Memorizing vocabulary often feels like a daunting task.
Most students typically approach it through rote memorization techniques they learned in school, which require a lot of repetition.
But think about it: in an ideal world, you would want to memorize a word with a “one-time exposure,” meaning that encountering and understanding a vocabulary word just once would be sufficient for it to stick in your memory.
Guess what? This method exists, and all of you have experienced it—not at school, but with your parents.
The Natural Way vs. The School Way
Notice how parents “teach” their children language.
They don’t introduce vocabulary lists, ask them to memorize them, and then test them the next day.
Instead, in a very intuitive way, they engage in “language-body conversations” with their children long before they start speaking.
For example, a parent might say:
- “Look at daddy,”
- “Come here,”
- “Go to mummy,” or
- “Give me the ball”
And the child responds with a physical action, demonstrating that they understand what they were told.
These interactions continue for months, allowing the child to absorb the language’s sounds and patterns, creating a mental map of the language.
Once the mental map is detailed enough, the child starts to speak.
The results are incredible.
We all learned our mother tongue this way and ended up speaking fluently, confidently, and accurately.
This stands in total contrast to the “school” way of learning:
- No memorizing
- No homework
- No intentional practice or drilling
Total Physical Response (TPR): Bridging the Gap
Total Physical Response (TPR) is a language learning method based on exactly this idea of using “language-body conversations” to reinforce learning, mirroring the way infants learn language from their parents.
It’s astonishing how quickly students acquire with TPR vocabulary, often in a “one-time exposure.”
See for yourself. In this video, students are taught Spanish starting from zero.
Watch the incredible results after just a few minutes.
Click here to watch the demonstration, then send me an email if you’ve ever heard of this method or if you’ve even done it as part of a language course for beginners.
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Whenever you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you take your German to the next level.
Talk to you soon. Bis bald.
Gruß
Manuel