I hope this is the right place to write a question like this.
In my school, we have a course where we at the end of the year will take an English Cambridge Test (CAE). It is in Sweden so english is not my first language, but I am currently taking the hardest english course at upper secondary so I am, well, somewhat familiar with the language hehe. I am just wondering if anyone here has experience about the test. Is there an effective way to use mnemonics to prepare for the exam?
I am familiar with mnemonics such as memory palaces and major system. I have recently completed a project where I memorized roughly 300 bird species in latin. It took quite a while, half a year or so, so I wonder if there is a more effective way to learn the more formal tone of the english language? I would like to hear other people’s thoughts.
I hope I have made myself clear. If not, please ask questions.
If there’s new vocabulary words to learn you can use the linking method with similar sounding words and an image of the definition. Is that how you memorized the bird species, or what method did you use for that?
I kind of like grouped the birds together logically in my head. For example, I put the owls at one particular place, the falcons at another and so on. I did not focus that much on the birds family tree. I read the latin name and I immediately came up with a place that reminds me of the latin name. There were a lot of birds which had the name “Emberiza” for example and it sounded like an old friend of mine called Ember. Therefore I placed those birds at a park where she lives. Like I said, it took a while.
When I look back at it, I think it was hard because a lot of birds have like two words in them. A pearlowl consists of the words “pearl and owl”. It does not make it easier when it is called Aegolius funereus in latin. 2 words + 2 words = 4 mental images at least, for just one bird. That is why I tried to place all the owls at one place but unfortunately not all owls start with “Aegolius” so I was not able to be consistent all the time.
When you talk about the linking method. If I for example try to learn the word “tittynope”, which is the small leftover food on a plate. Should I create an image for the word “tittynope” and a picture for the leftover food, and then connect them? I feel like it is not a hard task but I think it will be very hard to keep a structure of the words. I am not sure if the structure should be alphabetically, connected to the same activity, nouns at the same memory palace or so. Do you understand what I am getting at?
Yes that makes sense. Your English is very good. Im not sure that it matters exactly where you place it as long as it’s somewhere you can systematically review it because once you have the connection made all you need is to hear the word and you should jump to the image of the plate with a little food on it.
You wouldn’t really have to think “It starts with T so I need to review all my T items to find the definition”, as long as you have a strong link to the image definition keywords.
I would just think of a cow eating off a plate that has a little bit of food left on it and I come out to milk the cow and say “I’m gonna grab your titty…nope”, says the cow and goes back to his tittynope. I will probably remember that even without placing it in a loci but for the purpose of review so as not to miss anything it couldn’t hurt to have it in a station. Thanks for the vocab word, Ive never heard of that before!
If you wanna put all your T words together in a palace that starts with T, I don’t think that would be necessary but maybe someone else who has come across a reason to do that could comment.
You want to hear the fun part about the word tittynope? My teacher is always presenting a “Word of the day” at the end of the lesson to add to our vocabulary. I have written down all the words in anki. “Tittynope” is one of them, along with pandiculate, trumpery, cornucopia and other helpful words. It is a fun small memorization project. One classmate who does not even practise mnemonics the same as I do has created a rhythmic song with all the words we’ve heard so far. The teacher is quite impressed.
Haha Thats awesome. Songs can be a great way to remember things.
After thinking about it I haven’t actually taken on a big complete memory project like a foreign language or a lot of new vocab. Ive just been dabbling in a little bit of Spanish, learned the US Presidents and term dates, PI to 200 and chunks of Bible scripture verbatim.
The organization might be worth it for a big scale project. Maybe not everything alphabetical but I am realizing I am keeping categories separated like Spanish separate location from vocab in English and verbatim text in its own area. Although once I had the text down I put the presidents in the same area without a problem and use other stations for cards and random numbers but would also like to use them for more useful information eventually.
Maybe extra detail to organizing is worth the time as long as it doesn’t delay getting started. It might help with finding synonyms for words if they are nearby other similar words and that would be a bonus that you wouldn’t have to add extra imagery to get.
There’s really no point in lining the memories up that I have found. It’s not a dictionary, you just go straight to the entry. More like a search engine. Once a word is internalized, you have it, with or without alphabetizing mentally.
I get that it can be fun, and that guy who memorized the Chinese-English dictionary stored words by initial letter at least, but if the goal is simply to learn the words with the meanings anything else is just redundant.
Yeah, I understand what you mean. I heard about that guy who memorized the dictionary two years ago and it seemed like the ideal way then but when I have read all the people’s posts in this thread, I feel more motivated. Thank you! I will remember it
Mnemonics can help you remember hard words for the CAE exam, but they won’t teach you formal English by themselves. The best way to learn a formal tone is to read good English texts, newspaper, watch subtitle movies and practice writing. So use mnemonics for vocabulary, and use reading and writing to improve your style.
You can watch shows like The Crown or the Kings Speech and listen to BBC learning english, TED talks daily or NPR up first to learn formal and clear english.
Thanks everyone for all of the tips. It has been a long time since I last wrote but I can see how my language has evolved. I have continued to learn words like “poppysmic” and “Sesquipedalianist” so it is moving very efficient for me. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to paid streaming services so I’m unable to watch The Crown but I look forward to listen to the types if podcasts you mentioned
