Say It Out Loud 18 Times

Want to learn your terminology quickly and easily?  In a recent post, I told you that one way to do that is to work on six new words every day.  My friend Jane, the foreign language professor, gave me another tip to help learn new terminology: say each new term out loud at least 18 times.

Apparently, there's evidence suggesting that to "own" a new word, you have to say it out loud at least 18 times.  The vocalization, along with the repetition, apparently help to reinforce memories in the various language areas in your brain.  Which means that you can recall and use the terms easily.

I know that seems silly . . . even childish.  But think about it.  Silly as it may seem, isn't it worth reducing your study time and improving your knowledge quickly?

Adapted from a post at The A&P Student

Six New Terms a Day

As you begin (or continue) your study of terminology, you will likely feel a bit overwhelmed with the flood of new words.  Or a lot overwhelmed with all the new terms.

However, it need not be as big a struggle as you might first think.  There are some tricks and shortcuts . . . and I'm here to let you in on a few of those.

Today's tip comes from my friend Jane, who is a very talented professor of foreign language.  She told me that research as shown that most people can easily learn five to seven new words a day.  That is, if you work at it, you can add about six new words to your vocabulary each day without too much trouble.

That doesn't seem like a lot, but if you spend a few minutes a day you can easily pick up about 45 new terms a week.  That's over 700 new terms in a semester!

But of course, the trick is to put a little bit of effort into every single day.  Simply make yourself six or seven new flash cards, each with a new term, every day.  Review them for  just a few minutes, but do that several times throughout the day.

Don't forget to spend a few minutes reviewing your cards from the days before . . . you don't want to forget those new terms.

If you make this a habit, then you'll find that those few minutes a day can really make a huge difference in your mastery of the terminology you need.

Adapted from a post at The A&P Student

The Pleasure of Learning New Words

Recent research shows that learning new words triggers the reward circuits of our brain—making it a pleasure to learn and study terminology.  Like you didn't already know that!

In a study published in the journal Current Biology, researchers have experimentally proved that human adult word learning exhibits activation not only of language regions of the cerebral cortex, but also of the ventral striatum (VS)—a core region of reward processing.

Results confirm that the motivation to learn new words is preserved throughout the lifespan, helping infants learn their first language and adults to acquire a second language.

Want to know more?

The Role of Reward in Word Learning and Its Implications for Language Acquisition

• P Ripollés, et al. Current Biology. 3 November 2014. Vol 24. Issue 21. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2014.09.044
• Original research article.
• my-ap.us/1Dzod24

Learning a new word stimulates the same region of the brain as sex

• F. MacDonald  Science Alert. 29 OCT 2014
• Plain English summary of the research.
• my-ap.us/1ALmipP

Photo: adapted from Landesbibliotek

Some content adapted from a press release.

What, if anything, is o-log-y?

After having published other blogs for students and teachers of human anatomy and physiology, it occurs to me that one of the biggest struggles is becoming immersed in a whole new terminology.  

Okay, that didn't just occur to me.  What recently came to mind is the idea of producing a blog for the specific issue of learning the language of human science and medicine. 

So here it is!

Looking ahead, I think I'll be covering concepts like these:

• Tricky issues like Latin pluralization
• Pronunciation issues
• How word parts work, including how terms are built and alternate meanings of word parts
• Where the terminology comes from
• Eponyms
• How to use them
• Why avoid them
• Who those people are or were
• Dissecting specific terms to learn more about their meanings
• Tips on using terminology
• Weird terms or usages
• Terminology trivia

Some of my blog posts will be basic and others will be more advanced.

If you teach in the human sciences, you may want to use the more basic posts to help your students by including links to them in your syllabus, course website or learning management system, or discussions and email messages with your students.  The more advanced posts may help you clarify some of the gaps in your own working knowledge of terminology.

If you are a student of the human sciences, both the basic and advanced posts will help you become more deeply immersed in a new language.  That can only help you better understand concepts and how they are explained or communicated to you.

If you have an ideas for topics, requests, tips, or puzzles you'd like help in solving, please contact me!

The title of this blog is o-log-y.  I derived that name from a dissection of the "-ology" phrase appended to many terms that describe fields of study, such as biology (the scientific study of life) and etymology (the linguistic study of word origins).

[o- combining form, -log- words (study of), -y activity]