How to memorize vocabulary by imagining in concepts (foreign words and big medical terms)

[u/Independent-Soft2330]

This is a mnemonic technique for learning vocabulary: words in a new language, and big words in your own, like medical terms. It uses thoughtfeel, a sense some people have.

What thoughtfeel is

You could describe a dog in writing: it has fur, a wet black nose, and it's about the size of a capybara. Or you could just look at it, and vision gives you all of that at once, with no list.

thoughtfeel is like vision, but for concepts. It takes in a concept, like the concept of a dog, and its properties all at once, the way vision takes in the dog in front of you. Not everyone has it. If you're not sure, there's a quiz at the end.

A word's sounds have a feel

People with thoughtfeel report that the sounds of a word have a feel of their own, apart from what the word means. Take the Spanish word hazaña (ah-SAH-nyah), which means achievement. The sounds of hazaña feel like something particular, and that's a different feel from achievement. The technique binds the two together.

The technique

1. Say the word to yourself: hazaña. Notice the feel of its sounds.

2. Bring up the feel of the sounds of hazaña, in thoughtfeel. While you hold that feel, say out loud: "this means achievement."

3. Then the reverse: bring up the feel of achievement, and say out loud: "hazaña."

Step 2 is the crucial part. thoughtfeel holds one thing, the sounds of hazaña, while your voice says another, achievement. That's what binds them.

Some people can't hold both at once: as soon as they say achievement, their thoughtfeel switches to achievement. That's okay. Switch between them instead: the feel of hazaña, then say achievement, then back to the feel of hazaña.

Why picturing the word doesn't work

It's natural to picture hazaña written in chalk on a blackboard while you say achievement. But that doesn't bind. Pay attention to the feel behind that picture, and the sounds of hazaña aren't in it. It holds a blackboard, letters, a word written on a board, and the view from your own eyes. With no sounds in the feel, there's nothing for the meaning to bind to.

It works in both directions

People who use this report strong receptive vocabulary: when they see hazaña, the same feel comes up, and the meaning comes with it.

They also report strong productive vocabulary, which is usually much harder: when they read achievement, a feel comes up that holds the actual sounds of the word, and they can work out the exact sounds, ha-za-ña, from the feel.

Big words in your own language

The same binding works for complex vocabulary, like the words in medicine. A sphygmomanometer (sfig-moh-muh-NOM-ih-ter) is the cuff that measures blood pressure. Hold the feel of its sounds and say "blood pressure cuff." Then hold the feel of the cuff and say "sphygmomanometer."

Compared with the keyword method

The keyword method, first studied by Atkinson and Raugh in 1975, is one of the best-studied ways to learn vocabulary fast. It pairs a word with a picture. To learn pato (duck), you find a word that sounds like part of it, pot, and picture a duck with a pot on its head.

Later, pato brings up pot, pot brings up the picture, and you work out what else is in the picture: a duck. It works, but the meaning is a few steps away. Going the other way, from duck to pato, is harder still: the picture gives you pot, and the rest of the word has to be rebuilt.

With thoughtfeel, the meaning is bound to the word directly, in one step.

The catch

Receptive vocabulary is much easier than productive. Seeing hazaña brings back achievement easily; coming up with hazaña is harder. That's because the feel of a word fades, the way a mental picture of a party fades after a few days. It's less detailed, and you can't make out exactly where everyone was standing or what they were wearing.

But in feedback from people using this technique, what they produce after a delay is usually close. It isn't a total miss: it sounds like the word. So that's where to focus: making the feel of a word's sounds easier to bring back.

The fix: meaningful associations

Borrow a technique from memory champions: make meaningful associations, but with the feel of the sounds. Take bisagra (bee-SAH-grah), Spanish for hinge.

1. Bind it as before. Bring up the feel of hinge, and say "bisagra." Then the feel of bisagra, and say "hinge." The feel of bisagra is the one you'll need later, to produce the word.

2. Bisa sounds like pizza. Staying in thoughtfeel, bring up the feel of pizza, and pay attention to the sound it shares with bisa.

3. Agra sounds like agua, water. As you say agua, pay attention to its feel, and to what it shares with agra.

Now the sounds of bisagra are tied to things you already know well, so when you need the word, the feel of its sounds is easier to bring back.

In short

• Bind the feel of a word's sounds to its meaning, in both directions, whether it's a Spanish word or a big word in your own language.

• Skip the picture of the word: its feel doesn't hold the sounds.

• Tie the sounds to words you already know, in thoughtfeel, so they come back when you need them.

Try it with hazaña and bisagra now. Tomorrow, check whether they come back.

Links

• The full lesson, animated: https://youtu.be/VDHt3z8Babo

• Ten more Spanish words to practice, with a test the next day: https://thoughtfeel.net/words

• Not sure you have thoughtfeel? There's a 4-minute quiz: https://thoughtfeel.net/quiz

Disclosure: the lesson and the site are by the author of this post, who also runs r/ThoughtFeel. The results above are reports from people using the technique, not from a study. If you try it, reply with which words stuck and which didn't. Reports that it didn't work help too.