Re: Help a newbie get started!

[Scott Brickner <sjb@UNIVERSE.DIGEX.NET>]

Chris Bogart writes:
>> I have decided to focus on learning the gismu at first.  Logflash is nice,
>> but I wanted to make some tapes and/or flashcards that I could use anytime I
>> wanted and not just when I am at my computer.  Does anyone have any advice on
>> how to make these learning aides?
>
>Go to a printer or copy shop where they make business cards, and buy a bunch
>of blank ones, or maybe you can even get printed ones that someone didn't
>pick up or that had an error on them??  Maybe you could write out 10 or 20
>cards at a time, study them, and keep adding to your stack of cards gradually
>as you study.

I might suggest learning the cmavo first, instead.  I found it much
easier to understand sentences quickly when the words I didn't know
were content words, rather than structure words.  I think the
phenomenon is similar in any language.  Note that "nonsense" texts like
"Jabberwocky" don't fool with the structure words, and one quickly gets
the sense of what the sentence means even though the content words
(brillig, slithy, etc.) are unknown.

Compare:
'Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe.

with:
Smar bright oog zva little flowers blee dance oog frolic bno zva field.