Learning foreign languages with "Lingo": how to memorize 5 thousand words in 3 months

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Do not think that we are crazy. Not only polyglots and especially talented people can do this. You can easily learn and memorize 50 or more words a day if you use the power of associative memory.

What is the point

"Wikipedia" tells us that the association is a connection that arises in the process of thinking between the elements of the psyche, as a result of which the appearance of one element, under certain conditions, causes the image of another associated with it. So, this feature of our thinking can and should be applied if the study of foreign languages is your goal. If you simultaneously see the object itself, denoting its foreign word, and also hear the pronunciation, then a strong triple association "object - word - pronunciation" will be created in your brain.

In the screenshots you see the interface of the application called "", which fully reveals the potential of associative memory for the successful memorization of new foreign words and their subsequent use in conversation.

The very same condition is met: you simultaneously see a card with an image of an object denoting its foreign word and you can listen to the pronunciation.

The rest will be done by the brain automatically. When you see or even just think about this object, the foreign word will instantly pop up in your memory.

At first, it's hard to believe, because there is no simple explanation for this mechanism, but you just take and at a time learn the next 50 cards with unfamiliar words, at the same time putting them aside for repetition in order to double-check yourself. And then, after a day, a week or a month, you return to them and … remember everything! Every word. The new information obtained in this way is so firmly ingrained into the brain that, even without being in the application, I somehow unconsciously scroll in my head hundreds of these cards with objects and their names, and my inner voice pronounces them.

It is proposed to learn new words either by topic or by an increasing level of difficulty. The choice of a method is reasonable to do, based on your specific situation. If, for example, you have an imminent visit to a certain country, then it would be wise to choose the topic "I am a tourist" and first of all learn the basic set of words for a traveler based on the language of the country of visit. The app currently supports 12 languages: British and American English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Arabic.

The learning process itself does not require any kind of continuity from the user. Are you in line? You will have time to learn 5-10 new words. Traveling from work or to work? Here, depending on the duration, there may be enough time for several dozen words. Sitting on the toilet, lying on the couch - you can study anywhere, and overall progress is easily tracked through built-in statistics.

The Lingo application is distributed free of charge, but has a limit of 50 cards. This is more than enough to test the effectiveness of the method on yourself, and then buy the full version for 119 rubles. This is very cheap for an application containing such capacious dictionaries for 12 languages.