单词巧记
今天看到了一篇值得英语学习者一读的文章---关于单词的记忆，
It is one thing to learn a new piece of information, such as a new phone number or a new word, but quite another to get your brain to file it away so it is available when you need it.
A new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience by researchers at the University of York and Harvard Medical School suggests that sleep may help to do both. The scientists found that sleep helps people to remember a newly learned word and incorporate new vocabulary into their "mental lexicon". During the study, researchers taught volunteers new words in the evening, followed by an immediate test. The volunteers slept overnight in the laboratory while their brain activity was recorded using an electroencephalogram. A test the following morning revealed that they could remember more words than they did immediately after learning them, and they could recognize them faster demonstrating that sleep had strengthened the new memories. This did not occur in a control group of volunteers who were trained in the morning and re-tested in the evening, with no sleep in between. An examination of the sleep volunteers' brainwaves showed that deep sleep (slow-wave sleep) rather than rapid eye movement (REM) sleep or light sleep helped in strengthening the new memories.
These results highlight the importance of sleep and the underlying brain processes for expanding vocabulary. Lead author Jak ke Tam minen, said: "New memories are only really useful if you can connect them to information you already know." he said their study identifies the brain activity during sleep that organizes new memories and makes those vital connections with existing knowledge.
其实，单词的积累是有些方法可遵循的，如：发音competition, emotion, addition, ambition, creation, relation等等这样的词，我们读一遍就会发现，这些名词都有着相同的词尾-tion，而且这个词尾都无一例外地发/ ∫n/，这就给我们一个提示，如果遇到一些名词是以/ ∫n/结尾的话，那么它的词尾很有可能就是-tion，这样的话，我们的记忆就从一个一个的字母上升到了一个字母组合，而产生这些字母组合的原因，就是因为相同的发音。再比如：import, export, report, support, port, resort,这一系列的单词中，字母组合-ort都出现了/ rt/这个发音，所以同样的，/ rt/这个发音组合很有可能就拼写为ort。这样的例子还有很多，比如：picture, structure, architecture, culture, furniture, puncture, 字母组合-ture就肯定是发音/ t∫er/等等。
巧识词根词缀
很多单词中，我们知道的单词加上特定的词根词缀来合成的，比如like，dislike；agree，disagree；我们不难看出，它是由原词加上一个否定前缀-dis来合成的，这样的单词算不上是生词，而只是衍生词。
中学里常见的词根词缀主要有以下一些：-dis，表示与原词反义；non-表示对原词的否定；un-也表示原词的反义；re-表示原词的动作或者意义的重复，比如locate-relocate（搬家），move-remove（删除），write-rewrite（重写），cite（引述）-recite（反复引述-背诵）；ex-，表示向外出去的，有时候也表示前任….，im-，表示向内进入的，比如export，就是进口的意思，出口则是import，或者表示前妻，ex-wife，前女友ex-girlfriend；-ology表示学科，比如geology, biology, sociology（社会学），psychology（心理学），meteorology（气象学），anthropology（人类学）等等。
不要花整块的时间记忆单词
我们需要记单词是的时间是这样的时间：茶余饭后10分钟，课间休息5分钟，午睡前面10分钟，洗漱以后10分钟，饭后散步10分钟，总之就是一句话，这些都是零碎的时间，而零碎的时间记忆单词效果反而会更好，因为此时你的大脑处于放松的状态。事实证明，神经紧绷，大脑处于高度紧张状态下的记忆效果是不理想的，所以我提倡大家利用散碎的时间记忆单词。
当然，时间散碎并不意味着记忆的内容散碎，我们还是要制定计划，比如每天记忆20个单词，这20个单词我分别利用今天的饭后散步和洗漱之后的时间搞定，睡前再重复一遍就可以，没有记住的单词没必要去拼命想，要知道重复的力量是可怕的，只要我们不断的重复，再难的单词我们也能记住；
一本单词书，如果你看得很仔细，只看到第10单元，那么效果一定不如虽然看得不太仔细，但是看了10遍甚至20遍的同学，原因很简单，重复出奇迹，任何事情都经不起重复，一旦重复的次数达到一定的数量级，就会产生质的飞跃。