If you can create a strong new memory every time you discover a new word in Spanish your rate of learning would increase.

How then can you make stronger connections to new vocabulary?

It’s starts with a quick look at how we evolved. In this week’s mindset podcast, I talk about how evolution has given us one tool for making deep and longer lasting memories.

This episode was inspired by an old post. In that post I talked about how our emotions can be useful when it comes to making new memories.

Can you remember what you did last friday? How about what you were doing 3 tuesdays ago?

What you may find is that if the day wasn’t associated with a particularly strong emotion you will forget what happened. If, in contrast, you think back to an emotional day like a holiday, a wedding or a birthday you will be able to remember that day more clearly.

You can then take this idea and apply it to the language learning process. What you have to do is find a good way to link new spanish vocabulary to your emotions.

There are a number of ways to do this. But one way, that most students would find easy, is listening to music. If you can find a Spanish song that moves you, then you can learn the lyrics to the song and combine the emotion of the song with the new vocabulary.

I have provided 6 songs that have moved me in some way. Some songs make me sad, some happy, some are just really fun.

Have a listen to these songs to start. Then if you find the method effective and enjoyable look for other songs to practice with.

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

http://youtu.be/9MSav8_POlo

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

You can follow along here: Lyrics.

Quote from the episode:

“Music may be the activity that prepared our pre-human ancestors for speech communication and for the very cognitive, representational flexibility necessary to become humans.” ― Daniel J. Levitin

What other Spanish music do you like? What other ways can you strengthen the memory of new spanish vocabulary?

The post Tips 080: How to Create a Strong Connection to New Spanish Vocabulary appeared first on Real Fast Spanish.