tirsdag 7. august 2007

The trick of learning new words

About 15 years ago I was at the Sorbonne learning French.

I was by far the oldest student in the class, - the teacher was about my age, - although she would probably not have admitted it.

The rest of the girls in the class were mostly au pair girls around 19 years old, - with just a few exceptions. Thus I was very happy to have an Italian psycologist of 32 as a friend, although it did nothing for my pronounciation.

Coming from all over the world the students were a lively bunch, and even though they definitely were there to learn the language, they were also in Paris to have fun.

One American girl had her own program for learning a little extra, - she had a list of about 5 or 6 new words that she should master each day. Her way of forcing those words into her active vocabulary was to use the words over and over again untill they were stuck in her memory, and could be included in a sentence at the shake of a hand.

And that is just my problem now:

Today I have learned a new word, - I think I know how to pronounce it, - but how on earth am I going to be able to include that words into the rather meager number of sentences in English I use every day at the library, and may enough times for the word to stick?

The word is: troglodyte.

3 kommentarer:

Lothiane sa...

... I don't even know what it means! :-O

Good luck with learning that word. ;)

Tonita sa...

Rather late than never Lothi,
the word means cave dweller.
If I remember correctly.
Difficult when one does not practice new words enough.

I will ask Mike to use the word in the right context tomorrow at dinner - it could become rather amusing.

Lothiane sa...

Ah, now I figured out what you meant while commenting on my blog. :)

A cave dweller..? haha, not sure if I know what that means either. But it's a fun word. :)