French Words - Learning Words in Rocket French

Rocket French uses many advanced learning techniques to ensure that you learn French vocabulary as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Vocabulary underpins your mastery of any language. You can often communicate by just pointing and saying the right word. The Rocket French course helps you to learn French words in many ways. For example:

The Interactive Audio Course

Listen and repeat the specially structures phrases to be able to communicate in French almost immediately.

See the Learn to speak French page of the site for details.

The French language Grammar Lessons

Ensures that you have the basic structures of the French language mastered and use the audio tracks to make sure that your spoken French is accurate and understandable. there is even a Random Audio feature where a random word or phrase from the lesson will be played to check your knowledge.

See the French Lesson page of the site for details.

There are a set of games included in the course that can make learning French words easier and more fun:

The MegaVocab game

The first game included with the course is the MegaVocab game. This will help you learn French vocabulary. It has over 1,00 words in 20 topics that you can learn and test yourself with. You can even add you own words and pictures!

The MegaAudio game

This game helps you to recognise and understand spoken French words. This can be a big hurdle for most people. The software will help you develop your 'ear' for the language.

The MegaVerb game

Learning verbs can be a chore. This game will help you learn and test yourself once you reach an intermediate or advanced level.  This can be especially useful if you are learning French in another course at school or college and want to help yourself at exam time.

The MegaCards game

This game provides a set of printable flash cards for beginner and advanced levels of French. The flashcards can be printed and carried around for everyday practice or used to play games and test yourself at any time. Even the beginners set has 310 cards commonly used words and phrases.

Using Memory Techniques to Learn Words - the Link System

As well as all of these modern methods of learning French words there is a simple memory technique that was used by the Greeks and Romans that you can use to learn words very quickly.

The link word system works by linking the French word to the English word by using a exaggerated picture in your mind. For example if you wanted remember that the French for Yellow is Jaune the you would picture someone Yellow with Jaundice. Another example is remembering that Tablecloth is Nappe. You would image someone taking a Nap on a Tablecloth.

There are some rules that will help you build the images in your minds eye:

• Exaggerate the picture - make it huge, very small, silly or bizarre. The odder it is the easier to remember
• Imagine it moving
• Use your other senses, imagine the smell, taste or feel of it
• Put it in a location, so that you can think of that location and remember the word. For example the tablecloth might be in your dining room. So thinking about the tablecloth in your dining room will riemind you of the word Nappe.
• If you want to remember a word is masculine then imagine a something masculine in your picture as a clue. For example use  boxing-gloves or a moustache. For feminine words you could imagine perfume or a dress. It is best if you use the same 'clue' each time you memorise a word.
• You could also put different genders of words in different part of your town. If it is in your part of town it is masculine. If it is in the south of town it is feminine.
• If the word is the same in English and French then you should have a code or location for that too (the Eiffel Tower perhaps).

You will need to play with these ideas and practice to make them work for you. If you re interested in memory techniques then there are many sources of information on the Internet.