Linkword

Linkword is a mnemonic system promoted by Michael Gruneberg since at least the early 1980s for learning languages based on the similarity of the sounds of words. The process involves creating an easily visualized scene that will link the words together. One example is the Russian word for cow (корова, pronounced roughly karova): think and visualize "I ran my car over a cow."

It has a long history of software versions in its native United Kingdom being available for the Sinclair, Acorn and BBC Micro computers as well as a variety of audio and book editions over the years.

Discussion of the method

Many teachers and students of language have used the same technique, and many examples have been used independently by many people (e.g., to remember that in Thai, khao means rice, imagine a cow eating rice).

One of the drawbacks of such methods is that it takes a lot of effort to create a scene for every new word. Linkword has the advantage of offering ready made scenes for each word, so hundreds of words can be memorized in a few hours. However, it offers only a basic vocabulary (e.g. 200 words for a survival course and around 1400 words for a 4-level course). Proponents of the method say that the effort to create a scene for a new word is less than or equal to the time required to memorize the word using other techniques (e.g. flashcards, SRS and repeatedly saying a word out loud).