An amusing vocabulary memory trick

With this little collection of vocab have a look at the expression in Korean, then my effort to make an image/ sound combination that will make it memorable and see if you can guess what the meaning might be before scrolling down to find the answer. See what you think of it as a memory technique, and then we’ll discuss it at the bottom:

ajumma – she’s the same AGE as YER MA =

a married or older woman
 
anju – ANd YOU drink and you eat and drink some more and… =

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snacks eaten when drinking alcohol
 
bang – it’s the place where you do that =

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room
 
bawi – picture a mountain that looks like David BOWIE =

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a large rock
 
bong – a mountain that looks like a drug implement =

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peak
 
cha – it’s what you drink before you say tada =

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tea
 
-cheon – if she pEEs ON the hill for long enough she’ll make one of these =

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small stream
 
dae- – DAEwoo is this, that’s what makes you say “whoo!” about their business prospects =

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big
 
-do – after following the beach for ten hours Homer realised that he had actually made a complete circle, DOh! =

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island
 
dong- – the sound of the gong struck in front of the rising sun =

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east
 
donggul – stalactites DANGLE, or it’s the home of the Dark side of the wOMBLEs =

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cave
 
DVD bang – where the speakers are set up so well it’s like the explosions are real =

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a room for watching DVDs
 
-eup – “EY UP”, said the Yorkshireman, “are you off to…” =

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town
 
-gang – a chain GANG digging a channel, or a mafia GANG dropping a dead body into water =

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river
 
gil – as narrow as the opening into a fish’s GILL, and with parallel ones the same =

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small street
 
-gu – like a baby town, GOO goo! =

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urban district
 
-gung – the GUNG-ho rulers live here =

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palace

Guess any? Going to remember them? Not amused and want your money back?

I’ve never used this technique before and have no idea how it will work in real time Korean communication, but it’s main selling point for me at the moment is that it is quite amusing to think up these bad puns and that is about the only motivation I can find at the moment to start studying language number eight (success rate so far: one learnt well, one learnt okay but messed up the previous one that learnt well because so similar, one basic survival level but most foreigners even worse so still feel quite chuffed, one the classic can read but can’t speak a word, the others complete faliures).

Any experience with this or other memory techniques? Any other tips or links on learning Korean? Comments below please (bad puns optional):

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 9th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Alternative teaching techniques, Linguistics, applied linguistics and SLA, Memory and language learning, Teaching English in Asia, Teaching English in Korea, Teaching methods and methodologies, TEFL, Vocabulary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.