such as:
I carried… I will carry… They carry, they will have carried etc.
Make sure that you are regularly reading, writing, speaking and listening. Yes, even in Latin. And there are opportunities to do so.
Also, in reading, it’s helpful to do a lot of anticipatory reading, which is essentially trying to work out what’s being said and perhaps performing some etymology as you go.
In my Bruno Reborn project I talk about more about this in the treasury of Bruno’s Latin section.
In any case, a lot of this overwhelm can be reduced and I would suggest the above combined with reading, writing, speaking and listening so that you’re getting a combination of Recall Rehearsal and “natural” spaced repetition.
What Latin language books do you currently work with, both in terms of textbooks and primary texts? I might have some other ideas for you.
That’s very helpful. Thanks. I’ve read through Familia Romana and about 50 novellas/short stories up to an “beginner-mediate” level. I haven’t really studied grammar but have absorbed some through pattern matching. I’ve made no attempt to use mnemonics up till this point. Just learning by reading. But I’m beginning Seneca’s letters, and plan to put all unknown words in alphabetized memory palaces. Related question: It seems like your normal strategy for using bridging figures that share the first few letters of a word won’t work here. So is there a particular way you’d trigger the start of the word in your mind so you can connect it to the rest of word and its meaning and the subsequent forms of it on the sides of the pillars?
There are multiple ways to use Bridging Figures.
And at the level of reading you’re describing, they can be applied, just not perhaps on a word-by-word basis, which you might be beyond already anyway.
One thing to consider dropping the idea that just because cases are involved, they are the “same” word. It’s just as easy to view them as variations on words that are still words and then gather them for use with Bridging Figures that way.
There are also opportunities for Bridging Figures with the indeclinables and even ways to use the technique with the prepositions, conjunctions, interjections, etc.
I’ve memorized very little of Seneca, and you may have heard me quote him in Latin from time to time. There are two Bridging Figures involved in how I memorized him, one of whom is Seneca himself.
In any case, it’s not that anyone has to use Bridging Figures. It does come with the cost of doing some analysis and sorting. But grammatical permutations do not remove the approach from the game. Far from it.
Actually, there’s one of his letters I’ve been working with as we speak… maybe I’ll memorize parts of it to take a break from ye olde Bruno.
Awesome. I’ll see what works for me. Thank you for your time and enjoy Seneca and Bruno!