Hello, i am a native German speaker and i want to learn Russian vocabulary, my problem is that i dont know an effective way of memorizing it, if already made an system where i have for each letter in the Cyrillic alphabet an animal and a object (which i put in a memory place) but when i try to recall it i just cant remember the words or just to slow i also dont think i can use assosiation on most word because Russian sounds totaly different form German or English.
I can recommend you to try Spaced repetition method. I used it for my second language.
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I wouldn’t make a peg system, I wouldn’t use the pegword method either. If what you really want is vocabulary, use the method of loci, for a higher and faster and more consistent amount of words. You should do spaced repetition for recall, and fix to memory anything you forget ASAP.
Method:
- Select a word, sentence or expression. (I’d choose meaningful sentences to learn multiple words together).
- Convert the original word in Russian to an image of its meaning. If you’re memorizing a sentence or paragraph, the for each new word use an image (try to avoid images for known words).
- Place the image in a mental spot (loci). If you chose to memorize multiple words together (in a sentence), create an movie connecting the phrase.
- Recall. Spaced repetition: recall now, two days later, five days later…
Note: make sure to pronounce the word in your mind each time you recall it. Some may advise against memorizing multiple words together, but consider you were memorizing a poem, it’s much easier to memorize verses word for word than each word separately, then enlarge your memorization my adding to your images, making you recall while memorizing even more.
Edit 1:
Make sure you learn all the pronunciation rules first, that way most words will be easy to memorize only focusing in its meaning and not how it’s written, although weird words by their weirdness will be memorable. Take your time.
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