Re: memorizing dialogues

From: Kevin Wayne Williams (kww.nihongo_at_verizon.nut)
Date: 10/28/04 

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 07:13:41 -0700

Bart Mathias wrote:
> gerankel wrote:
>
>>Hi there,
>>
>>[How should I memorize long passages?]

> I would recommend that you build up each sentence from the essentials to
> the decorations. Suppose your line is
>
> $B$-$C$H6vA3$K$\$/$H$3$3$G2q$o$J$+$C$?$i!"@<$r$+$1$J$+$C$?$O$:$@!#(B
>
> Start out with "koewo kakenakatta," "awanakattara, koewo kakenakatta,"
> "awanakattara, koewo kakenakatta hazuda," "kitto awanakattara, koewo
> kakenakatta hazuda," "kitto bokuto awanakattara, koewo kakenakatta
> hazuda," "kitto guuzenni bokuto awanakattara, koewo kakenakatta hazuda,"
> just adding a word at a time. Choosing what to start with, and what to
> add next, will also be good for your acquisition. With sentences of any
> complexity there will be different options in that regard; you just want
> each step to make sense in the same terms as the complete sentence.

That's pretty much the way Pimsleur does it, and I agree it is
effective. Doesn't keep me from believing that you need to understand
the structure of what's going on, and have some comprehension of the
individual fragments.

If a student took a text and studied it and broke it down until he can
do what you describe, I think he would have gone a long way towards
understanding the words and the sentence structures at hand, which would
avoid the problem of repeating a stream of uncomprehended syllables.

KWW