Project: Unforgettable

My Image

Traditional tools for learning foreign language vocabulary usually employ simple L1-to-L2 text translations (shoe = sko), and sometimes they’ll add an image to illustrate, but the way this material is commonly presented completely ignores how memory actually works. Fortunately, I’ve got an idea for how to change that…

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When language tools offer an illustration, the image usually shows the subject in complete isolation, like this shoe.

But that’s not how memory works. Memories are forged by linking ideas together. Your memory of a shoe is not an idealized shoe floating in a white void - it’s a messy confluence of related concepts: feet, socks, laces, learning to tie your shoes, your first pair of soccer cleats, blisters on your heel, a shoe-print in the sand, etc. Memory is a tapestry woven from such connections, and making memories is easier when you have all of that messy context to work with.

Compare that floating shoe image to this one. Which one is more interesting? And if an image is more interesting, it’s also much more likely to be memorable.

You’ve probably already experienced this for yourself. If I say the phrase “Tank Man,” you probably already know what image you’ll see here, but nobody knew that phrase before they saw that image, and now everybody remembers it. That’s the power a memorable image has to burn new words into your brain.

So the idea in this project is to present foreign vocabulary in a way that exploits how memory actually works, using interesting, memorable images, paired with caption text showing the word in use, and adding the secret sauce of humor, to make things, not just memorable, but Unforgettable.


Project Log Entries

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Cartoons as Database

A while ago, I mentioned that, to manage production of multiple language versions of Unforgettable, I needed a more robust system for organizing the cartoons. They’re currently just in an Anki deck, which I still use for studying, so I was hoping to have it all by finding a robust database that would run on my phone, and that I could still use as my daily study tool.

Well, I never found that magical solution, and with the project preparing to kick into a higher gear now, I need to buckle down and find a way to manage the data and editorial workflows. So I’ve dropped the “phone-based” and “study tool” requirements, and suddenly the decision has become much easier.

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Molecular Vocabulary

Language is an extremely flexible tool. You can assemble words into messages that express an unlimited number of thoughts. Anything from “Where food?” to “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared.”

But in everyday speech, we don’t typically use words to communicate. We actually assemble most of our day to day utterances using larger chunks of language. What are those chunks? And why do I think they can be used to supercharge your language studies?

Let’s take a look…

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WordFreäk

In order to split the cartoons into beginner and intermediate volumes, I need a way to classify the relative difficulty of the keywords. How am I going to solve that?