{{no footnotes, date=October 2023 Michael M

Linkword is a

mnemonic A mnemonic device ( ), memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember. It makes use of e ...

system promoted by Michael Gruneberg since at least the early 1980s for learning

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

s based on the similarity of the sounds of words. The process involves creating an easily

visual The visual system is the physiological basis of visual perception (the ability to detect and process light). The system detects, transduces and interprets information concerning light within the visible range to construct an image and buil ...

ized scene that will link the words together. One example is the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

word for

cow Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, bovid ungulates widely kept as livestock. They are prominent modern members of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Mature female cattle are called co ...

(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 The acorn is the nut (fruit), nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera ''Quercus'', ''Notholithocarpus'' and ''Lithocarpus'', in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a seedling surrounded by two cotyledons (seedling leaves), en ...

and

BBC Micro The BBC Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a family of microcomputers developed and manufactured by Acorn Computers in the early 1980s as part of the BBC's Computer Literacy Project. Launched in December 1981, it was showcased across severa ...

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 A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

(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,

Spaced repetition ''Spaced'' is a British television sitcom created, written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson, and directed by Edgar Wright, about the comedic, and sometimes surreal and action-packed, misadventures of Daisy Steiner and Tim Bis ...

, and repeatedly saying a word out loud). Another criticism of

techniques such as this is that they tend to assume a one-to-one relationship between the learner's first language and the target language. In reality, words often have a different range of meanings, and so the student must learn the complexity or nuance of the new words. For this reason, such techniques may be seen as a useful and powerful way to progress in the language, especially in the early stages, rather than giving a complete understanding. Critics also say that because the method relies on the coincidental similarities in the sounds of words, it cannot be used to teach all, or even most, words of another language as there may be no corresponding phonetically similar words or visualizations that could be used. In practice, however, there is usually a visualization that can be used, but for some words it is a less direct connection and not as effective. In these cases, there is more need for other learning methods to support the visualization, such as repetition and flashcards. The system is similar to a well-known trick of some stage mnemonists employed for memorizing huge lists of words suggested by spectators to repeat them in any given order, forwards, backwards, even ones, etc., known as

mnemonic peg system The mnemonic peg system, invented by Henry Herdson, is a memory aid that works by creating mental associations between two concrete objects in a one-to-one fashion that will later be applied to to-be-remembered information. Typically this involves ...

. A mnemonist has his own "counting list" of words. Each counting word is bound to the next spectator's word by means of a sentence, as described above. Some mnemonists claim the sillier the binding sentence, the easier it is to remember. While this method could be used to teach from any language to any language, it is currently used almost exclusively to teach English speaking people other languages. Many different companies offer systems based on this method, but the list of languages offered is almost identical. Learning courses have been developed to teach students Dutch, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, Portuguese (both Brazilian and European),

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

(both European and South American) and Welsh.

Discussion of the method

Further reading