I haven’t really used mnemonics much in my language learning so far. Mostly because I haven’t wanted to spend the time and effort…and perhaps I’m not clever enough either. It dawned on me the other day though that perhaps ChatGPT could do such a thing. I hadn’t seen it mentioned so far here or elsewhere and perhaps some folks that like to use mnemonics for helping to remember words mind find this useful.
Here are a couple of examples I used:
me: can you give me a mnemonic for the german word ablehnen that will help me remember it and its meaning in english
chatgpt: Sure, here’s a mnemonic for the German word “ablehnen”:
"AB"lehnen sounds like “abandon” and “LEHNEN” sounds like “leaning,” so you can remember that ablehnen means “to reject” or “to decline.”
You can also think of it as “Ablehnen is when you abandon the idea or proposal by leaning away from it.”
me: can you give me a mnemonic for the german word hüten
chatgpt: Sure, here’s a mnemonic for the German word “hüten”:
“HÜTEN” sounds like “hootin’” or “hootenanny,” so you can remember that hüten means “to guard” or “to protect.”
You can also think of it as “Hüten is what you do when you want to keep something safe, like a valuable hootenanny that you want to protect.”
me: can you give me a mnemonic for the german word Schwelle
chatgpt: Sure, here’s a mnemonic for the German word “Schwelle”:
“Schwelle” sounds like “swell,” so you can remember that Schwelle means “threshold” or “doorstep.”
You can also think of it as “Schwelle is the threshold to a swell new place, like a doorstep to a grand home.”
These were just some random words from something that I’ve been reading recently that I’ve encountered as new words or ones that are still yellow for me.
Personally, at an intermediate level, I don’t touch mnemonics. I don’t, simply because the thought process takes too long to finally come up with the definition of the word. The speaker of the YouTube video has already said two more sentences, which I just missed because I was trying to remember the mneumonic. I’m at the stage, where understanding needs to be fast and that can only be done by the subconscious. Maybe at a beginner level, it has its place. But also keeping in mind that time taking for memorising mnemonics is time taken away from other activities.
Bing was even worse:
I apologize for the confusion earlier. Here’s how to say mnemonic for delatar in Spanish - “mnemotécnico para delatar” 1. However, I couldn’t find a specific mnemonic for this word.
Would you like me to explain more about mnemonics in general?
I gave it another chance:
Can you give me a mnemonic to help me remember the Spanish word “delatar” and what it means in English?
Bing: I apologize for the confusion earlier. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a specific mnemonic for this word. However, here’s what “delatar” means in English - “to denounce; inform against” 1.
Would you like me to explain more about mnemonics in general?
Perplexity was a little better:
To remember the Spanish word “delatar” and its meaning in English, you can use the mnemonic “de-later” which sounds like “betray later.” This can help you remember that “delatar” means “to betray” or “to give away” in English
[1]
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Here’s a mnemonic for “delatar”, which means “to betray” or “to denounce” in English:
“Delatar” can be broken down into “del” + “atar”. “Del” means “of” or “from” and “atar” means “to tie” or “to bind”. So, you can think of “delatar” as “to untie and reveal something that was previously hidden or bound”.
To remember this meaning, you can imagine someone untying a knot to reveal a secret, but then betraying the person who trusted them by denouncing them. So, the mnemonic is “untie and reveal → betray and denounce → delatar”.
If it’s being weird, just regenerate the answer or specify what you meant.
/ edited because I originally asked it for “delantar” instead of “delatar”, for which as a side note ChatGPT made up a meaning.
This one - https://chat.openai.com/chat. The regenerate button will be right under every answer! I haven’t used the playground in a long while so I’m not sure if you’d get different answers there.
/edit and as for Bing, I wouldn’t bother. I was excited to try it out since it uses ChatGPT 4 but it can’t answer anything specific, misses all the nuance and misunderstands most of the queries. Unless something general is what you want in which case it’s probably pretty good!
"Sure, here’s a possible mnemonic for the Spanish word “delatar”:
“Debes evitar la tarjeta roja”
This means “you should avoid the red card” in English, and the first letter of each word spells out “delatar”. This mnemonic could help you remember that “delatar” means “to give away, to reveal or to betray someone’s secret”, as getting a red card in a game might be seen as an act of betrayal or giving away your team’s advantage."
I see it as being used mostly to help with a word or words that you have been having difficulty remembering. Not useful in the course of listening to someone or something at full speed. Just like most folks need to translate the words in their head on the first # of usages…you certainly wouldn’t expect to understand a word listening that you are still needing to translate in your head. You’ll be a couple of sentences behind. However, it’s a stage in the learning process of a word, until the meaning becomes “instantaneous”.
There’s a “Regenerate Response” button just above the “send message” input field.
It’s odd that you are getting such a different response.
Try being very specific like my first example. Maybe it’s gotten itself confused on some previous requests? You could also start a new chat, if you haven’t already. (lefthand side-- + New Chat)
I tried a more “wordy” request similar to my very first example:
me: can you give me a mnemonic for the spanish word delatar that will help me remember it and its meaning in english
chatgpt: Certainly! Here’s a possible mnemonic for the Spanish word “delatar” that might help you remember its meaning in English:
“Delatar sounds like ‘tell a tar’, which means to reveal or give away someone’s secrets.”
This mnemonic uses the sound similarity between “delatar” and “tell a tar” to help you remember that “delatar” means to give away or reveal someone’s secrets. The image of telling a tar (which might represent someone’s secret or hidden information) could help you associate the Spanish word with its meaning in English.
Great idea Eric. I’ve just tweaked your prompt this way.
Prompt: Can you give me a mnemonic for the German word Ausgaben and its different combinations of meaning that will help me remember it, and its meaning in English?
Make a list first.
Now create a story connecting all meaning so that I can remember all of them better.
ChatGPT: Sure, here’s a list of the different meanings of “Ausgaben” in German and a mnemonic for each:
“Expenses” or “expenditures” - think of “Ausgaben” as sounding like “ouch-gaben”, as if you’re saying “ouch” when you have to give out money for expenses.
“Publications” or “issues” - think of “Ausgaben” as sounding like “house-gaben”, as if you’re referring to issues of a publication that are coming out of a house.
“Outputs” or “outputs produced” - think of “Ausgaben” as sounding like “out-skaven”, as if you’re referring to things that are being produced and sent out.
To connect all of these meanings in a story, imagine that you are the owner of a publishing company. You are sitting at your desk looking at your company’s financial reports, which show all of the expenses (or “Ausgaben”) for the month. You wince when you see how much money you’ve had to spend on printing and distributing your latest publications (or “Ausgaben”), but you know it’s necessary to get your company’s outputs (or “Ausgaben produced”) out into the world.
By connecting all of the meanings of “Ausgaben” in this way, you can more easily remember the word and its various meanings in English.
I still don’t know this stuff of image creation but I quickly did this based on the story above.
I know there are missing things but I don’t know the prompts yet.
I agree that the learning/remembering process of a word is (generally) conscious for the first X encounters, then it becomes slow subconscious, then finally fast subconscious. I just find that my kinda way of learning vocabulary has been read the word in a lesson, then relisten to that lesson 5x or 10x (over the course of months). I know the story/topic, so I usually either remember the word when listening to it or I can piece the puzzle together. Or maybe I forget, but then it pops into my head a few sentences later or maybe on the next relisten. These are my ‘reps’. Then, when I encounter the word in reading-while-listening in a new lesson, I can’t always recognise the written word, but when I may recognise the spoken word, so I associate meaning with the written word. Then I listen to this lesson 5x or something. Maybe it’s just my process that doesn’t really call for mnemonics. Maybe if you are only doing reading, it might be more helpful.
For @Mycroft
Prompt: Can you give me a mnemonic for the Spanish verb delatar and its different combinations of meaning that will help me remember it, and its meaning in English?
Make a list first.
Now create a story connecting all meaning so that I can remember all of them better.
ChatGPT: Sure, here’s a list of the different meanings of the Spanish verb “delatar” and a mnemonic for each:
“To denounce” or “to report” - think of “delatar” as sounding like “deli-tar”, as if you’re reporting a delinquent person to the authorities.
“To reveal” or “to divulge” - think of “delatar” as sounding like “delight-tar”, as if you’re revealing something that will bring delight to someone.
“To betray” or “to give away” - think of “delatar” as sounding like “delay-tar”, as if you’re betraying someone by delaying or giving away information about them.
To connect all of these meanings in a story, imagine that you are a spy who has infiltrated a criminal organization. You have to be careful not to reveal your true identity, but you also need to gather information to denounce (to denounce or report) the organization to the authorities. You manage to gain the trust of the organization’s leader, who starts to confide in you and reveal (to reveal or divulge) important information. However, you soon realize that the leader is planning to betray (to betray or give away) you to a rival gang, and you must act quickly to escape and report the organization to the authorities.
By connecting all of the meanings of “delatar” in this way, you can more easily remember the word and its various meanings in English.
Just having fun but I’ve never read how to prompt correctly with those image generators. It’s just an idea to connect the variations of the words, with the story created from chatGPT and and image created from the story.
