Does anyone have any good memorization techniques or study techniques that can help me learn faster, other than just using repitition?
Does anyone have any tips on memorization or study that might help me learn Spanish faster? I would like to say thank you in advance to all those who answer and/or edit my question.
10 Answers
Use our flashcards - they appeal to your mind in three ways: by pictures, the word's graphic (written) form and sound.
If you have better visual memory, you can use the following techniques: word maps, placing tags with new vocabulary all over your place - you can tag specific objects to learn their names in Spanish.
If you remember new sounds better, learn through oral repetition, you can e.g. record your voice with new words or even whole sentences.
If you're a kinesthetic learner, you remember new things by being active. You can immitate some action verbs, revise new material while walking or jogging.
Knowing your own cognitive style really helps: how did you use to learn new things? Did you need some quiet and peaceful environment, or learnt better with some background music?
Use every oportunity to speak, even to yourself, acting some dialogues.
Use blended learning techniques: read stories written in simple words, listen to music or some Spanish TV, use our video lessons, get a good handbook, make notes.
Great suggestions! On a different note, for all of us learning more intensely:
Remember that it is during the deeper stages of sleep that we organize newly acquired information into long term memory in a way that we can later retrieve it. Different brains do work differently and some do this better, but all brains need adequate sleep and enough sleep cycles to "lock in" what we have learned that day (6-9 hours, depending on how long your sleep cycles are - for many people it = 7.5 hours) Proper nutrition - especially those B vitamins and Omega-3s helps us learn and memorize better too.
Entonces, come las vegetables y los granos integral, y asegúrese de dormir lo suficiente.
(ayudame si mí Español es no correcto!)
Make up songs about what you want to learn. You can be as dorky as you want because it's only for you. In fact, the dorkier the better as you're more likely to remember something silly.
I took a German language course in highschool and I can still remember "Van habst du geburstag?" to this day. That was 11 years ago.
Take a phrase or two and set it to music be it B-I-N-G-O or The Farmer in the Dell or whatever.
Have fun, sing it with children. Then you won't look like such a dork. That's my excuse anyways.
Dear moderators - how come the category is still not changed here 
Associate them with similar English words of similar origin or spelling.
Izabela said:
...placing tags with new vocabulary all over your place...
In the beginning I found that labeling everything in the house with its Spanish name really helped. Now I don't even have to think about how to say "tostador, nevera, lámpara, reloj, etc."
Think of random things that link the English word with the Spanish translation. For example, cognates are words that sound alike in two different languages. There are a lot of spanish-english cognates, such as basquetbol, beisbol, tenis, and golf (Yes, golf is exactly the same in English and Spanish!) And those are just sport related words!
You can also look at similar words that aren't cognates. For example, rojo and red begin with the same letter (Works for me!)
You might also start looking at stuff you've already memorized. For example, last year I learned the phrase "jugar videojuegos" (to play video games). Now, when I need to define "jugar whatever" I just think "to play whatever" i.e. "jugar deportes", means "to play deportes", or rather "to play sports"
Imagine you are hearing now your favorite song.
That´s the place in your mind to store pronunciation of the word.
Now recall your most beautiful memory - that´s the place where you store pictures. When you memorize new word - look at it and then look at picture of the word in your mind. If they match - you got it.
Once you memorize enough vocabulary start watching - clips, movies, lectures, anything - so you link action to new language - without interfering with your native one...
Read a newspaper article and look up any words you don't know. Then read it aloud until you can say it fluidly. This will help you to learn phrases instead of just words and develop word association that helps memorization.
